I have a 97 LX 4 cylinder that has been running very poorly. CEL says it's a missfire on cylinder 2. Change plugs, air filter and fuel filter. Checked plug wires and they ohm in the 10k range. It cleared up for a few days and now worse than ever. Now the tempature gauge goes into hot range when accelerating. Spark plug color does not indicate lean nor rich. The car is barely running now. Any ideas?

 

Your description suggests a leaking head gasket. This will cause engine miss on the affected cylinder. If you're losing coolant, or coolant reservoir is boiling over head gasket is highly likely. Smell the coolant reservoir. If you smell a gasoline smell, head gasket is all but certain. There is a chemical test to check for exhaust gas in the coolant. Also look for white, steam vapor from exhaust as an indicator of head gasket leak.

I had similar symptoms, but miss would clear up after a few minutes of running and not return until stopped again.

Overheating is a frequent cause of head gasket failure, but may not always be the cause.

good luck

 

You may also want to test the compression on the cylinders.

You may want to check/replace the distributor cap and rotor. That wouldn't explain the overheating though.