Loss of Power (seems fuel related) and Temp gauge problems

[ARChapman23]

Hi there, I have quite a few problems with my e30 after doing the 2.7 stroker and 19# injectors. The first problem seems pretty minor, but it might be causing other issues that I cant see. My temp gauge slowly climbs as I am driving and when I am at idle. However I don't think the car is actually overheating because when I turn the car off and then back on, the temp needle returns to an optimal temp reading. It is almost like there is some sort of faulty grounding issue and there is electrical build up...

However, that is not the major issue. The big problem is that my car randomly started having a loss of power. I would lightly be on the throttle, and then the car would just start misfiring like CRAZY. The car doesn't die, but it just starts to decelerate and have no power. when my brother and I starting trying to figure out what would make it happen (it doesn't happen all the time). We noticed that whenever I took a left turn and got on the throttle afterwords, it wouldn't work. Odd...


We thought that it might be the main ground that goes from the oilpan to the frame of the car. And that whenever I took a left turn, the wire was coming loose from the frame... However, I measured the resistance between the engine and frame and it seems okay, wire looks good and grounds are nice.

So, I'm pretty lost at this point. I took out the spark plugs to see what my engine was trying to tell me. The #2 cyl looks horrible and tells me that I've been running rich (the 19# injectors).

Things I'm thinking about doing to slove the problem

• Fuel pump replacement (already done filter when I did the rebuild)
• New spark plugs (should I use platniums, or no?)
• New distributor cap/rotor
• New wideband 02 sensor (so I can tell when Im rich)

Oh and it might be the AFM, thats the other guess...

Here is a picture of the sparkplug. If I am reading it properly, it is telling me that I have rich mixture?


Any suggestions would be nice.
Thanks guys.

[jlevie]

My take on the plug is that the black deposits are probably from oil and the white stuff would be from running lean. Oh yeah, those are the wrong plugs for the engine. You need a plain copper plug, like an NGK ZGR5A. Put a fresh set of those in and see what the plugs look like and a 20mi or so.

Tee a gauge into the fuel rail supply line, zip tie it to a windshield wiper and see what the rail pressure is when an event occurs.

[ARChapman23]

Thanks for your help, I thought that these were wrong, but they came with the car and never thought much of it. Luckily I have some other plugs in my garage. Pretty sure the oil is from before I did my engine rebuild.

The fuel pressure idea sounds perfect. Hopefully I'll see some results.