I recently bought a 01, when i drive it around, it accelerate slow and when it shifts to first it downs shift so it wont go pass 20 mph and when i put the ac on it only goes to 10 mph. it also smells like unburned fuel and scanned it and threw a p0300 which is missfiring on some of the cylinders and the trac off and engine light is on. the coils, spark plug wires, plugs, and tps sensor was good ,so i need some help here any help would be good
thanks
oh and its a 2200 4 speed auto
Pull the plugs and see whats up, thats a big tell tale, post pics if you can. they should be black, and dry.
yea, i pulled the 4th plug out and it was black and dry but 2 and 3 were good im thinking it could be the coils or fuel regulator
what do you guys think?
Well from what you said 4 was the only "good" one. Black and dry is a good thing. the other plugs what did they look like. The most common problem I have seen is detonation. Which will trigger the missfire. The plug head will be near white, bare metal looking, and if you look close at the electrode there will be chunks missing. I've done plugs on near 8 cavaliers (the 2.2's seem to be worse) and all have had at least 1 detonating. This can cause your performance issues. if the plugs are clean looking and smell of gas, those cylinders are over fueling and washing the plug clean.
well i changed the fuel regulator still missing, and yes the other plugs were white and clean, which that explains the smell of gas. so what can it be? bad injectors?
these engines run hot and use high revs, change the plugs and that should clear up most of your problem. Use a quality plug it helps. and the must be platinums, anything but will trigger engine codes.
I would tend to disagree on using the platinum plugs only. I have used iridium plugs for the past 5 years with great success. I would change the plugs first and see what happens. Use a good quality plug platinum or iridium (Denso in either config seems to work well for me atleast) and make sure they are gapped correctly. Spark plugs are inexpensive enough to warrant replacing them and seeing how things improve or dont. double check to make sure the plug wires are going to the correct spots on the coil packs and to the plugs. That can and will cause all sorts of issues there. Its not hard to do either as I have done so a few times on accident only to catch my mistake when I was double checking everything.
well today i changed the spark plugs and took it for a ride it did the same but this time it went to 3rd gear but it still way to slow on 1st and second gear, and still smells like gas. maybe its the timing chain can this cause it
Well platinum, iridium, either work. if you use a standard the voltage signal comes back to the computer wrong. Hmm if your smelling fuel its over fueling. is there gas at the tailpipe? Pressure regulator might be an issue.
theres no gas on the tail pipe, oh and i forgot one thing it has no catalytic so i had to add a piece off pipe could that be it
Leaky or failed injector, Make sure the fuel regulator is seated properly.
the missing cat could be causing an issue as well. I havent paid a lot of attention to where the 02 sensor is located, before or after the cat?? if its after the cat would be the problem. The sensor helps regulate fuel mixture. If you have never changed that sensor yourself or know when its likely time to change it anyways.
like rich said take a good look at them injectors, see if fuel is leaking around the seat, if they have failed too and not closing they will continually get fuel into the cylinder. Could swap all them out for giggles, OE replacements arent all that muchand in line with an eventual maintenance, or at least pull them and see.
yes th o2 is after the cat and will be checking it and the injectors
thanks guys for your help
today when i was changing my trans speed sensor, i had the front on stands and i started it , put it on drive and was acting the same but when i reved it the abs, trac off, and service went on and the car was runnig ok( it started to shift fine) but weird thing that it only shifts when those lights goes on. i got a question, how many speed sensors are there?
no one had this problem before?
OHHH My.... God... I have never seen buildup that bad in a vehicle barely 10 years old. Wow. I am scared to think of what the crankcase looks like. Think your only option now is to tear things down for a recondition if not a rebuild.
yeap, wow im thinking this is the original oil
SATX J wrote:yeap, wow im thinking this is the original oil
or what some people do it they will check their oil when there car isn't on level ground and it will be down some so they will add a bit and continue doing this until the whole engine is filled completely.
Does this cause the car to not pick up speed and throw a p0300?
I would say thers a potential for it. That much sludge would cause all kinds of problems. I dont think the previous owner ever changed the oil, ever... ever ever.
well i cleaned all the sludge, the crankcase wasnt as bad as the head was, also i found this major problem when i took the
timing cover off
i replaced it and now runs like a champ!
not bad for $550 for the car, thanks for you guys help
how did you clean that sludge
first i used that gunk motor flush and let it run for 5 mins as it say on the bottle, then took the head off and used diesel gas to clean the head. took the oil pan off changed the pump clean the pan and then took the timing cover, replaced the tensioner and aligned the timing chain, put everything back and put synthetic oil changed the oil filter of course and thats it.
