I tried searching about this but couldn't really find anything.
My car hasn't got enough low end torque, infact it feels really weak in the lows. I keep reading how much low torque the tpi has... but why not mine?!

I'm not the only one that noticed this. Had it to a mechanic testing a possible bad transmission mount and remember he commented on how it seemed to lack power. We didn't discuass this further because then this wasn't the issue.

But I'm sure there must be something wrong. It's fine, even excellent in high rpm:s, why not in lows?? I've recently replaced fuelfilter, airfilter, sparkplugs, cables, cap and rotor. Things that might need changing are wacuumhoses and injectors.

Any idéas on what is wrong with my lovebird???

 

MAF or TPS

 

any mods done to the car?

 

If your running open exhaust (no cat/ high flow muffler) it really feels like it changes the rpm range...seems like most people don't understand this and go for noise and end up killing their in town gas mileage

 

he never stated that he's running open exhaust though. Was that from another thread that I missed? If so, I apologize.

 

Exhaust flow changes don't affect MAF like they do SD.

 

Yes actually the cat has been replaced by a straight pipe and also it's supposed to have somekind of chiptuning made by some company called macnamara tuning from when it was new. The cat was "deleted" much later... I fear this could be the cause of the torque-loss because the chip wasn't tuned for this. But I'm no chip expert so wha'do I know. Also the muffler has been gutted a bit, otherwise everything is stock.

Let me get this straight... running "open exhaust" is bad. I thought it just eases the flow of it and gives the car more hp:s... does it lessen torque?

 

With speed density EFI systems, such as TBI and '91-'92 TPI, the "conditions" are measured and the fuel tables "estimate" the flow that those conditions would produce. When you do something to alter the flow capacity of the system, such as exhaust or increase the engine displacement, the assumptions under which the fuel tables were established are no longer valid. However, with a mass air flow system such as you have, that really isn't a problem.

I'd suspect, however, that your "custom" chip isn't doing you any good. If you still have the factory chip, try it and see what happens.

 

unfortunately the factory chip is long gone... don't think it was ever even brought here to finland when it was shipped over in '89.

But wouldn't the stock chip also be "out of sync" with what I'm running right now? And why would the "custom" be even worse?
Is the stock expencive if i choose to try it?? Keep in mind I probably woun't find any used parts here in Finland.

I know the chip is located somewhere behind the "glove-bag". Tried taking some parts off once with my brother to get to it and check what kind of chip it actually is (programmable for instance?), but since we really didn't know what we were looking for we gave up. Is there like a ton of crap in the way before u get to it? Would really like to see some pics of the picking apart and the chip location to get an idéa. Have tried searching for this here but never really found any pics... only of the chip itself.

 

The chip is in the ECM which is under the dash. Opposite side of the steering wheel, silver box with two connectors and lots of wires. Would have 'service number 1227165' on it.

Small cover with 2 screws, chip is under that mounted to a MEMCAL. Now, with the aftermarket chip there may be an adaptor in place. If so the chip will be right under the small cover. With the MEMCAL mounted on it's side.

RBob.