Underpowered Carina

[Surfinginsanity]

My 1994 Toyta Carina E 1.6CD is rather flat in the midrange when accelerting, could this be due to clogged injectors or possibly something else. It was sitting unused for quite a while. Also would using a higer octane petrol like Optimax improve this

[Ray99]

Firstly, have you been far enough to get fresh petrol through? If you are still running on the petrol that's been in the tank for a year or so, that could explain your lack of performance. It's quite common for this year of Carina to suffer from injector trouble, but you usually get one injector playing up, not all four together. So I would more or less rule out injector trouble. It's worth checking the air filter, it may have missed its change point. Also worth checking the pipework at the rear of the inlet manifold. Make sure you have a thin vacuum pipe going from the inlet manifold to the MAP sensor on the bulkhead. This sensor tells the ECU how much power the driver is demanding, and adjusts the mixture strength accordingly. Lastly the Carina is quite a heavy car, are you sure you're not asking too much from a 1600cc? If you get a fix, please post back and let us know what cured it. Cheers Ray

[Surfinginsanity]

I've driven from Falmouth to Aberyswyth which took about 3/4 of a full tank, which was filled for the journey from nearly nothing, plus i've put petrol in since. So the petrol that was in the tank initially is long gone. I think you may be right in saying i'm asking to much from the baby engine. It's the 4 door saloon model I have and the 1.6 engine is probably a touch too small for the weight. I'll check the pipes and air filter.

Cheers.

[dacarinaeman]

My 1994 Toyta Carina E 1.6CD is rather flat in the midrange when accelerting, could this be due to clogged injectors or possibly something else. It was sitting unused for quite a while. Also would using a higer octane petrol like Optimax improve this

Hi there,

I also have the same problem that u describe with the past few months and for a while I thought that I was imagining it. I have still not got to the root of it and that is why I have come here. Basically mine 'stumbles' or hesitates sometimes at a constant speed of about 50 - 55 mph and when I accelerate it goes away. This lead me to suspect the throttle position sensor and I checked its resistace from idle all the way to wide open throttle and that all seemed normal, so I have ruled out that. Then I began to notice that when I fill up with petrol (I use Shell), within about 2 miles of filling up it sometimes 'stumbles', hesitates and loses power badly at midrange 2200-2700 rpm approx but when I accelerate it goes away. This believes me to think that it might be dirt in the tank all the way through the fuel lines, filter and up to the injectors and I would still like to have a go at cleaning out the tank and blowing out the lines but this will be a big job for me and one which I would prefer to avoid. The fuel filter was changed over a year ago and this should be ok. I have cleaned the throttle body and sprayed alot of carburettor cleaner into the throttle and inlet manifold when the engine was running and this made a difference to the over all responsiveness but not the underlying problem. This only cleaned the inlet manifolds and I guess the swirl control valves and inlet valves. I got a brainwave last week to disconnect the fuel inlet pipe to the injector rail and filled it with carburettor cleaner before reconnecting the fuel inlet pipe and running the engine, and to be honest I didn't notice any difference but I thought that it might be a cheap way of cleaning the injectors. I have heard that the injectors do give trouble and there is a strong possibily that mine are dirty. The resistance of the injector solenoids are normal and they are working. I have no visible or audible air leaks anywhere or kinks in any of the vacuum hoses or electrial probs that I can see nor diagnostic codes stored.

However, this evening I was again having another look about and I was checking the throttle spindle (spring loaded shaft where accelerator cable is attached) for play and although the play was minisucle and I had to do a little forcing, the idle speed decreased when I forced it one way and increased when forced another way but, what is more interesting was the fact that while I was doing this the Vacuum Switching Valve which controls the opening and closing of the swirl control valves started opening and closing rapidy and also remaining open. This has mystified me as my understanding is that the vacuum switching valve does not operate at idle and it is only supposed to operate under hard acceleration, at speeds of 120km/hr and above and from 4500 rpm when mine seems to kick in.

