Bill Lucas

Seems so to me.

I took the car out for it's first real road trip this weekend. It was about an 850 mile round trip.

Yesterday afternoon, my son and I were driving back to our hotel and all of a sudden the car start lurching. It seemed that the problem was that the engine was gas starved. When gas got to the engine it would try to go but then it seemed that no gas was getting to the enigne and it would lurch from lack of fuel and in fact stalled twice.

Somehow, the problem seemed to cure itself and we got back to the hotel. We got in the car this morning and it started fine and drove perfectly so we set off for home. At our breakfast stop the car refused to start (starter wouldn't turn over) and we had to jump start it. We continued on and it again drove perfectly...until...1 mile from home when it started the sputtering and lurching again.

I have a few symptoms.

1) Engine temperature is fluctuating between just over 1 bar and just under 2 bars. Mostly it runs in the middle. I replaced the thermostat this week because the car had begun to run warmer than it did when I purchased it but never overheating.

2) When the engine is running warmest oil pressure drops to about 3 3/4 bars. When it's running cooler it rises to just over 4 bars. Not a big variation, but a variation nonetheless.

3) When I limped it home there was a burning smell for a very brief time after I shut the car down and exited it.

4) The car has always had a fluctuating idle. Sometimes it would idle well at about 1k but typically it jumps between 700-900 rpms.

5) The newest symptom is, of course, the lurching and stalling. It's like the engine is completely gas starved at times.

TIA for any and all help and advice you may be able to give. I'm very frustrated and upset right now. I take meticulous care of this car and like many of you, have poured a lot of money into it since I purchased it in April.

Techno Duck

1. This could be anything really, temp gauge will climb when sitting at idle but will drop down once the fans kick in. It could also be a ground issue with the gauge. It depends how frequently its doing this to determine if its actually a problem or not.

2. Oil pressure should peg to roughly 5 bar when you do a cold start, as the car warms up its normal for the oil pressure to drop down to as low as 2bar depending on ambient temperature and the weight of oil you are using. 3.5 - 3.75 bar of pressure is pretty healthy. Nothing to worry about here.

3. Burning smell could be anything, oil, coolant, rubber?

4. Wandering idle could be a bad idle stabalizer, a pain in the *** to change because it involves removal of the intake manifold. Could also have vacuum leaks.

5. The lurching, was the car misfiring? What is the age of your spark plugs, ignition wires, cap and rotor?

Also what year is your car? None of these problems seem very serious, the car is probably 15+ years old!

Bill Lucas

Dan,

Thanks for the quick reply. Plugs, cap, rotor and ignition wires are all brand new. There was no misfiring, just the sense that despite pressing the accelerator there was no gas getting to the engine.

Techno Duck

Im really guessing about the lurching / stalling thing. How is the fuel filter?

Peckster

What kind of car is it? Sputtering and lurching could be almost anything, either fuel or electrical. Your starter problems are clearly electrical, so start with that by testing your battery and its connections.

Mike B

I had a similar symptom with my son's '78 924...(the lurching / gas starved symptom). Took forever to figure it out. Turned out it was 20+ years of corrosion in the gas tank. The material collected at the bottom of the tank and wouldn't allow enough fuel through during heavy load. Idling and light acceleration was fine though.

Drained the tank and had several handfuls of crap inside. After replacing the fuel pump, as the crap burned it out, it has been fine ever since.

Bill Lucas

Thanks for all the replies. The car is a 1989 944S2. Sorry, that should have been the first information I gave out.

I'm starting to believe that it may be an electrical issue. I've had a little funniness in my guages (some bouncing). I've spoken to a former mechanic friend and his thought is that the solenoid has gone bad and that the car (at times) doesn't know that it's running, hence the sense of being gas starved. Looks like it may be time to replace the starter.

We'll also be checking the grounds and may as well look at the gas tank too (thanks Mike).

Jay W

Check and clean all ground connections that you can find. Ground problems will cause the gauges to read strange and the starter to pull too many amps to work. And it can throw off the sensors that tell the computer how the engine is running.

bearone

needing to jumpstart it sounds like a voltage problem, either alternator or regulator or both.

if you had to jump it, the batt needs to be charged, the alternator won't bring it all the way up.

get it charged and check voltage across the batt terminals when it's running.
should be 13.4 to low 14's.

87951

Jfrahm

Could be a lot of things. DME relay, DME, flywheel sensor, fuel pump, fuel filter, temp sensor, AFM, wiring... You'll have to do some diagnostic work. If you can reproduce the problem you can use a jumper wire to replace the DME relay and see if it goes away. You can also get a fuel pressure test kit and see if you have a fuel delivery problem. Wire up a 'noid light if the fuel pressure and DME relay check out.

Also since you had some tuneup work done you might check over all that work and see if something is not as it should be (dist. cap, rotor, etc.)
Good luck,
-Joel.

xsboost90

im thinking voltage- test your alternator- if its running partially off the battery and looses ignition it would stall, sputter etc...whats you voltage gauge say? should be 12.5-13 on the gauge. 13.4-14 on a tester. Could also be some dirty/corroded ref sensor wire- i guess you just have one-

Bill Lucas

Today's testing pointed to the alternator so I've ordered one from 944online. It will be here Wednesday and there is already a hole waiting to be filled with it.

I'll post the final result because I can't stand it when I read a post like this and the OP disappears without letting everyone know how things turned out.

Tom R.

crank sensors?

Bill, what color S2? details details. where are you located?

jeeper31

My pleasure!

Techno Duck

I wasnt going to bother pointing that out.. thanks Dan