Lacking Serious Power

[Halon]

OK well this car had this problem awhile back, but it went away for awhile. Now it's back and I'd really like to get it fixed before I come home. Basically when I give it a good amount of gas, it just has no power. If I boost over like 5 psi in 1st and 2nd, it just feels like a total slug. Geo Metros could beat me in a race as of right now. If I stay under 5, then it pulls like it normally would at that throttle level. But give her a lil more and she all a sudden just feels like there is a total loss of power. In 3rd through 5th, it'll do the same but not until like over 10psi. Under 10 and she'll feel normal. I just got done building a lil boost leak tester like VFAQ shows where u attach it to the inlet of your turbo. I've never done a boost leak test but hopefully tomorrow I'll be doing that test to see if there's a leak anywhere. BUT, I mean if I punch it, it'll still spool up to like 15 or whatever, so that's what's kinda strange in my mind. I've been looking up old threads on tuners, and read one about a guy who seemed to have very similar problems to me and it was a bad fuel filter that was the culprit on his car. I'm thinkin I'll put a new one of those in cuz a new fuel filter couldn't hurt even if it's not the culprit. Anyone have suggestions on a decent brand fuel filter? Also if you have suggestions on the best way to do the boost leak test since i've never done one, please let me know. Or if anyone has any comments on what else might bemy problem then please share your thoughts.

Also should i have open the throttle plate while doing this too or keep it closed? I'm guessin open it so that way u can see if your intake mani is leakin, but just thought i'd ask

[TheBlizzard]

What are your mods? Sounds like a boost leak to me, either that or your car is knocking really bad and it is pulling tons of timing.

CRAIG

[Halon]

mods are filter, MBC, 1g crushed BOV, UIC pipe, 2.5" TB elbow, Accel wires, arp headstuds, boost and egt gauges, emissions removed, and i think that's about it. Even if my car was pulling as much timing as it could, I don't see it making it this slow. It's hard to explain what it feels like. It feels like all a sudden if it boosts over those limits i said earlier, the engine will just start like missing and then catching on and off sorta. ALSO, like let say im at part throttle holding it at about 10 psi in 3rd. All a sudden when it starts sorta missing, the boost will raise up. Man it's early and I'm prolly making no sense. Maybe I'll put my new lil digital camera to use and make a quick lil video and that might help a little.

[CVD]

My previous motor was completely shot so I decided to stop changing the oil on it since it was burning it so fast. This was a mistake, the filter was filthy and so was the oil just as soon as I added it. This made unbelievable amounts of lifter tick and pulled the timing way back. Believe me, I couldnt keep up with traffic at WOT when this happened. Think about the last time you changed the oil. If its been a while, maybe dump half a can of seafoam in the motor, drive a couple blocks, and change the oil.

[Halon]

The oil has been changed quit a bit since I've gotten it due to me working on the engine and losing oil and having to replenish the oil with new stuff. I'll go ahead and put a new filter on but I'm pretty sure this filter only has maybe 1000 miles on it. But its only like 3 bux or so for a new one so I'll throw a new one on. Also where can I get the seafoam stuff and what exactly is it called? I could give it a try, im open to do anything pretty much

[glempo]

Ill just put this out there cuz it sounds like a problem i had with my Grand Marquis. I know its not even close to the same car but the symptoms sound the same. I would check the MAS, im pretty sure your car would have one(i dont know a whole lot about dsms yet). But that was the problem on my grandmarquis. It was tellin my engine to use less gas than it needed or something. Didnt really get into details cuz its a ford and i dont really care!

[jd1828]

do you have a logger to make sure its not knocking? my car does something similar to yours. sometimes during normal driving it will pick up 43 knock counts. when it happens the timing get pulled to nothing and the engine looses almost all power. when this happens the boost almost instantly goes up to 10psi because of the low timing.

[Halon]

i don't have a logger. After work today I'm going to go get me some of that Seafoam stuff or whatever it was, drive around to the parts store and get a new fuel filter, install that, clean out my injectors, and put my new throttle body on. After all that is done, if it still doesn't work, i will try and throw my buddies MAS on my car and see if that helps any. I'm not 100% sure his is totally great because his car isn't running perfect at the moment either, but I think its his turbo, but we aren't sure yet. Is there a way I can test the MAS? Also if I still have time left, I'll see if I can get my hands on a timing light and check my timing that way. Maybe my CAS is off or sumthin I dunno.

[Halon]

ok well all i was able to get done today was putting on my new throttle body. And now my idle surge is finally gone, i have a normal idling car. And my absense of power is now... absent. Feels like a million bucks. I'm wondering though, that could mean that it was leaking at the Throttle body before. But something i was wondering was, let's say it was the timing being pulled that was the problem. Could me unhooking the battery for like an hour today have possibly reset something in the computer so right now it's running great because it has been reset and hasn't been driven enough for the computer to realise somethings wrong and so it's not pulling timing yet, but could later on? I hope that made sense to someone out there, I'm not the best at wording things always. Anyways, I'm still putting in the new fuel filter tomorrow because it can't hurt, and prolly going to clean out the injectors a bit. Thanx for the help everyone. But my buddies laser is having issues so look out for the thread on that!

[rhino]

anyone know what the dsm's use for a throttle position sensor? a n/a car with a dead spot in the tps feels just like a turboed car that has a boost leak. just an idea to consider.