Had this issue since i bought the car about a few months ago, new plugs and wires made it better but problem still persists. Basicly if i drive it around for short periods of time at lower speeds it does fine but when i drive it home from college going up hill the engine warms up to about 220 on the heat meter(not sure if this is normal) and i get an odd smell in the cab, the car doesnt like going up hill at all, seems im giving it alot of gas just to get up to 45 - 50mph. It has a new fuel filter and timing is factory spec. idk what else this could be...no engine light on.

 

Plugged convertor?

 

Get that CAT CONVERTER out of there.

 

Forgot to mention it only does this going up hill, ive driven it around on flat roads and it does fine....also still misses if i accelerate hard from stop but only from stop so im wondering if its an ignition issue and unburnt fuel is cloggin up my Catilitic converter?

 

Ok so i think i found out what the odd smell is, turns out i had a loose electrical hook up that i think at some point in hooked up to the ac compressor. it was laying against the front of the intake manifold just behind the water pump assemble, i pulled it up to look at it and sure enough it was melted to a point were the contacts could have been shorting to the block. I moved the wire to a spot where it wouldnt touch metal and the car started up fine with no stumbling or anything and was fine the whole way home, not even notible power loss so ill have to drive it down all the way to campus tomarrow to see if that fixed the problem, hopping so =)

 

Havent updated this in a while, car is still doing the low power / smell issue but i had a friend take a look at it and considering that the right front disk brake gets hot enough to leave 2nd degree burns on fingers from just reg driving he believes its the front breaks, back ones were put in backwards (idk how that happened) so im taking it in today to have breaks checked lol.

 

Brakes could definitely cause the car to be sluggish. Other items to consider are the catalyst being restricted as mentioned above and a dirty or faulty MAF sensor. Understand, clogged cat will never set a code, so no CEL on. The MAF sensor has to be way off to set a code. It can cause severe power loss before that ever happens.

 

yeah i wasn't able to get breaks looked at yesterday cause my shop i take it to was closed and i don't really trust anyone else with my car lol. ill have to call them or stop by tomarrow but hoping its just the brakes that is doing it, engine seems to be running fine. I say seems cause that is best i can see with out one of those fancy computer readers to look at, bit tight on pocket change right now lol.

 

k, i was reading the info on my cars year here on website and now i have to ask a really dumb question so i apologize in advance, in the info listed for my car it mentions on the bottom a new type of throttle system for 89 camaros that has a smaller open ratio for throttle at first part of acell then the last bit, something about "for smoother acceleration",.....yeah i was a bit confused if that was for a specific performance package or they just did that for all cars of that year?