loss of power and poor gas mileage

[Phil Rose]

At 7:10 AM -0700 8/4/03, bill bleiler wrote:
>hey guys, the 200 still does not have any power, and
>she is getting 13 mpg being driven easy.  here is the
>secnerio... you give it gas and it builds boost but
>holds back no power at all,

It "builds boost" to what pressure?

>  it actually seems to bog.

My car began to show a similar symptom a few weeks ago--while driving
at the track. My car's boost reaches 1.6 bar, but cannot reach any
higher (previously would shoot right to 1.7 bar and generally get to
1.8, eventually). Now, beyond about 3000 RPM it just sorta, yeh,
"bogs" is a fairly good word for it, but only in comparison to
previous performance--the performance is kind of like what it was
before adding the ECU chip (Lehmann). The gas mileage may have
dropped a bit, but not as severe as in your case.

My list of suspects included (a) tank of bad gas, or (b) plugged fuel
filter, or (c) clogged cat. Since then I've eliminated (a) and will
soon install a fresh fuel filter (old one has 32K miles). If that
doesn't fix the problem, I'll be checking the IM for leaks and,
finally, the cat converter (back pressure).

I've previously had a boost problem caused a defective MFTS, but when
that goes bad, the boost can't get above 1.4 bar. My MFTS (4-pin
version) is only a couple of months old. You can easily check if your
problem is the MFTS--just unplug it and drive. Symptoms of a bad MFTS
also include lack of A/C operation and a spurious "coolant overheat"
warning signal.

Phil

--

Phil Rose
Rochester, NY
mailto:pjrose at frontiernet.net