Hey all,



This morning, on my way to work, I was cruising down the highway at
about 73MPH, when the transmission down shifted to get up a hill, and
all power was lost. As soon as I let it get back down to around
2500RPM's, it was fine, however above 2500RPM's it doesn't want to run.
The car slows down, the RPM's jump around between 2500-3000, and you
can feel the car get power for a second, then lose power and start
slowing down, then regain power around 2500RPM.



This is happening in all gears, I don't hear anything out of the
ordinary, and as far as I can tell otherwise, everything is fine. The
CEL has been on for years (I know, I should get it checked out, but
this is my beater car and I didn't care as much). I replaced all the
plugs and wires last summer, changed the trans fluid and filter, and
haven't had any problems in the 2 years I've owned the car.



My buddy said it sounds similar to an ignition coil problem, a fuel
delivery problem, or an air intake problem. I'm hoping someone could
maybe narrow it down, or tell me something else that could be the
problem, and anything I can do to check the various systems that may be
responsible...



Many thanks in advance!

-Jason

 

Well, I've found that it only does this once the car is completely warmed up... I'm starting to think catalytic converter...

 

If the car has over 100K miles on it, I think catalytic converter. Exactally what's happening to you, happened to me, when I used to have an Oldsmobile Sillouette.

 

Well, I changed the cat, and it didn't fix the problem. It now wants to stall out. If I let it sit for 3-5 minutes after stalling, it starts back up and runs fine for 5-10 minutes. Could this be a fuel pump issue? Anyone have any ideas?

 

Check your fuel pressure, if you can, to see if you need a pump. Ifyou don't want to check it,just go ahead replace the pump and filter.

 

another inexpensive thing to check before replacing some of the more vital parts is the crankshaft sensor. when they start to get weak or go bad, they send a bad signal to the computer. if the computer gets the incorrect signal, it can cause stalling and starting problems. if the engine is warmed up, it uses the signal from the sensor differently, advancing and retarding timing and injector pulses accordingly. i recently replaced mine for about $30, doing all labor myself (which did include pulling the harmonic balancer thru the right side wheel well)