New here. Trying to get my 94 Loyale up and running again. It is firing on only 3 cylinders and my mechanic has run through most everything now thinking it is the distributor. Just wondering how common a bad distributor is on these and if that doesn't fix it andybody got any other ideas? Much appreciated.

If it is spfi it could be a bad plug wire, spark plug, cap,  stuck valve or valves not seating. If mpfi it could be any of those things plus a bad injector or bad connection to a injector.

Did a full tune up. And I think mechanic ruled those all out (spfi). If distributor doesnt change things. Could it come down to the coil? I think he said when he turned the distributor the cylinder not firing changed from the #1 to a different one. Which is why the distributor is the next step. And Thanks

Wouldn't that just change the firing order if he turns it far enough? So it could still be the cap not making good contact to the rotor on 1 of the 4 contacts or a bad wire even straight out of the box. If the coil was bad you wouldn't get spark to any cylinder or weak spark to all. If it was running on 2 i would say replace the ignition module but on 3 it 's probably a wire or cap.

Edited May 7, 201411 yr by turbosubarubrat

True. Wires shoulda been changed with tune up. And if distributor is swapped thatll include cap and everything right? So even with good wires when its turned the bad connection from the cap would still turn up. Ill find out tomorrow mornging if the new distributor works or not. Think it was like 50$ piece, why not? It is a remanufactured engine with only 10k on it or so. And from what we know it was running only three cylinders the whole time after I got the new engine, ran fine seemingly after coming off of a 200k original tired motor even without one cylinder firing. So just hoping to have it back running better than ever with all four gerbils kicking under the hood. Its a clean little loyale with "new engine" and hoping to lift her up and make her look and run good on and off road. 2'' lift plus tires and shocks if  the engine wants to comply!