At the moment my car when driving at speeds up to about 65 mph seems very flat and like something is holding it back and if I meet a slight incline at that speed I usually have to change down and accelerate or accelerate hard, it is most noticeable when I am driving at about 60 mph and come into a 30 mph zone and even if I change back to 4th gear when leaving the 30 mph zone to accelerate, it is dead, it doesn't miss but it is just flat. Also it never misses under acceleration when overtaking for example which kind of makes me think that it might not be a fuel supply problem. The air leak at the throttle spindle does not help but I don't think that it is the root cause but the behaviour of the vacuum switching valve is interesting and I hope to try and figure this out. I am also tempted to put some brake cleaner into the fuel and see what happens though this might be risky.

Sorry for this long winded spliff but, I would like to get help with this problem and I hope that from reading this that it will give u some ideas.

I don't want to go to the expensive of replacing parts and injectors on a hunch and still not uncover the underlying problem. There is no facility here in Ireland that I know of that cleans injectors and many garages do not want to get involved in cleaning tanks etc

My Carina is 1995 1.6 4A-FE with 170000 miles (272000 kms) on the clock

Regards

[saggyass]

:)

My 1994 Toyta Carina E 1.6CD is rather flat in the midrange when accelerting, could this be due to clogged injectors or possibly something else. It was sitting unused for quite a while. Also would using a higer octane petrol like Optimax improve this

Hi there,

I also have the same problem that u describe with the past few months and for a while I thought that I was imagining it. I have still not got to the root of it and that is why I have come here. Basically mine 'stumbles' or hesitates sometimes at a constant speed of about 50 - 55 mph and when I accelerate it goes away. This lead me to suspect the throttle position sensor and I checked its resistace from idle all the way to wide open throttle and that all seemed normal, so I have ruled out that. Then I began to notice that when I fill up with petrol (I use Shell), within about 2 miles of filling up it sometimes 'stumbles', hesitates and loses power badly at midrange 2200-2700 rpm approx but when I accelerate it goes away. This believes me to think that it might be dirt in the tank all the way through the fuel lines, filter and up to the injectors and I would still like to have a go at cleaning out the tank and blowing out the lines but this will be a big job for me and one which I would prefer to avoid. The fuel filter was changed over a year ago and this should be ok. I have cleaned the throttle body and sprayed alot of carburettor cleaner into the throttle and inlet manifold when the engine was running and this made a difference to the over all responsiveness but not the underlying problem. This only cleaned the inlet manifolds and I guess the swirl control valves and inlet valves. I got a brainwave last week to disconnect the fuel inlet pipe to the injector rail and filled it with carburettor cleaner before reconnecting the fuel inlet pipe and running the engine, and to be honest I didn't notice any difference but I thought that it might be a cheap way of cleaning the injectors. I have heard that the injectors do give trouble and there is a strong possibily that mine are dirty. The resistance of the injector solenoids are normal and they are working. I have no visible or audible air leaks anywhere or kinks in any of the vacuum hoses or electrial probs that I can see nor diagnostic codes stored.

However, this evening I was again having another look about and I was checking the throttle spindle (spring loaded shaft where accelerator cable is attached) for play and although the play was minisucle and I had to do a little forcing, the idle speed decreased when I forced it one way and increased when forced another way but, what is more interesting was the fact that while I was doing this the Vacuum Switching Valve which controls the opening and closing of the swirl control valves started opening and closing rapidy and also remaining open. This has mystified me as my understanding is that the vacuum switching valve does not operate at idle and it is only supposed to operate under hard acceleration, at speeds of 120km/hr and above and from 4500 rpm when mine seems to kick in.

At the moment my car when driving at speeds up to about 65 mph seems very flat and like something is holding it back and if I meet a slight incline at that speed I usually have to change down and accelerate or accelerate hard, it is most noticeable when I am driving at about 60 mph and come into a 30 mph zone and even if I change back to 4th gear when leaving the 30 mph zone to accelerate, it is dead, it doesn't miss but it is just flat. Also it never misses under acceleration when overtaking for example which kind of makes me think that it might not be a fuel supply problem. The air leak at the throttle spindle does not help but I don't think that it is the root cause but the behaviour of the vacuum switching valve is interesting and I hope to try and figure this out. I am also tempted to put some brake cleaner into the fuel and see what happens though this might be risky.

