Hi all,

I was driving around doing some errands today, and kept noticing that my engine just felt weak. It also was harder to start than normal (like the battery wasn't fully charged).

However, the more I drove it, the worse it got. I had to floor it to get up to speed, and when I was pulling out onto the interstate, I noticed that once I got over 2500-ish, RPMs, I had FULL power loss. O2 peaked lean, and it felt like the engine was just spinning without doing anything.

Shifting the RPMs back down and cruised the rest of the way home.


Things I noticed. My AFR seemed normal. Was still 15.0 or so at cruise, 12.5 on accel. 11 on full accel.
Also, my cruising vacuum was the same as normal. Around 13 or so.

Any thoughts? I haven't had a chance to look into it more, but when I popped the hood, everything looked completely normal.

I'll let you know if I find anything, but was curious on your guys' thoughts.

 

Every once in a while my distributer loosens itself on my 89. I always think the starter is going bad until it won't pull in 5th gear.

 

AbandonedBronco,

Was there any pinging or knocking? If the timing is advanced [dustybumpers mentioned possible distributor movement], it would explain the labored starting.

You mentioned "O2 peaked lean" - carburetion?

 

Well! -5° advance certainly wasn't doing it any favors!
I'm curious how that happened since the hold down nut was tight and I couldn't make the distributor turn without loosening it (that and I'm pretty sure I didn't set it to that).

Either way, easy enough fix!


As for the lean spike, my guess is that was from a change of vacuum in the engine or something. Maybe it stopped pulling fuel for a sec. Dunno.

 

Not sure either, but that's exactly what the 89 does! The 86, nor the 95 have EVER done this

I guess they just like attention once in a while!

 

It's never done it before. However, I put a new distributor in it a few months ago. Maybe I need to take it back. Doesn't seem like a quality trait!