Ok

Told my friend to pick me up at the airport with MY car (VE5).

I would pay him back for the gas he puts in it (it was on E when I left )

Picks me up. OMG I was so happy to see / drive my car. He started to tell me that it was acting funny. I said, "its probably nothing" since I know what my car acts/feels like. Well... it is acting funny.

I accelerated (well tried) but it sputtered, or hesitated but kept accelerating. That was in 1st and 2nd gear pulls. Once I felt it hesitate, I let off and shifted. The sputtering started at about 2 1/2 RPM in all gears. Also at a certain throttle position. (More than half way I believe) Another thing is, Im getting intake backfiring and Rough Idle bouncing from 500 to 750 RPM

*** IAVC is clean for sure!!! ***

I asked "you did put 93 in it riiight?" he said "yes" he knows to do that, because I brag about it to him

Arriving home after ACTUALLY doing the speed limit Checked the 3 front coils and searched for any vacuum leaks, liquid leaks of any kind and so forth. Noticed my coolant was really low.

After that, dropping my girlfriend off going back home I tested some more. This time it didnt happen until 4000 RPM. More intake back firing and sputtering.

It didnt run for 4 days parked on an incline.

Maybe the VTC is sticking?... (Oil was drained off of it) effecting the timing causing the intake backfire?
That is my best guess... or Bas gas from Sunoco

Please give me some ideas

Thanks for reading

 

My car does that exact same thing, well close...

I just assumed it was an injector, symptoms kind of point to it. Also, If I shut my car off, then start it back up, it goes away. You may want to check resistance of the Injectors when the car is acting up.

 

this may be totally unrelated, but when it rains outside, or has been raining alot, when i push the gas to about halfway, it will sputter and not really accellerate at all, as if the MAF were shot or something.....i always associated it with my air filter, or at least too much moisture in the air.

dirty fuel filter? injectors? bad fuel? water in the fuel? not enough air (clogged filter).....

what I would try if symptoms were pointing to fuel would be to try some injector cleaner and maybe even fuel stabilizer....and check my filters of course.....

 

fuel filter is new, ill change the air filter today, i dont think i need fuel injecter cleaner... i mean if the fuel was bad... it would be acting up the WHOLE time wouldnt it? thought about bad fuel.... but since my car was on E when my friend drove it. That means it would be using the fuel right as he restarted it and back on the highway. It didnt start doing this crap until he was at the first toll on SR 528 about 40 miles. Imma look at the spark plugs today since its day time now

So happy to see my car... and this is how she treats me

 

I seriously doubt the air filter would cause sputtering and backfiring only part of the time. 3rd gens are very touchy with their injectors, and HATE ethanol (Could your friend possibly have put ethanol gas in it?) Also, I was told not to use injector cleaner on a 3rd gen for possibly gunking them up even more then they are.

But. It doesn't sound like yours are dirty, it just sounds like the electrical impedance isn't getting to the injector some of the time, and other times it is (kind of like me).

I still think it would work best if you waited until the car was running like crap, then test the Ohms and replace the injector with the resistance that doesn't match the rest. IIRC It should be somewhere around 10-14Ohms.

Just my .02

 

If your problem is only under load,then i would suspect a bad coilpack somewhere,i've had all my fronts go bad at one time or another,and they all were fine at idle,but missed under load.

I've noticed with a bad injector,that i really doesn't matter if it's under load on not,they just miss.

 

I did get new coil packs.... (ones that arent cracked )
and they were fine.... for 2 weeks? 3? I have an extra set... ill try and replace those.... except my extra set include my cracked ones

 

Well..... uhhh... went out for a test drive to see if its still there...

its not, the problem is totally gone now


WHAT THA FAWK!!!!
MAF, or coil packs

whats going on here. Im mad because I didnt get to fix anything or trouble shoot anything.... just posted crap on the thread and now its all better. Im actually mad....but happy the problem isnt there anymore

thanks for the replies...now to tackle the power steering leak

 

So if it is an injector you'll definitely feel it at idle?

 

I did in my case.

 

Upon further review. The problem still prevails

I believe it has to do with heat somehow. Driving today getting my new air filter; got on it a little and it started sputtering and lots of intake back fire.



-MAF
-Coil Packs
what...the **** is it?....

 

Check for loose/corroded connections at the various sensor/injector/coilpack/connections.

and i mean REALLY OPEN YOUR EYES and look carefully..

