My brother recently picked up a 3000GT Vr4 that was sitting for quite a while (over a year). As it sits right now, it starts up great but as soon as you try to drive anywhere it just has no balls what-so-ever… to the point that him and my dad could barely get it up to the driveway this past weekend (car was in the back yard). I am going to be picking it up from my dad’s this coming weekend and bringing it to my house to start looking it over, but I’m looking on ideas on where to start. I am 90% sure it is fuel related.
Is there an “easy” place to connect a quick Fuel pressure gauge to see what I am getting at the fuel rail? Also, I have yet to look under the hood myself so I have no idea what I am up against for looking at this thing… so any ideas on where to start is appreciated.
no… he was thinking about it. He picked this up a little while ago as a trade for my dad’s snowmobile. I told him he was in for it when he got it… but I figure if I can get it running then either I’ll be driving that or he’ll take it back and I’ll nab my dad’s aveo while I get the jetta fixed back up… lol.
well ok, how about…cleaning your mass air flow sensor (check to se if the honey combs are still in there, car will run a rough without them), check the timing, plugs, wires (have fun removing the intake mani to get to the rear cyl bank, lol), o2 sensors, vac leaks, oil change etc. Did it run fine b4 u put it away? any problems in the history of the car or from the previous owner? check the compression!! Does it start and ide fine? rev it at ide and see if fuel is comming out of the exhaust. if it was sitting for a while, the cats could be clogged, and last but not least, put some new gas in it.
see if the intake pipe from the mass airflow sensor to the turbo didnt come off or something silly like that… sounds similar to having an i/c pipe pop off.
I don’t know much about anything previous to my brother getting it. The maf was on the list of things to check. I believe he did plugs wires, etc but I’m not 100% sure. There is a vac leak that he fixed before he went back to school but we don’t think that was it. From what I’ve heard (I have not seen the car run yet) it idles fine but just doesn’t like to rev up at all. Supposedly he has sea-foamed and changed the gas, but I dont know if he just sea-foamed the gas or if he ran it through the throttle body / engine. He says it is throwing codes but I hae no idea what codes they are.
I didn’t even think of that… even though I had that exact thing happen to me when I had my 87 RX7. Stalled right out on the bridge from Troy into Watervliet and had no power breaks all the way down the bridge.
throwing codes??? wellllll i think you have a solid starting point if there are codes! just get a scanner from somebody and see what they are. im gonna say that its obd2 right?
Yea… once I get it over to my garage and get a chance to look things over I’ll be able to post up a little more. I mainly wanted to get a jumping off point to see if there were any “known” issues besides the obvious “its a dsm”. lol
Any progress yet? I have a 91 VR4 and have had Many problems, but it is a great car when running properly. Sounds like a boost leak. do you have a aftermarket boost gauge? stock one is useless. while driving, if it idles fine but when you give it more gas until the point when it starts to build boost pressure then it almost craps itself like it wants to die until you let off of it till it isnt building boost again. is all of the intercooler piping stock or any aftermarket? If you get sick or need different advise on it message me, or or if you wanna sell.