How To Do A Cylinder Balance Test (2.7L V6 Chrysler And Dodge Vehicles)

I Found The Dead Cylinder, What Next?

Identifying the 'dead' cylinder(s) is only part of the battle when diagnosing a misfire or a rough engine idle problem.

The important thing to know is that a cylinder misfires (becomes 'dead') when:

1. The cylinder is not getting spark. Most likely causes are:
   • Bad ignition coil.
   • Bad spark plug plug.
2. The cylinder is not getting fuel. Most likely causes are:
   • Bad fuel injector.
   • Clogged fuel injector.
3. The cylinder has low engine compression. Most likely causes are:
   • Worn piston compression rings.
   • Damaged or severely worn cylinder head valves.
   • You can find the engine compression test explained here: How To Test Engine Compression (2.7L V6 Chrysler).

Finding the exact component that's causing the cylinder to misfire is not hard. It does require doing some basic tests but the good news is that these are tests that the DIY'er can do with inexpensive testing tools. Tools like a spark tester, compression tester, etc.

Here are my testing suggestion so that you can find out the exact cause of the 'dead' cylinder's misfire:

• Make sure that the 'dead' cylinder is getting spark by testing its ignition coil for spark and making sure that its spark plug isn't damaged in any way.
• Make sure that the 'dead' cylinder is getting fuel by testing its fuel injector. This usually involves testing the fuel injector's internal coil winding's resistance to see if it's suffered a short-circuit or an open-circuit problem.
• Make sure that the 'dead' cylinder has good compression by testing engine compression.

I've written the following tutorials to further help you:

Fuel injector tests:

• How To Test The Fuel Injectors (1998-1999 2.7L V6 Chrysler).
• How To Test The Fuel Injectors (2001-2003 2.7L Dodge Stratus).

Engine compression test:

• How To Test Engine Compression (2.7L V6 Chrysler).

Real life case stories on how to solve a misfire problem:

• Carbon Tracks Are A Common Cause Of Ignition Misfires.
• Troubleshooting A Hard To Diagnose Misfire Case Study (GM 3.1L, 3.4L) (at: troubleshootmyvehicle.com).
• Diagnosing A Toyota Corolla Misfire Case Study (Toyota 1.8L) (at: troubleshootmyvehicle.com).

These tests are not hard and you can find most of them explained in a tutorial here in this website in a step-by-step way.

More 2.7L V6 Chrysler And Dodge Tutorials

If this tutorial was helpful, you can find a complete list of 2.7L Dodge tutorials in this index:

• Chrysler 2.7L Index Of Articles.

Here's a small sample of the tutorials you'll find in the index:

• How To Test The Blower Motor (2001-2006 Dodge Stratus).
• How To Test The Throttle Position Sensor (2.7L V6 Chrysler).
• How To Test The MAP Sensor (2000-2004 2.7L Chrysler).
• How To Test Engine Compression (2.7L V6 Chrysler).