Studdering, hesitations...

Vipe · 09-22-2003, 03:50 AM

Okay guys, need some help.

Girlfriend's car has been throwing out codes (I forget which, it's been a while since I looked -- I'll check them tommorow).

But, the real problem is that the car hesitates and studders on a consistent basis. Her car is a 92 SC2, automatic.

Basically, you can put the car in Drive and idle, and it will "hitch" or hesitate every couple of seconds. If you put it in Neutral though, it idles cleanly without hesitations. So if you put it in Drive and begin to go, it hesitates very badly until you reach about 3rd gear -- at which point, if you try to climb higher than 2500rpm's, you get major boggings, shuddering, hesitations, and everything else. It's a slow acceleration from that point, because you can't push the car at all (frustrating on the highway).

As well, if you put the car in Reverse, it will studder and hesitate, and sometimes even die.

One of the codes said the EGR valve/solenoid needed to be replaced, so this weekend and got around and did that, hoping the problem would clear up. It didn't. So I had to come back here for school and didn't have good time to spend on it.

I cleaned the throttle body plate and surrounding, after I noticed a ton of black carbon/soot around it. After pulling it off, it revealed far more carbon/soot in the intake manifold. So I started taking it off, didn't get very far after I realized that someone before me had stripped some of the nuts -- make a long story short, I ended up getting nowhere this weekend.

I've been thinking its possibly the fuel filter, as the injectors looked decent. Any ideas of what it could be? Would a clogged cat make such symptoms?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for making this long

Scott

Robert-sl2 · 09-22-2003, 05:30 PM

I am far from the expert, but I would suspect the fuel filter possibly. Since it sounds like you are getting enough fuel to idle relatively smoothly, but once you require a higher demand of flow, it is lacking. They are fairly cheap to replace so I would start there.

Darth Detroit · 09-30-2003, 07:26 AM

Check the plugs, they will tell you allot. The front of the CHiltons gives a reference guid as to what is wrong. Too much fuel, buring oil, too hot.... A little bit of carbon build up around the egr isnt all that bad, if its anough to do a charcole drawing with, then you could have other problems. I would also do a spark plug wire check. Its easy, when it gets realy dark out, run the engine, check under the hood, and see if you have a "glowing" wire. Air filter, and assmebly for any obstructions too.

**Ssicarman** · 10-01-2003, 02:24 AM

Check your plugs wires and coils. Plugged up Cat would give you power loss at high exhaust flow situations but should not make the engine run rough, just not want to run because the exhaust can't go anywhere.