Engine troubles

Hi gang.

I'm having troubles with my CA20E. Between idle (about 800rpm) to 3500rpm the car struggles to accelerate, and also pick up any engine speed. Beyond 3500rpm it's fine, behaving just as I'd expect it to, but down low it's got pretty much nothing.

I suspect this is dangerous, because if I ever need to accelerate out of a dangerous situation (say, for example, a car running a red light - hey it happened to a friend of mine), I very much doubt the car will be able to do it.

It's not essential that I fix the problem because I'm planning on replacing the CA20E with a CA18DET early in the new year, but I'm curious to know what the hell would be causing it.

Cheers.

I had the exact same problem on my 84 turbo and it turned out to be a combination of the o2 sensors wires being ripped out and as bad distributor cap. If your o2 sensor is cooked your car will run like poo until you reach WOT position (Wide Open Throttle) and then the ecu stops monitoring signals from you sensors and runs on a predetermined set of values. Check your o2 sensor and the condition of your distributor cap (inside the cap) because I would bet thats the source of your problems. Hope that helps.

OR you run WOT all the time...

hahaha

Maybe if you don't have a turbo (snicker, snicker) If I tryed that it my car I'de kill myself. Just kidding about the turbo thing, haha.

Heh, yeah, a turbo would overcome those acceleration problems rather nicely...

Still, that's on the to-do list. I'll give cleaning the O2 sensor and the dizzie cap a go right now. And also the leads and the plugs, who knows, maybe they're full of carbon crap.

Cheers for the help peeps.

try advancing your timing a bit mate