Lumpy, bad running, misfire, help needed badly.
To get the sob story out of the way, I need this car running by Monday to go to work!
Anyway, car ran ok before putting on a service kit yesterday. It had one issue of usually taking a while to fire up when turning over, typically worse when cold but always there. There were a few times it started immediately but only when warmed up and run in.
The old oil was very very low, about 1.5 litres came out. Since the new oil went in the check engine light has stayed on permanently.
The engine runs like god awful crap now. It can barely idle, but never stalls (I still have to try hard to stall it like a normal running engine). It thumps and rattles the car, but not 100% of the time. Thinking it was misfiring because of the bad coil packs these cars have I replaced the HT leads and the pack, which almost cleared it up over 2,500 revs. It still misses on acceleration though. Low revs is awful. I often hear a pop/fffff sound when increasing speed say from a roundabout where the revs get below 1000, and you can feel the lumps and thumps whenever there is something I'll call positive pressure on the pedal. Lift off runs quite smoothly, revs drop to 1100 for a moment but then when at idle it gets lumpy again (where the ecu will do its own positive pressure on the pedal). When the old spark plugs came out number 3 had oil on the thread, as did number 4 to some degree. The new ones look the same but simply new of course. After some running I can see wet deposits on top of piston three but more on piston four. Still getting oil on those plugs.
Ideas? I'm starting to think valve stem seals for the oil in the cylinder, possibly the rocker gasket. I'm hoping to god it's not some bent metal! Help!