New Dizzy = Lack Of Power?

[TychoCaine]

Hi all, winder if anyone can help me with this one. Just had to have a new distributor hooked up to my mk1 (last one finally gave up the ghost at 125,000 miles). Everythings gone fine, the timing's been redone etc but there's now a huge flatspot below 4000rpm or so.

Once it gets past 4k everything flys by, but below 4k it feels like I'm driving a nova or something.

Has anyone had anything similar happen on their car?

[pizza boy]

I know this may sound daft but have you properly pushed down the HT leads into the dizzy? One of mines wasnt and the car misfied and conked out. I str8 away pushed all four down and one was a bit loose.

Or maybe your spark pulgs are on thier way out?

[gus]

Ditto HT Leads (check both ends)

[TychoCaine]

Plugs are new, cables seem to be fine. Only think I can think of is that the garage didn't set up the timing correctly (can't find any garages around here that have worked on mk1s before, weird 'cause there seem to be a lot of them around newport + cardiff these days).

Going to get cam belt covers off on friday and check the timing's set up ok. Might as well flush the coolant while I'm at it (a different garage replaced the engine a couple of months back, the coolants probably loaded with crud but there are definately a few airlocks in the system too. Won't be using that garage again after they tried to reuse a set of 17 year old fuel injector o-rings and seals, causing a nice spray of fuel inside my engine bay).

baah, where's a good honest mechanic when you need one.

[TheNissanMan]

oooh... cardifff/newport....

where are ya fella im only down the road in st mellons ?

[stevemr2]

yup,sounds like the timing is well out.if the distributor is adjustable

try moving it yourself to see if it improves.try moving a little

bit in either direction to see which way improves it.if it seems

to get better get it into a garage and set up properly

[bh969]

St mellons sounds like my kinda place rhains

[ae111sr]

When the new distributor was installed it may have been put back one tooth out. A Haynes manual should help you to check - doesn't need to be MR2 specific just one that covers the 4a-GE engine. I've got one for the Corolla GTi at home but I'm in wok at the mo. I'll take a look for you .tonight

[TychoCaine]

Well, found out what the problem is. Got on the phone to the garage to find out that they've done the timing on the car without using a timing light. So, according to the head mech one of their guys set it up by ear and gave it back to me when it sounded right...

Going to get it sorted out tomorrow, using my timing light so he can't use that excuse again.

Cheers for the help everyone :-)

rhaines, I'm in caerleon (on the rare occasions I'm at home). The drive to cardiff gate makes a good wake up call in the morning :-)

Thanks for the advice John, didn't think of looking in the engine book (was in a foul mood). I've borrowed a copy of the toyota blue book 4age + 4afe engine repair manual from a friend. Couple of pages of that should come in handy.

Where'd that sunshine go?