 

if loose connections would be the problem. how would it be affected by heat?

I really dont want to put my cracked coil packs back on. Cant do crap now because I have to go to freakin work

 

I have the exact same problem and have spent a total of 1300 trying to fix it over the last 6 months. Im starting to lose hope because it has started again. I even smell gas after exiting the car. Should i still be driving it or should I search for help again?

 

Dunno dude,it's just a standard thing that i do before i start throwing parts at it trying to fix the issue,it(checking for loose/corroded connections first) has saved me much monies in the past..

 

VG engine or VE?

 

Most connections are made up of a combination of a male and female spade terminal - metal expands and contracts with temperature - all connections rely on metal contact caused by different sized (small but there) terminals - bad/corroded connections changes the size of either or both of the connectors ........................... you can see if the size change enough the integrity of the connection is compromised

 

what are some things that would cause intake back firing though?

 

Loose/bad connections?........................

 

xx-Marshall-xx

Is the coolent / water still going down needing top up ?

I would check the following:-

Run the motor when / from cold with the raditor cap removed and watch for air bubbles. If you see some then get someone to hit the gas pedal and see if more are present if so: A positive result would mean head gasket or less likely cracked head. In which case your friend was driving the car rather hard I would say and if not well you just completed another test without cost !

 

whats your knock sensor situation? bypassed? my ve has it bypassed.
easy thing to hook up and try at least
wheres your timing at?

 

Backfires are usually a symptom of timing being off.
I would check the cam sensor as well as the other aforementioned items.

 

coolant is low... and Ill have to do that test when I have time off.... 2 jobs is a lot of work

my KS is new, under 5k miles, I installed it myself
my timing is advanced at 20* and always using 93 oct fuel


well I was looking under the car to check out the PS leak, and I found engine oil.... Im led to believe its leaking from the oil pan and is dripping onto the drive pulley

oil making the belt slip thus retarding my timing compared to my A/F ratio and intake backfire occurs

sound good?.... because I REALLY REALLY want to stay away from what RedSector said

 

Umm...no..

Accessory belts have nothing to do with ignition timing..

Sounds like you need to stop modding and start some basic maintinance..

 

wait what? a belt affecting your spark timing? Ummm... i have a VG but even so, your coilpacks should be timed off a crank/cam position sensor, right?

i had my PS belt slip yesterday when pulling out from a stop from behind a stopped city bus, 80% throttle, turned the wheel back right to straighten out and it overloaded the belt and temporarily lost power assist but... that was an accessory, not a main engine function

edit: wayne beat me to it..

 

This sounds more like a failing power steering pump..

 

odd.. i just replaced those washers today so my leak should hopefully be gone.. but i replaced them after that happened. That was actually on my way.. where was I going.. OH, from one camps to the other. Meaning it was at about 2pm. I replaced my washers closer to 8pm. The belts have slipped before from the coolant that was leaked onto them from when my cousin split my coolant hose trying to take it off when putting on a new thermostat. It split more over the coming week and eventually i was losing coolant pretty badly. Plus my belts were squealing like mad, and the steering wheel would lose assist and hang up until the belt stopped slipping. That's why I figured i slipped my belt again when I tried to turn the steering wheel as fast as my hands could turn it at near-WOT. I'll start a new thread if you want for this.

 

now that you mention it... i do hear a whining sound that is proportional to the RPM... so you may very well be right.

 

i get some of those simptoms first of all i had my car sputter for a while hardcore engine shaking and blah turned out my cat was plugged. while after i fixed that i got a nother problen with an exast leak. anyways it still sputters on a cold engine start the first 10 feet of acceleration under 1500 rpm it will sputter if i dont go over 1500 rpm it will keep sputtering it stop's after i go over 1500 rpm and will act normaly from there weird :S

 

congrats you have a bad injector or 2 or 3...

 

me or dark light



well guys I was thinking because of my dumba$$ idea... I wasnt thinking it all the way through...sounded right in my head
what if the gas is bad... and it wasnt TRUE 93 octane and my KS was retarding the ignition at higher temp readings and RPM

 

Darklight is to whom I was reefering

 

Are you losing coolant or not? Did your friend really use 93 octane? Guess you should try some new gas, see what that does.

 

For the original poster, if it's backfiring, I'm inclined to suspect ignition. If it's fuel, I'd expect it to stumble but not backfire unless it's dumping too much fuel into the mix (but you'd then see black smoke out of the exhaust).

 

its happening again