86BIRD-MY FIRST CAR

engine is making a awful chug,chug,chug sound rather than the nice growl, no codes came out, could a foul spark plug cause this?

WaynesRS

First : check your plugwires , and plugs .After a year I had my car and my distributor cap and rotor crapped out it even made a chug chug chug .


How many miles do you have on it ? Do your drive it hard alot ? Or atleast twice a day do you dawg it ? I really hope its not this man , but , when I broke a lifter , it started chug chug chugin . I could be wrong about this .

WaynesRS

I tried to edit and put this back in first , but anyway , wouldnt let me ......First check your plugwires and plugs . When I first got my car my distributor cap and rotor crapped out and made my car chug chug chug , so it could even be your cap and rotor .

86BIRD-MY FIRST CAR

the car has 213,200 miles, wayne could u define dawging it and driving hard ?

WaynesRS

******* , driving hard - Hard acceleration . I hate to say it , but , if the car has 213,000 miles on it , expect the worse ! But Id be damn happy with getting that many miles out a motor ! I only got 170,000 out of mine !!! Sounds like a cylinder or some cylinders mis-firing .Mine sounded like that to when I had a broken lifter .

What do you guys think ? Tom , Karl , Dan ?

WaynesRS

hey ! Have you checked your wires , cap and rotor yet ? sparkplugs ?

WaynesRS

ttt

86BIRD-MY FIRST CAR

Yea im gulilty of dawging it, i usually do it once a day, just replaced cap and rotor, plugs hasn't been changed in 5 months or since 2000 miles, how can i tell if i have a broken lifter, and i noticed wayne u was shocked was i said i have 213,00 miles, are u trying to say this problem might me the beginning of the end i sure hope not, is the miles i have ususally the max life of a third gen or have u seen higher with the original motor? And finally if u was me would u consider selling the car...

WaynesRS

I told my mechanic one time , I was guilty of dawging it . He had a 85 vette hooked up to the bottle and a few other toys . He told me , well owning a sports car is like owning a horse . Most people who own horses ride em . Most people who drive sports car dawg em sometimes . Your cap and rotor didnt really need changing , but it didnt hurt .Yep ,the problem could be the beggining of the end , only way to tell his have a mechanic or someome who knows there $hit about cars look at it .But , expect the worse . If it is the end of the motor , Well congrats on getting 213,000 miles out of it !!!! Well , that depends about selling it .Does it look good ? NO pun inteneded but I find down here people seem to buy cars if the motor is dead if they look good .But if the motor is dead , and the car is in bad shape body or even interior wise , its harder to sell .Have a mechanic shop that you can trust look at it , or someone that you can trust . Goodluck and keep us posted .And about the miles , I think that just depends on how well you take care of the car and how much you dawg it . I got 170.000 miles out of mine , BUT I had a no good oil filter (fram crap) which I thought was good , and yes I was guilty of dawging the car more than I should have .If I was in your shoes , Id keep the car ,sence you have the new granddam the camaro can be a fun project car .But thats just my opinion , would you want it as a project car ?

TomP

I agree with Wayne; give the ignition system a once-over, including the checking of the timing.

Does this chugging happen all the time, or just at idle? If so, your IAC pintle & passageway could be dirty, your TPS could be misadjusted, your fuel injectors could be clogged, or fuel/air filters dirty. You could also have an exhaust leak near the motor, which causes fresh air to be pulled into the exhaust thru a vacuum, and your oxygen sensor "sees" fresh air, and thinks you're running rich, so it leans out the air/fuel mixture un-necessarily. Do you have the original catatlyic convertor on your car? The originals would "break up" into pieces over time, and these pieces would clog the exhaust system. The MAF sensor might be acting up, but it doesn't sound like it. You could visually inspect it by removing it from the intake tubing, and looking inside at the orange frequency film- if the film is warped or bent or kinked, the MAF should be replaced (and no, this usually won't set a code).

As to life of the motor, I've got +230,000 miles on my 2.8, and it's still running. I need to do a rebuild; I hope I get a chance this summer. I bet my camshaft lobes are worn down to nothing by now!

And yeah, no Fram filters... I used to run 'em all the time, then I saw that webpage... now I stick to Purolator or AC/Delco. I really miss that radioactive orange color, though!

86BIRD-MY FIRST CAR

Never inspected the IAC or adjusted the TPS or Timming since i had the car which is about 10 months now, i was told since i have a timing chain instead of a belt so i dont need to worry about it, the fuel filter(by fram) and 02 sensor(by bosch) are less than a year old, and i do use the Delco oil filter, the catalyic converter looks fairly new and haven't touched it since i bought the car, Wayne said it might be a lifter, how much for the part and labor am i expecting to see if it is a bad lifter, as for selling the car u asked about pics, i posted some pics at Appearence and Detailing board under the thread: washed and waxed car today. So u can check them out their. OMG i forgot to tell u when i posted this post which was yesterday (4/29) i was thinking about the car all day and this morning when i woke up(4/30) i dreamed i was driving the car on the highway going home and it was dark, all of the sudden idiot lights start flashing on and off and the car made a horrible sound which it then suddenly died on the road and was left stranded ona dark road with no cars in any distant to help me, then i woke up. It felt so real and that really freaked me out

TomP

No, you still need to worry about timing. Timing chains are stronger and more durable than a belt, but they still stretch. Plus your timing can be knocked out just because it's just "set" by the distributor's rotation- if the hold-down bolt on the distributor loosens up, or, thru mileage, the distributor turns a bit, your timing gets thrown off. http://www.sunpro.com 's garage sale still has some $16 multimeters that you could use to check your TPS voltage.

phix919

well i passed your 213,000 miles, I'm up to 227,000 on my 87sc and shes still growling like dog. TomP, what should the TPS voltage be? I just made a connector for my ecm to my laptop and im running that winALDL program, but I dont know what the normal readouts should be.

TomP

Spec for idle is 0.045 volts, +/- 0.10 volts; just a slight difference from the V8's. That shows up on the WinALDL program? Cool!

WaynesRS

I was wondering if exhaust leak could make that chug chug noise Tom .heh . i almost typed it in ,but didnt want to tell him anything wrong . You guys teach me something new everyday ! Anyway , I really think the FRAM oil filter is what killed my motor now that I look back .Sure I did drive the car hard some , but when they put the new motor in the told me the oil filter was clogged .I WILL NEVER use a Fram again . I have a good ole AC delco on there now ....What do you like to run Tom ?

WaynesRS

To bad they couldn't get the $10 ones like we did huh Tom ?

phix919

Yeah tom, here are a couple of screenshots with just a couple of the many data it outputs

phix919

another