Sorry for this long winded spliff but, I would like to get help with this problem and I hope that from reading this that it will give u some ideas.

I don't want to go to the expensive of replacing parts and injectors on a hunch and still not uncover the underlying problem. There is no facility here in Ireland that I know of that cleans injectors and many garages do not want to get involved in cleaning tanks etc

My Carina is 1995 1.6 4A-FE with 170000 miles (272000 kms) on the clock

Regards

i had the same problems with my carina, had all the injectors cleaned out cost about 100 or 25 per injector. the car now runs well no lack of power mid range

:)

My 1994 Toyta Carina E 1.6CD is rather flat in the midrange when accelerting, could this be due to clogged injectors or possibly something else. It was sitting unused for quite a while. Also would using a higer octane petrol like Optimax improve this

Hi there,

I also have the same problem that u describe with the past few months and for a while I thought that I was imagining it. I have still not got to the root of it and that is why I have come here. Basically mine 'stumbles' or hesitates sometimes at a constant speed of about 50 - 55 mph and when I accelerate it goes away. This lead me to suspect the throttle position sensor and I checked its resistace from idle all the way to wide open throttle and that all seemed normal, so I have ruled out that. Then I began to notice that when I fill up with petrol (I use Shell), within about 2 miles of filling up it sometimes 'stumbles', hesitates and loses power badly at midrange 2200-2700 rpm approx but when I accelerate it goes away. This believes me to think that it might be dirt in the tank all the way through the fuel lines, filter and up to the injectors and I would still like to have a go at cleaning out the tank and blowing out the lines but this will be a big job for me and one which I would prefer to avoid. The fuel filter was changed over a year ago and this should be ok. I have cleaned the throttle body and sprayed alot of carburettor cleaner into the throttle and inlet manifold when the engine was running and this made a difference to the over all responsiveness but not the underlying problem. This only cleaned the inlet manifolds and I guess the swirl control valves and inlet valves. I got a brainwave last week to disconnect the fuel inlet pipe to the injector rail and filled it with carburettor cleaner before reconnecting the fuel inlet pipe and running the engine, and to be honest I didn't notice any difference but I thought that it might be a cheap way of cleaning the injectors. I have heard that the injectors do give trouble and there is a strong possibily that mine are dirty. The resistance of the injector solenoids are normal and they are working. I have no visible or audible air leaks anywhere or kinks in any of the vacuum hoses or electrial probs that I can see nor diagnostic codes stored.

However, this evening I was again having another look about and I was checking the throttle spindle (spring loaded shaft where accelerator cable is attached) for play and although the play was minisucle and I had to do a little forcing, the idle speed decreased when I forced it one way and increased when forced another way but, what is more interesting was the fact that while I was doing this the Vacuum Switching Valve which controls the opening and closing of the swirl control valves started opening and closing rapidy and also remaining open. This has mystified me as my understanding is that the vacuum switching valve does not operate at idle and it is only supposed to operate under hard acceleration, at speeds of 120km/hr and above and from 4500 rpm when mine seems to kick in.

At the moment my car when driving at speeds up to about 65 mph seems very flat and like something is holding it back and if I meet a slight incline at that speed I usually have to change down and accelerate or accelerate hard, it is most noticeable when I am driving at about 60 mph and come into a 30 mph zone and even if I change back to 4th gear when leaving the 30 mph zone to accelerate, it is dead, it doesn't miss but it is just flat. Also it never misses under acceleration when overtaking for example which kind of makes me think that it might not be a fuel supply problem. The air leak at the throttle spindle does not help but I don't think that it is the root cause but the behaviour of the vacuum switching valve is interesting and I hope to try and figure this out. I am also tempted to put some brake cleaner into the fuel and see what happens though this might be risky.

Sorry for this long winded spliff but, I would like to get help with this problem and I hope that from reading this that it will give u some ideas.

I don't want to go to the expensive of replacing parts and injectors on a hunch and still not uncover the underlying problem. There is no facility here in Ireland that I know of that cleans injectors and many garages do not want to get involved in cleaning tanks etc

My Carina is 1995 1.6 4A-FE with 170000 miles (272000 kms) on the clock

Regards