I have a 1997 sr5 and seem to have a dead cylinder. After investigating by pulling some plug wires I've found that its cylinder 6. I swapped the plugs in 2 and 6 and the problem was still in cylinder 6. The #6 plug wire has a strong arc against the spark plug tube when I removed it while the engine was running so I wouldn't imagine it's the boot or coil pack. My next guess would be a fuel injector. I've never encountered a bad one, however I feel that's a possibility. The engine has a miss on #6 at/close to idle, but from about 1500 rpms and up it runs perfectly smooth. Has anyone encountered a similar problem or does anyone have any suggestions of something I'm missing? Any information would be helpful.

Thanks,

With a cylinder misfiring, you should check compression before you buy any parts.
You say you swapped plugs. did you swap coil packs as well?

It's cylinder 6, I'm gonna check the cmpression when I get home from work and no I didn't swap coil packs. I'll check that also.

be sure to swap the matching wires with the packs just to keep it simple. if the misfire doesn't move with the pack and you have good compression; you can try replacing/moving the injector. just be sure to relieve the fuel pressure properly before you pop the rails.

Problem solved. I did a little more investigating in the daylight this evening. I found that the number 4 spark plug was the issue. The problem was intermittent and the best I could tell it was cylinder 6, however it was actually cylinder 4. The crush washer on the spark plug was jammed on the threads of the plug about 3 threads from the seat. I've had those plugs in there for around 2 years and it has ran perfect. I guess it finally gave in and burnt the plug up. The blow by from the cylinder was obvious on the plug. Went ahead and put a new set of plugs and wires on it anyway, the wires were getting pretty ratty and the boots were beginning to crack.

Thanks for the advice, I appreciate the info.