A friend of a friend just bought a '91 NA...told me it was "lugging" so i told them to come up this weekend and I'd take a look at it. During the process they were telling me how it loses power up hills, etc... so i did a poor man compression test, and checked the plugs. Both rotors sounded pretty good, but when I went to take the plug wires off the front rotor, they were barely on, not even clipped right...so i put them back on tight. Next we checked timing, it was way advance, roughly 15degrees, set it back to around 5 and it idled/ran a lot better initially... we then proceeded to take it for a drive. The owner said it was running a lot better than ever before(i had never ridden in it prior to this). he said usually he couldnt even make it to 2nd gear before it would "lug". We got out on the highway..took off, ran great to about 5K in 2nd, and i was introduced to the "lugging" ..it's almost like the car is misfiring but it's causing the car to front to back and chug along when giving it gas. Now the plugs were a little old when I pulled them, and I told him since we adjusted the timing and put the wires back on tight...and it made an initial difference it could still be ignition related... we got back to the garage, rechecked timing, and it was about 2 degrees retarded. The ECU must have switched the timing on us..



I've never felt this "lug" or "chugging" before...any thoughts? We didn't jump the diagnastics port when we adjusted the timing though...so that could be an issue too. What could cause this?

check it for codes! if you get no codes look at the following



1. does the afm have the white dot on it? they were updated, if it doesnt have the white dot, its bad. if it does it still might be bad



2. tps? really should set a code, but maybe not?

Well, I know it'll throw a code. I don't have the car with me now as it went home w/ the owner, but he's supposed to call and let me know how everything goes this week w/ the tune-up (I told him to get new plugs/wires as they were a little old)



Interesting about the white dot though... I never knew that. The car did sit for several years, so it's possible it was never replaced. I'll check in w/ him and see where we are at.



I'll also check the TPS, I would have given more time..but it was cold and they wanted to get to HOOTERS, lol.