Recently when I start my car the engine won't rev in park/neutral. I can put my foot down 1/2 on the pedal, the engine will struggle to rev to 2500RPM, and then, with my foot holding at 1/2 throttle, the RPMs will just continue to drop to below 1000 even with my foot still down....only feathering the gas brings it back up. It does this sporadically to me.....once the car is in gear it doesn't do this. Though the engine always seems to want a slight pump as it goes into gear to prevent stalling, but once it's in gear and going, it will idle fine. Just wierd. Any thoughts?

 

hmm, I don't have the hesistation in trying to rev, but mine will stall when i put it in gear if it has warmed up. I'm searching the boards now hoping to find an answer.

 

its sound sliek soemthing is binding up in your tranny man id get it looked at before i drive it any more

 

It could also be a locked stator in the torque converter.

 

How would that affect the reving problem in neutral?

 

If the stator wont freewheel it will resist the flow of the fluid in the torque converter. Its like adding a big load to the engine. Thats why it doesnt rev in neutral.

 

dr. nick rivera, sounds like it might be your torque converter, i had the exact same problem in a 89 grand am i had, tranny went, got it replaced and cold would be fine, warm it would stall out in gear i had to neutral drop it till i got it fixed and sold it

 

I found my problem, my PCV valve was slowly going out. Finally it just flat out broke, and so it was just letting the PVC port on the carb suck air freely from the outside. Runs fine now.

 

Good job in figuring it out.
I had mine looked at by a shop today and they said that it was missing on 2 cylinders when it warmed up, wasn't missing when it was cold thou? I don't have a lot of money to pay them 100's of dollars to replace things like distributor and rotor, or plugs, so i changed them all and am still having the problem? So i guess i'll try new wires, but the ones i have on it have like 50 miles on them.

 

check your torque converter as others have suggested