Hey all,
Just had a question. I'm pretty new at getting to know about cars, so if sound like I don't know what i'm talking about, bear with me! I'm getting there lol. I have a 1991 GTA Trans Am. I recently had a problem where the car would buck so bad it would barely move. Eventually it would just stall out. Trying to crank the engine while giving it gas would cause it to backfire and run very rough. In the long run, the car wouldn't start at all if I kept doing this. I'm stationed in Germany with the Air Force and as most of you will guess, these aren't common cars over there so parts are hard to come by. Luckily the shop I brought it to had an American working there, and he had some knowledge on cars like this so I was in luck. We did find out the reason the car was running so crappy. It was because the spark plugs we getting so much carbon built up on them. We had to figure out why, and we determined the air/fuel ratio was way off. He couldn't figure out exactly what the problem was. He didn't had a diagnostic machine in his shop, (remember, its a small German shop). The two of us were going crazy trying to figure out what was going on. Some posibilities were thought were the TPS, or another sensor. A while back, while I was still in the states, I had the engine rebuilt. The guy at the German shop decided to call the guy who rebuilt it and he told him to check the EGR valve. To make a long story short, I had my dad order an EGR valve, TPS, MAPP sensor, and O2 sensor and send it over to me. Also, while the guy was looking at the car one day, he noticed the EGR solenoid was broken. So, once all the parts came in, they were put on, and since then the car had been running like it should. Well, I think the timing is off but that's nothing compared to what it was doing. I just want to know if any of you had a problem similar to mine. Mainly just a crap load of carbon build up and an off air/fuel ratio. I'm pretty sure it was the EGR/solenoid. What do you guys think? I still don't know exactly what the cause was and it would be good to know! Thanks in advance!

 

Sorry all....this post is in the wrong area. I reposted it under TPI. I just can't delete it from here for some reason...