disconcerting sounds

[explosivpotato]

Earlier today, I started up my Protege, and it ran very rough. Not to mention the whole car was vibrating. I checked under the hood and found that the engine block was doing an oh so disturbing dance..... after I drove down the alley a little ways, this all stopped. I went down to my mechanic, and they said that it was probably one of the cylenders not firing, most likely because of a stopped up injector, and that going down the alley and giving it a little gas cleared it out. After I got home tonight, I was just about to shut off the ignition, when i noticed a strange sound. It seemed to be like a very faint backfire when the engine was running above idle and then dropped back down to idle. I also noticed a very disturbing clicking noise coming from just one side of the valve train, most likely I think a valve tappet or spring wiggling around. I am still however at a loss for the gurgly/backfirey sound i get when the engine is decelerating and for what my fuel injectors are doing... any ideas?
thanx in advance.

[BurntRubber87]

You didn't mess with the plug wires, did you? I had two of the wires mixed up on my '94 bonneville one time..the motor only had 60,000 miles on it and it backfired like a racecar. I brought it to the garage and they switched the wires, I felt like an idiot..but if its not the wires then check to see if your plug is sparking at every cylinder.., maybe you're throwing a code?

[spray004]

Check for a vac leak. Pop the hood and listen for any hissing noises. There could be tons of different reasons. Unless the check engine light is on, it'll be hard to pin point your problem easily unless you just take it to a mechanic.

[explosivpotato]

no, i havent messed with any of the wires, and I recently performed a vac test in autoshop, it showed up as 18 in.hg and steady, but this was a few weeks ago. I should probably try it again.