Someone please help........

[TURBOTIMMER]

Ok, here goes. My daily driver is giving me problems. I drive the car back and forth to work about 40 miles round trip every day. When I drive to work in the morning, it runs fine. It doesn't even give me any problems if I drive around town during the day. Then I jump back on the highway and everything seems fine until I get about 2 miles from my exit. Then it starts to miss and backfire. If I get into the boost while this is happening, it starts detonating immediately. I have my fuel pressure gauge stuck underneath the wiper, but I don't see any fluctuation in pressure while this is happening. Then when I get off the highway, everything is back to normal, and it runs fine for the last 10 minutes before I get home.
The other thing is, it takes about 2-3 days for this to happen if I leave the car sit over the weekend.

This is what's new with the car as of last year:

XP pump
Casper's hotwire kit
Accufab adjustable fpr
009s (purchased from someone on this board about 2 months ago)
Fram fuel filter

The odometer just turned 166,000 miles yesterday, and except for this, the car runs excellent. Someone please let me know what could be my problem. I want to be able to take it to Norwalk next month.

 

[TURBOTIMMER]

I'm not sure if this would have anything to do with it, but it also seems to crank over really fast after I park it for a couple of minutes, like the battery is overcharging.

 

[Gamblin]

160M miles, sounds like weak valve springs. Have they ever been replaced? Rich

 

[bandwidthpolice]

What chip do you use? I don't think a Thrasher is available for 009s but if it were and had a stutter feature, a VSS signal of "0" could possibly cause this. I wonder if you were to unplug the VSS if it would miss and detonate all the time. Just a thought since it seems to happen on the highway and when the car is in OD I am assuming.

 

[TURBOTIMMER]

Thanks for the replies, guys. Rich, to answer your question, no, the valve springs have never been changed as far as I know. I have a new set, but never got around to doing the swap since the car still pulls hard on the top end.

Bandwidthpolice, I put my scan tool on it, and it doesn't show anything out of the ordinary with the speed sensor. In fact, it doesn't read anything out of the ordinary at all.

It does seem that the more I drive it, the more frequent it happens. But again, this only happens on the highway. Tonight, about halfway home, it did it again. So, I got off the closest exit, let the car sit and idle for a couple minutes, got back on the highway, and it ran perfect all the way home.

I think I'm leaning toward a charging problem again. I took the old alternator to a friend of mine, and he said that it was charging a little higher than normal. But what could cause an alternator to overcharge? I even replaced the ground cable to the battery.

Oh, the chip I'm running is Red's 93.

 

[FastTurb]

I would think you should be able to monitor voltage easily as you drive and compare differences from when it runs good and when it acts up.

I had similar problem but not quite as bad when I ran NGK plugs years ago. Longer runs on the turnpike and it sputtered when I went through the toll booth. it just didn't like those plugs. You could check plugs, wires, coils and the infamous injector wiring short on the fuel rail.

as with any electronics - intermiitent problems can be hard to diagnose. My sons car ('86 T) went through a summer when it heated up would stop running but once it sat for awhile it would be fine again. after a lot of swaps I found the connector on the cam sensor had poor connections at the plug. cleaning and tightening the connection fixed the problem after wasting time changing the timing chain and other work at 180K miles.

sorry I can't help but I would have thought fuel first but it seems you have gone that way already and you don't see any drop outs on the gauge. Maybe cranking the fuel pressure up or down could show a difference that may point you to something. good luck

 

[TURBOTIMMER]

Thanks for your input, Bill. I guess with as many miles that's on the car, I should expect this bull$hit. I got the alternator back this morning, so that's going on tomorrow. I'm almost tempted to just sell the damn thing and get a nicer car with lower mileage.

 

[FastTurb]

hey we all get down about our cars. I am building three motors right now for 2 cars. So I have two cars not running for months now and the third motor will be a spare. I am deciding each part and each step carefully and methodically. This helps to make the rebuilds somewhat fun, exciting and interesting. BUT most of the time I miss driving the cars as I use my '92 Lesabre. In the past, when I had problems with one of the TRs I would not clean it. the wheels got grungy and exterior looked bad, even the interior would get messy. It would depress me that it wasn't running right and I didn't want to bother with anything else. BUT then as soon as I got things straightened out, car running great, I was back to making it looking great all the time.

I think it is natural to get a little depressed, frustrated, disappointed or even disgusted when the TR gives us a hard time. Thinking about the great enjoyment you had and will have again should get you through.

Let us know how things work out with the alternator back on. And just because it seems to be running fine some of the time doesn't mean the gremlin isn't close by. When it's running fine in the driveway start poking around those old sensors and electrical connections. I'm not telling you to break something that is OK but it shouldn't be that touchy that you can't poke around. Look at the injectors harness connections, all the sensors and connections at the intake like IAC, Coolant temp, Cam, O2 etc.

If you find something simple that was just intermittent or unusual - you might again love the car when it's fixed and forget about selling it.

good luck - think positive - you'll find the problem.