Hey everyone well last thursday I was traveling to calgary (airdrie) to visit my sister until monday. All day my car was running fine until I got to shell at brooks, alberta and filled up with there premium gas. Soon later my car started acting strange. The tack went crazy, and the car started running rough. Soon later the engine light came on and the car lost almost all power. You had to slam on the gas for the car to barely go anywhere and the exhaust was extremely loud. I stopped and checked everything under the hood and it seemed fine. Theres no cooling or overheating problems as I just had fan motors replaced, rad is fine, and I got some new msd ignition stuff before I left. I managed to limp the car for 3 hours to strathmore outside calgary and got it looked at canadian tire. They said there were some vaccumm line leaks and test drove it and said it ran fine after that. About 15 minutes after picking it up it did the same dam thing I just limped the car to my sisters in Airdrie. I think it might have been bad gas because my car was fine until then so I drove the car until empty and filled up at petro canada premium and it still does the same thing. Its fine for about 5-10 mins except it runs rougher than usual but then after that amount of time the engine light comes on and the exhaust is really loud and theres no power at all.

Alright so since this ^^^the engine light was from a faulty ignition module so now it doesn't come on and the tach works but there still something wrong. There a huge loss of power, it runs really rough and the exhaust sounds very strange. It also is using gas like crazy. I can't even spin the tires because theres low power. Any ideas...I have to travel 8 hrs tomorrow. Thanks, Josh

 

Sounds like you have an issue with your ignition control module. Course then i read on and it say you replaced that and its still not right (though better). However i still think its in the ignition system. Reason is if the timing is not right that will cause low power, low engine vacuum (which in turn effects gas mileage), and the exhaust sound. I suspect your timing is retarded. Check your timing and let us know how it goes.

 

I totally agree with RT, but can't see how it could have suddenly gone wrong. Bad gas would trip your knock sensor, which would pull timing. It really can't be anything else. The tire guys did their thing while there was still bad gas in the tank, so this confirms it. Disconnect your battery, entirely, both cables, for at least 15 seconds, don't cheat, in fact 2 minutes would be better, then reconnect and go for a drive. Buy your gas from a station that stays super busy, and fill up with regular, it tends to be fresher than slow-selling premium. Then use a bottle of octane booster. his will be the safe plan until you're back home. You may find yourself undoing the battery several times before you get home. I know, it's maddening. I've been there and done that, but it's better than driving around with no spark advance.

 

Sure sounds like a mass airflow sensor (or whatever the equivalent part is called on your car).

On the old hotwire MAF sensors, sometimes a bug would get fried on the screen, and the symptoms would be just as you described.

Steve

 

'89 was the last year for the mass-air sensors, '90 was speed-density. That rules that out.