[s-cars] Advice/help needed regarding my bucking S4!! Please!! :- )

[chris chambers]

Yes it's still here, it's very frustrating and perplexing!

I am going to provide a detailed report of my problem, what has
happened, what I have done, etc.

The symptom is that when I am 3rd, 4th or 5th gear, when I try to
accelerate the car feels like the engine loses all power, as if I ran
into a wall.

History:

The michelin man hose started leaking, decided it was the right time to
install the samco hoses I bought. I replaced the hoses but had the
intercooler to throttle body hose pop off twice. After replacing the
hoses all seemed right with the world until the next day. The bucking
that I described above started to happen when accellerating in the
3800-~4200 rpm range.

I replaced the spark plugs (yes they are Bosch F5DPOR plugs), and once
again everything seemed right with the world. One week later the
bucking returned, I did more research and was advised to clean the ISV.
Yestereday I cleaned the ISV with carb cleaner (per website
instructions) checked the plugs and found one loose, I pulled the one
plug and it was black, tried to clean it with carb cleaner but didn't
have enough to do so. re-installed the plug and re-torqued all plugs to
22 ftlbs. The car ran great, for ~ 70 miles. Today it started bucking
after I had driven it for 70 miles from  Kalamazoo to Grand rapids.
After it sat in the sun for ~1 hour I started to drive ti back to
Kalamazoo and the bucking had returned. The only code I have pulled is
the ISV code 2231.

The car is currently sitting in the garage cooling. Later tonight I
plan on inspecting the plugs, etc. The questions I have are?

Could it be caused by the plugs coming loose?
Should the plugs be black? Should they be cleaned, if so how?
If the plugs are not supposed to be black could this be caused by
running rich indicating a seperate problem, possibly oxygeon sensor?


Thanks for any and all input!
Chris





=====
93 Audi S4 silver, 93 Audi S4 black, 85 VW Scirocco 2.0 not stock :-)
73 Porsche 914 2.0 (67,000 original miles, stock), 67 GMC Long Step pickup 95% complete frame off restoration, 86 VW Scirocco Wolfsburg

"If things seem really under control, you're not going fast enough.  -
Mario Andretti"

"It's not how much you make, but how much you don't spend!"

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