Okay, my car has been acting kinda strange for a week or two now (luckily nothing to do with melting tansmissions, if you read my other thread... ). Every time i've started it up, it's been having a really hard time starting if i don't give her a decent pedal pump at the same time i start her up. She'll actually make a gurgling sound as the engine picks up too. She'll then go up to 1500 like normal as everything warms up, but then when the engine drops back down to idle at 800 like it should, instead it decides to try and idle at closer to 500, and seems to be sort of struggling to turn over and isn't idling smoothly. However, she doesn't die, and still drives smoothly when in gear and moving.

I have also noticed a rather large loss in torque and overall power, especially over 2500 rpm. It seems to take an eternity to get up to freeway speed now. I have also noticed a rather large drop in milage, went from 320+ miles on a tank of freeway driving to under 250 in one go.

Anybody have any thoughts about this? I may try to tinker with the idle tomorrow, but i don't think that that's the issue...

On a further note, she's also smoking a lot more on start than she used to, but the smoke goes away almost instantly... don't know if that's relevant or not...

 

Sounds like carbon buildup to me? Sea foam that baby! Its a cheap first try, and if it doesn't work you can look elsewhere.

 

I'd start by making sure you have spark to all 4 plugs.

 

Does he exhaust smell overly rich? Injectors may be leaking. Also check the exhaust for blockage. But do check plug fire first.

 

Thanks I'll definitely check those things out.

 

Okay, checked injectors and plugs, they all seemed to be fine, except the trailing plugs seemed to have a lot more crud on em than the leading ones (is that normal?) but they all seemed to be firing.

The engine seemed to rev up a little better, but we'll see how it is tomorrow when i actually have to drive it.

I also threw a can of seafoam into the tank, so we'll see if that helps any.

One thing i forgot to mention earlier, that is more apparent now is the fact that the engine is running a little bit warmer than it used to (just a smidge) and it has a little hiccup every 5 seconds or so when it is idling, not when accelerating/revving up, and it is a little more apparent when it drops from higher rpm.

After everything i just did, I also noticed that is actually runs pretty smoothly at 1500rpm or higher, but once it dips below that it gets that little hiccup, but now seems to be holding 800 rpm a little better and not dipping to 500 as much... not quite sure why...

If i find my camera, i'll post a video.

 

Normally this can be attributed to a failing leading coil or ignitor that is firing randomly.

 

Hey doc,

I'm have the hic-cup problem too. Can you explain a little more how the ignitor can be causing this?

Mike

 

Good luck with that issue. I had a similar issue and it turned out to be a bad water seal. Water was getting into the chamber. It eventually got worse. Can you smell any Anti Freeze in your exhaust? Or have you noticed any loss in Anti Freeze fluid?

That Sea Foam stuff is supposed to go in your Gas tank?

 

Is there any particular test i can do myself short of replacing the coil to see if this is the case?

You can just dump it in your tank, your air intake, vacuum lines, i've heard of all sorts of places you can put it, i just follow the directions on the can.

 

When it starts to act up then attach a timing light to the wires and see if it is firing or not.

 

Mike,

Ignitor could be overheating and causing loss of signal or the connector could be loose.

Also to both that are having issues.

Could be one of the fusible links for the injection system is failing or loose and you are losing a signal to one of the injectors. Also it is very common for the connectors at the injectors to become brittle and then lose a ground to that injector causing it to either not fire or randomly fire.

You can check this at the ECU by doing the pin test that is listed in the FSM when the issue is occurring.

takhay,

You could also have a compression issue. I would recommend a compression test.

 

I HAVE THE SOLUTION!!!

Alright, the electrical system was the place to be. It turned out that my leading ignitor needed to be replaced and I was (at least this morning) pretty much only running off my trailing ignitor, thus accounting for the power loss, rough idle, and whatnot. I just replaced it and *poof* all was well again.

Before i really only checked the coils, not the ignitors themselves, and the ignitor probably hadn't actually failed completely and was going through death throes since it worked the other day, and i noticed that while driving, i would get little spurts of power every here and there.

The way I checked if the ignitors were bad was by unplugging them one at a time at the distributor, and lucky for me, when i unplugged the trailing one, the engine died without even a sputter.

Thanks a lot for all of your guys' help!