RPM's drop, loosing power - misfire?

[pieter3d]

Yo all,
I have been experiencing a new problem lately. Sometimes while driving, the tach drops to about half the value it was at, but the engine keeps running the same speed, I can hear it. Also when this happens, I lose like half the power of the engine, and if I start from a stoplight when it is doing this, I need to draw out my clutch release way more and use much higher rpms. It sounds like clattering when I do that too. Then when driving it will just randomly recover.

It doesn't seem to matter if I am just starting the car or its been warm, or aggressive driving or not, its completely random.
The only thing I can guess is that a cylinder is misfiring and that it somehow screws up the tach measurement. However no dash lights come on - weird.
Any idea's?

 

[masho95]

Sounds like a camshaft position sensor. When it's happening from a stop and you try to go, does the car buck?

 

[pieter3d]

Yes, but only if its in that mode. It feels like driving a way underpowered car But somtimes it accelerates normally.

 

[pieter3d]

So I've finally found some keywords that let em search the forum for similar problems.
Seems it might be the Coil pack or DIS module that are dead. What are these things and where under the hood are they?

 

[SHOtimer]

Your cam sensor is a much more likely culprit than the DIS or coilpack..

Doug

 

[pieter3d]

Where is the camshaft sensor?

 

[bertha66]

The cam sensor is on the passenger side, on the of the head closest to the firewall. It has two small bolts holding it to the head. It is round with a plug going into one edge. I took the battery out and reached acrossed the front of the engine to get to it.

 

[pieter3d]

Hmmmm... sounds like something I can't really fix myself without screwing up the timing.

 

[pieter3d]

Ah well tis a moot point now - i bought an RX8. I loved my SHO, but man it was just not worth the hassle anymore with 150k miles
-peace