Rough Intermittent Engine Idle

[JRA2000TL]

Going to look at a Gen 2 MTX tomorrow (all you guys don't start giving me ****). I found a super sweet deal. The car is clean, low miles, fully loaded, great shape, but has an intermittent idle issue.

I asked the guy what the car did and he stated that it starts up and runs fine initially then the CEL comes on and the car acts like it's running on a few cylinders and missing/skipping. I asked about codes and he said he took it to a shop and it spit out a ton of codes (but he didn't know what they were). The shop said the timing may be off and that he should replace the belt and the cam chains and sprockets (huh!!!??). He also said the tach quits working at times....if you shut the car off, wait and start it back up it will idle smooth for awhile then act up again. Sounds like a cam sensor and he thought so too but the mechanics said when a sensor goes, it goes..something about it working off of magnetics....it's not intermittent (I disagree). He put new plug wires in but that didn't fix it.

Yep I'm broke as joke, yep I vowed at the convention to fix up mine (and I will), but I just found this one today and for the price.....you just don't pass it up no matter what.

Just spoke with another forum member via PM...thinking it's a t-belt or coil or cam sensor. Maybe I should pull my coil and cam sensor out and try it out on that car.

 

[kevinspann]

It wouldn't start up and run fine if the timing was off.

I thought the cam sensor would only effect the starting of the car?

Problems usually seem to be the big 3: Cam sensor, crank sensor, DIS.

 

[JRA2000TL]

I think I have a spare DIS and cam sensor in the garage. I replaced my cam sensor on the 90 thinking it was bad and it was the starter....I just hope I kept the old one. I'm tempted to go pick it up, leave his house with it and go to a Walmart parking lot and try to swap my DIS and cam sensor to see if that fixes the problem.

If I like it, I'll leave him a deposit tomorrow and go pick it up next weekend when I get back home from my business trip. Not sure if I can drive it home a couple of hours if it runs like ass. Don't want to rent a dolly to get it either.

 

[kevinspann]

You could check the ground on the DIS, make sure its not cracked too, and the ground on the back of the intake.

 

[JRA2000TL]

Looks like I may miss out. Another person on the forum I think is gonna beat me to it. Always happens to me....it's ********. We'll see though.

 

[JRA2000TL]

Well the car is sold...lost out again. Roy bought it.