loosing power, intermittent stalling

[funky technician]

hay guys, I posted this before but the snag was in its infancy, the car started by occasionaly loping to a low idle and loosing the weakest compression cylinder. well the problem has gradually intensified over the last 2 months and now the car runs almost always on 3 cylinders, and I have to put it in nutral at a stop or it will stall, the strange thing is the problem gets better after a lil highway driving, the engine will run normal for a while after the highway, and seems fine on the highway, but is still weaker then it should be, and once I start driving in town again, it will start to become problematic again. Does this sound like a fuel filter to you guys? thats the only thing I feel like replacing right now, the engine has to last another 2 months, then she gets her new P@P b6 :lol: ......but it needs to last for a lil longer for now :lol:

[mooseheadc]

Re: loosing power, intermittent stalling

hay guys, I posted this before but the snag was in its infancy, the car started by occasionaly loping to a low idle and loosing the weakest compression cylinder.

does that plug on that cyl foul up, and if it does, is it wet/oily or dry sooty?

[funky technician]

thats the thing, all the plugs look good, nice tan look, also when the car stalls out, I need to put the gas to the floor to get it going again. the thing that sucks is that sometimes it runs better then others, and it dosn't seem to be affected by anything other then its mood that day, (it must be female :lol: )

[warlocke]

lol, you dumped any fuel treatment or done a seafoam treatment or anything?

[funky technician]

ya, I've been putting the treatment to her, doesn't seem to do anything :cry:

[Bowls]

i been having a similar problem, but this car has been dealing with it for the better part of 3 years.
It misses when its idling in one cylinder, and the mechanics told the previous owner that it was compression problems. the car has been running the same way since i bought it, no downhill slope in the engine sound or performance that i can tell.
it has a low idle, and begins to lose electrical power at idle, especially if u were already giving it gas, and then went into an idle.

a fuel filter COULD be your problem, but i don't think it would be limited to just the one cylinder. More likely a fuel injector i would say. but that wouldn't account for the rest of the engine stalling when you don't put it in neutral.. could be both maybe?

Remove the sparkplug off the weak cylinder, clean all the crud off it and maybe you can get the cylinder firing again for the mean time. better than wasting gas.

[funky technician]

thats whats weird actually, the plug on the weak cylinder looks just like the rest, a nice tan colour, but I was thinking that if the filter was starting to clog, then the reduced fuel pressure would begin to affect the weakest cylinder first, and thats why it cuts out first, it just seems odd that it comes and goes like it does, and its weird how the highway cleans it up a bit for a while, and starting and stopping instigates the problem, also the fact that its hard to restart after it stalls is odd, anyhow, thanks for the input guys because i'm getting frustrated with it, the last thing I need is to have to take out my other car early because I pre-paid my insurence with specific dates, so I will owe them money if I insure my summer car early

[mooseheadc]

thats whats weird actually, the plug on the weak cylinder looks just like the rest, a nice tan colour, but I was thinking that if the filter was starting to clog, then the reduced fuel pressure would begin to affect the weakest cylinder first, and thats why it cuts out first, it

Tan means most of the time you have proper A/F ratio and spark to
ignite it.

Injector going lean would show as glazed plug, not tan, and you'd prob
hear pinging. Now an Injector dropping out 100% might do your condition.
Might try swapping injector around, see if trouble moves, or if your
ECU had a flaky driver , but that should show the engine light.

[funky technician]

I'm also leaning toward a sensor problem, not reading properly and mixing wrong, maybe due to the b6 head and amplified by the wearing engine, but I hope not, its driveability is degrading at a rate faster then the time thats left to drive it

[rotinaj13]

It does sound like you dropped a cylinder. It sounds like one is misfiring or not firing. my other car (daewoo) was good at dropping #4 until I found out the wires boot was cracked and was arching against the head. I do not think it is a sensor. it sounds like a cylinder is lossing power. when you have 3 out of 4 it is going to run like crap!!

[Bowls]

don't drive it than, your only going to keep doing more harm. Halifax still got the bus system right?

[funky technician]

screw the bus, this motor is literaly going out in the garbage in 2 months and my new ones going in, I don't really care what happens to this one, I'm pritty confident it will at least last till then, I actually just came in from tightning the throttle cable a lil, that seems to be working fine now just with a bit higher idle, she'll make er :lol:

[packrat427]

So did you ever pull the rail off and look into the feed end of the injector's to see if it was restricted by sediment , or something ??

[funky technician]

no, i haven't touched anything actually, I've needed the car too often, and like I said, cracking the throttle plate a lil more is helping with the idle, so I'm not too worried any more, I've been devoting my efforts to my new motor so I can hopefully swap it in right as the car comes off the road for the summer, then that will give me time to work on some other problems the car has like the e-brake and the park/neutral brake switch connector for the auto tranny which has been accting up a bit ( I think the plug is just dirty, couldn't start it twice this winter and had to go screw with the plug), also the exhaust is falling apart and the heat doesn't work.........theres more but its depressing to think about the amount of work :? ....... :lol: