earlpote

hello, new here, but i recently purchased a 89 GTA. during a very long road trip (17 hours) the car started running terribly. the first sign of something wrong was it took a while to start when before it would fire right up. after starting, during idle it bounces here and there and sometimes feels like its going to die (it did die once idling). durring acceleration, the whole car will shake, and it just does not have the power it did before all this happened.

in addition to this, the intake sounds like its sucking in alot of air. ive got a ram air intake on it, and im pretty sure when i bought it it was not this loud. now you can hear it sucking in air very loudly while idling.

any help is greatly appreciated... i was gonna put it on a lift and check all the wires/distributor cap/rotor for starters cause it feels like as if its missing maybe.

earlpote

also it seems to get worse as it warms up.

3.8TransAM

Check the basics like you said.

Then check fuel regulator for leaking diaphragm and ohm out the injecptrs and see what you end up with.

All MAF sensors of that era are basically garbage as well so consider it suspect until proven otherwise.

gta_knight

If you can hear more air then you might have a vacuum leak, they can cause all sorts of problems.

Rob's 92 gta

I would say check for vac. leak. Like GTA knight said.

earlpote

so the problem actually ended up being the distributor cap/rotor. the car has been babied since 89 by my uncle who kept it in a garage year round in florida and barely ever took it out. its got 50k original miles... the contacts were pretty corroded.

so, after fixing the problem, i excitedly took it out for a long drive, and after about 45 minutes of driving it started dying when coming to a stop, but would start right back up and idle fine. its only acting up when slowing down to idle. checked TPS, which is good, giving out .52 at idle and a little over 4 full throttle. i disconnected the IAC connector and it didnt die out when slowing down anymore... so im assuming the IAC valve is probably bad?

earlpote

today i took it out to mess around more with the iac disconnected. did good until the car was completely warmed up, then it started dying as soon as i let off the gas. before unhooking the iac it would start dying after only a few minutes of driving though, so im pretty sure i need a new iac.

rusty vango

you might consider removing the throttle body and cleaning it well.and the IAC being that old ,yeah id buy a new one too. HOWEVER. be warned about cheap parts. they have caused more problems for us than most anything else. as for distributor caps, I use one with brass contacts. they are longer lived, and provide a better spark . you may also want to consider the ICM as well just for S&Gs I would replace it with a quality part (stay far, far away from auto zone ,advance ect)

JayDavies

hi just wondering how you post a new thread and if i could get some help with my tpi system :P i bought an intake cause i thought it'd be easier but i haven't searched for help online and figured id give it a try i can take pictures and upload them right away within seconds witch i think will help out too?

rusty vango

ok, dude. what problem are/were you having? what made you buy another intake? how can we be of service? and if I may ask you to complete your profile so we know what your working on , exactly.and apparently, you already know how to ask us a question. so lets have it.

JayDavies

hey thanks for the attempt of help i got caught up in other things but have pretty well figured it out