Carina E Feels Sick, Whats Wrong?

[francois]

hi

I have a carina e 1.8 gs, p reg with125k on the clock. I have the following issues:

Over the winter the car started fine but seemed to run like a two stroke engine until it had warmed up, with revs fluctuating wildly. The problem is worse when its cold or damp, better when warm and dry.

Now however the engine seems to stutter occasionaly and randomly when idling. typically the revs will jump up for a split second at the same time. sometimes the rev counter jumps up all by itself even when engine is running fine.

Gradually I seem to have developped the same stutter throughout the acceleration. By that I mean that when you accelerate you get a jump-starty feeling, a judder etc...

I had injector problems before and its definitely not like that at all. A toyota mechanic tells me a faulty engine coolant sensor may be responsible. However the car never overheats (and thats despite a skeleton of a radiator, folks!)The problem is of course that there may be more than one simultaneous problem.

I have done the following:

STP'd it to death

changed fuel filter

changed oil filter

did oil change

changed air filter

HT leads were renewed last year

plugs are 18 months old and are the long lasting expensive ones

the 02 sensor is new and was bought since problems started as it was blown anyway (85£ off eBay!!!)

cat converter is 18 months old onlly

any ideas? thankyou

[gazza1286]

The thread below '....running on 3 cylinders....' will hold the answer I'm sure.

[francois]

The thread below '....running on 3 cylinders....' will hold the answer I'm sure.

well no, i have had an injector problem before and its not like that. plus it definitely runs on 4 cylinders, the misfire or whatever it is when idling doesnt last more than a split second. when accelrating its like a series of little misfires rather than one sustained one.

The problem seems related to air dampness, so I was thinking of changing the plugs, and if that fails, changing the distributor cap

[Mick24]

Its not unknown for the Ignitor in the distributor to fail - gives poor starting and hesitation/mis-fire.

[francois]

just to give some feedback, I traced the problem to a wonky ht lead.

its running fine now.

thanks for your replies