I'm trying to helpout a friend who owns a V6 firebird and yesterday we were coming back from downtown and the car seen to start to lose its power after 10 minutes and it stuggled for a short while to get home and the car recently had a ton of work done to it!...new cat/converter,new coil & spark plugs,fuel filter and it passed amissions testing a month ago ,I looked all over the engine and saw the transmission had a leaky seal ,but I don't think that would cause the car to struggle for power?....any help will be greatly appriecated!....thanks in advance.

 

depending on the level of the trans fluid it may do that. does it feel like it slips at all or just revs at times? if so, check the fluid level in the trans and make sure its red not brown or black, or just check it to rule it out if nothing more.

 

We let the car sit over night and started it up and it did the same thing it reached at 220 degrees!...we never moved it...it did struggled for a while after the warm up,it wanted to cut out,but it never did ,it has a quarter tank of gas ,so could it be the thermostat?...we already ruled out the transmission ,there is No knocking in the motor!....were lost here.

 

This may sound dumb, but....are you sure the cat and the fuel filter are installed with the correct side forward?

 

they are on the correct way ,the work was done by my mechanic on the fuel filter and mienikie installed the cat/converter last month!

 

Just because a mechanic has done the install that doesnt make it the right way...

 

the car has been running very well for the last 40 days,until a couple days ago!...and we did supervise the installs too!

 

sounds like the car was overheating...check the fluids..check the hoses and make sure the radiator cap is on good (that almost cost me my engine)..call the person who did the work also before it gets worse

 

+1... I was asking about the cat on backwards because if it's plugging your exhaust up it can cause a big power loss and I imagine the motor's gonna get quite hot. Not only that, but a lack of fuel will cause a power loss, and because the motor goes lean, also causes it to get hot.

So those two symptoms point to something done wrong, know what I mean? I'm not trying to second-guess people here, but unless your car is a HUGE POS the odds of something going wrong that's unrelated to the work done is fairly slim.

 

I think we found the problem*....the pvc valve is clogged up ,it did not dawn on any of us that the valve hose's were the last thing to be looked at,so if your car is having this kinda problem ,then check those valve hoses out ,they were extremly clogged ,sorta like pulling a sewer hose that is clogged with poop!
....we spent the last 4 hours checking everything and this was the major problem.