Yeah I always see people posting this and they always say they will tell everyone what it ended up being when they fixed it. But nobody has and now my car is starting to act up again. It's weird, like I'll be driving and when I go to slow down and I will take it out of gear into neutral (5 speed) , push on the brakes and the rpms on the tach will drop dramatically down to around 500 to a little under that. Then the car will kind of act like it's about to die and when I come to a complete stop, the rpms go back to 750 to 800. The funky thing about this is this only happens after I drive for a bit. So it's not always doing this. Does anyone have any ideas? thanks again!

 

I was one of the people who said they would tell what the problem was... I havn't said anything cause I don't know still..

My problem happends when it warms up, so I'm thinking either bad ECM or a sensor I have overlooked...

Sorry I can't help.

 

i got a 91 3.1 LHO v6 Teal RS

dammit i got the same damn problem and i dont know how to fix it!!
SOME ONE PLEASE HELP US!!!!!!

 

Turn timing ahead to 13-14* It seems to solve alot of problems.
My car use to do what your talking about, it would churn at like 500 and every breath it took you thought it was going to die. but then it would pipe up. Does your car hesitate too. moving the timing solves that problem to.

 

damn how do i do that?
sounds like a good idea cuz i think mines set to the stock setting at 10 * i thinks

please give me more info on this timing idea how much does it cost to change it and can i take it to any local shop to have it done

 

I do it myself with a timing gun. So if you have one you will find a
groove in the crank balancer, and a a piece of metal above it
with #'s on it like 6-16 or something, Clean that piece off.
Now get a white piece of chalk.
Mark the grove with it.
Get out timing Gun.
Connect to # 1 Plug and battery.
Take socket and losen Distrib. Cap, but is in back 15mm, I believe.
Now start car,
Move the cap slowly till the timing light is flasing on the groove at 14*.
Heres the tricky part tighten down cap without moving it.
Take for a run.
See if it works anybetter.
If not I do not know what to say.

I can't imagine a local shop charging too much. And yes if you ask them to set it too that degree will they do it.

 

I was having a hesitaion prob. I advanced the timing to 13*. this helped some but didn't cure the prob. What finally took care of it was a fresh set of OEM replacment plugs.

I had checked my plugs 2 weeks prior, but even though they looked and I rest the gap they were some how screwed up.


Also one of thing to look for are bad vaccum lines. Including the ones that lead to the evap can.


1992 RS 3.1L

 

Funny, I thought I had my timing nailed down pretty good after doing my "advance till it knocks and back off" thing... it's possible it's off though, I usually don't notice a change in performance till I go and fix it right, and then go, wow, it did help... I'll go f*ck with it one of these days and let you know...

I do know from previous experience with timing and these cars... they are extremely sensitive to it... a little bit goes a long way...

 

Gosh , it seems contagious guys ! Seems like half of us have this every 2 or three months ..I just solved my crappy idling problem ( yeah thats all about what its doing now is just idleing .blew up my tranny tues ) but anyway .I've solved my idle problem to for a long time . Just got my heatsleave for my plugwire by the EGR valve .

 

Actually if the timing's never been checked before, it could definately be over-advanced, which would cause a bad idle AND lack of power.

Note that if you do this yourself, and you have an 85-86 2.8, you'll have THREE grooves on the balancer. This was to allow a shop to use a magnetic pickup on the balancer - that's what the funny looking tube sticking out of the timing indicator is for. Anyway, you want to mark (with the chalk) the WIDEST groove out of the three. The WIDEST one will point to the #1 cylinder (front passenger side). If you remove the center wire from your distributor cap, you can "bump" the starter without starting the engine.

'87-up Serpentine 2.8/3.1's just have one groove in the balancer.

85-up's need to unhook the EST connector- the Electronic Spark Timing- if you leave the EST hooked up, the computer does its little adjustment to the timing - and your timing light will show the balancer as being WAY off the scale! By unhooking the EST connector, you set the "base" timing, then the computer advances/retards the timing from there.

I believe 82-84 doesn't have an EST connector. I think you need to unhook a vacuum hose from the distributor, or unhook a connector from the distributor... I forget which. (It's been a while since I worked on an '83).

 

See I don't even know how to check my timing. The last time I took my car in to a shop I told them to check and set the timing and they told me that I have a distributorless car and I can't set the timing on it. It's all done with the computer. I don't trust the guy and he totally confused the crap out of me!

 

Yep, he's a moron... how could a car have distributorless timing (DIS) when it's got a distributor?!? Geez. Of course, the DIS can also screw up. It's got a crank sensor, which reads off the center counterweight on the crankshaft. If the crank sensor cracks, the timing gets thrown off to hell. Usually, when the car warms up, the crack in the sensor expands, and throws off the timing.

That center counterweight is on all the 1987-up 2.8/3.1/3.4 crankshafts, by the way. It's there because it's the same crank used on the front wheel drive motors; our f-bodies don't use it. That's also why starting in '87, the crankshaft was internally balanced- because they could mess with the counterweight. 86-below is externally balanced from the flywheel/flexplate- something to keep in mind if you ever have to change your flywheel!

But, anyway, yeah, the procedure for setting timing is in the $15 Haynes 82-92 Firebird or Camaro manual. A timing gun runs about $40- make SURE you get one with an "inductive" spark plug wire pickup. If you can't find one locally, http://www.sunpro.com has a red inductive one for $40. (Once you go to the site, click on the sunpro logo.) The timing gun I use is my dad's, it's a Sunpro (in chrome!!), and it's about 30 years old- still works perfectly!

 

TomP, where do you disconnect the EST at? I'm about to order a timing gun and a Haynes manual so I can do my timing chain also before it breaks some day. Soon as I can get it to 10 degrees I'll put in my new platinums, 8.5 wires, Accel module, and hook up the MSD 6A (mounted so far). Hopefully the dist will be rebuilt too, or a new one if my laziness kicks in.