Driving yesterday, Car was has running awesome, hit a savage pothole at about 45mph with right front wheel, car started running awful moments after. Wheel seems to be fine. Car has no power under acceleration. The motor bogs when given any gas.

Today, I went to start it up and it has a really hard time starting up. When it does start, it struggles revving up. When it is revved quickly it just bogs and backfires and occasionally a pop comes from the intake filter.

K&N cold air intake
Big VAM
Garrett t3/t4
Porsche 944 intercooler
255 fuel pump
42lbs injectors
Auto lite plugs


I looked around the motor briefly to see if anything obvious popped loose but I hadn't noticed anything.

 

I would immediately start looking for a vacuum leak somewhere. Something might have been knocked loose. Check your intercooler piping and intake as well, though it sounds like you've already looked.

Also, for 2.3L turbo motor help, there is NO better resource than turboford.org

I have had several XR4Ti's over the years and that was the place to get all of the answers. Now that I'm running YB, this is now the place I go.

 

Everything I've looked over so far seems to be connected and solid. I'm going to look over everything again tomorrow.

I'll head over to turboford and see if they can help.

 

Check your fuel pressure, I had similar problems and my intank pump was near dead.

Good luck and I hope your problem is easy to fix!

 

My Cosworth had the same symptoms when the fuel pressure regulator went faulty. It just went one day for no real reason as well.

 

What tuning are you using? I see you have 42lb injectors instead of the 35lb OEM ones.

 

Car has a tweecer. Car came with what seems to be a decent tune on it. Though, even if I put the tweecer on the stock tune, the car will run decently.

I think it's either fuel related or a vacuum leak someplace.
The fuel pump does turn on when the car is on. There is no fuel in the vacuum line that goes from the manifold to the regulator. The fuel filter is also a month old or so.

The car won't start at all though now. I need to get my hands on a fuel pressure tester.

 

I just replaced the fuel pressure regulator. It won't start still but the engine did actually fire a couple times as opposed to not at all like before. I'm going to check the plugs and IAC and then see what happens.

UPDATE: Just took off the IAC and it seems a little dirty inside but nothing major.

UPDATE 2: Random thought. Maybe I skipped a tooth on my cam timing? Seems like that could happen after hitting a bad pothole?

 

Hooked up some jumper cables and was able to get it started. Here is a video of what the motor is doing.

 

Hmm, definitely check your cam and ignition timing. FWIW, when my cam timing jumped the car died and wouldn't restart.

 

Distributor loose?

 

distributer is solid. though, I took my cap off and the the contacts underneath are all pretty corroded. also, the ignition coil connector in the center looks pretty gross as well. gonna replace the cap in the next 10 min.

 

replaced the cap. didnt make a difference. lined up the all the timing stuff and didnt make a difference. I want to remove my dist to see if the gear is bad. Any tip for getting to the bolt that holds it on? I tried reaching down there with a socket but the dist gets in the way

 

Try from underneath, I had a lift the last time I worked on my ignition and I managed to slide a wrench in there.

The engine has air and if your distributor terminals are good as well as your plugs and coil wires then I would continue to look into the fuel side.

Best of Luck

 

Update.

I removed the valve cover to be absolutely certain my cam was set correctly. Set the cam with a steel plate to TDC on cylinder 1 the distributer to be at cylinder 1 and the crank at the TC mark. Cranked the motor over and everything still matched up. Everything between the air filter and the intake is tight, all the vacuum lines seem good. Removed my plugs they all seemed to be in good shape. They are only a couple weeks old.

Tried starting it quite a few times and a couple times the motor would fire but not enough to get started.

Guessing it might be the coil?

 

check the fuel lines haven't been crushed when you went over the pothole

 

Fuel lines are fine.

 

Checked the spark on my plugs and seemed fine.
I checked my coil with a multimeter and that also seemed fine.
I have an MSD Ignition coil.

Hooked the battery up to jumper cables and the car started. It was running at 500 rpms and slowly made it's way up to 1000 rpms. The battery light was on the entire time. If I gave the car any amount of gas, it just sputtered a bit and would not increase in rpms
Unhooked the jumper cables the and car slowly died out. The SPOUT was unhooked and the timing is still at 0*. Still need to pick up a socket and timing light to get the timing to 10*.

 

What is your Alternators current output? Battery light on and car slowly dying could be you alternator has failed or a loose connection. Newer vehicles shed systems like the radio and heater systems to let you know you have a problem, I think the old Merkur's would run until they quit. Poor voltage would create an inadequate spark for proper combustion.

Just a Petrolhead's Rambling but I saw it a few times in the garage.

 

I know they are as accurate as a blindfolded sniper but the temp gauge is high. Hope you main problem gets sorted

 

mate i was listening to your car.definately not getting enough fuel

 

UPDATE

Alternator is fine. It's at about 13.8 when running.
Temp gauge sucks but I have a water temp gauge, rarely goes over 160* F.

The car runs but my issue is now that the car will only run if the timing is all the way to ~30*. It runs decently but seems like it's running with significantly less power than it used to. If I bring it to 10* it struggles pretty hard.