Here is one for you Saturn enthusiasts,
My daughter dropped off her 1995 SL-1 (1.9 litre, single cam, automatic,
almost 140,000 miles) saying that it just wasn't running right.
I pulled one spark plug and could see why. There wasn't much electrode left.
So I threw in a bottle of gas treatment, bought new plugs, new wires, a new
air cleaner and a new fuel filter and spent the afternoon screwing
everything in place. God I love Saturn fuel fiters. I hope I get to meet
the engineer who designed that abortion before I die, so I can choke him
proper!
Sitting in the driveway, the thing would rev smoothly to 4,000 RPM and then
fall on its face like the engine was hitting a soft rev limiter. It also
started spewing large clouds of smoke out the tail pipe. I checked and #3
plug was black, like it was in a very rich condition.
I did a compression test and everything was OK. All cylinders within 10 lbs
of each other. So that would rule out a bad valve. I checked the computer
for codes, and there were none stored.
I thought one of the new plugs or wires could be bad, so I swapped in old
ones. No change.
I decided to actually drive the car before I went further and ripped into
more things. Out on the road, floor the gas and the car will rev right up
to 5,000 RPM, shift and continue to pull without a hitch. Driveability is
fine. And...after flogging it for awhile the smoke went away, although in
neutral it still hammers against a stop at 4,000 RPM's.
Does anybody have any ideas what is going on here? An injector maybe? One
of the coil packs going duff? A case of the vapors in the computer? I'm
afraid I'm into the black arts now.
I think I'd much rather fool with SU carbs and Lucas distributors.
Larry Steckel
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