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Help me diagnose this...


Patrick

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1991 Olds Cutlass with 170K miles.

 

Driving home from work on the interstate at 75-80mph up a long incline the car suddenly looses power and starts to vibrate violently. As I let off the throttle, the vibration stops. I top the hill at 55mph as cars wiz past me. I figured the engine had let go and I was looking for smoke in my rear view mirror. No smoke was visable so I proceeded on. Any time I would try to accelerate the car would shudder violently. Once I make it to my exit, I decided to continue on a far as I could. Accelerating from a stop was fun... NOT. It seemed to take forever to reach 35mph. Once at 55mph the car drove fine. Any hill caused the car to shudder and vibrate. Pushing the accelerator pedal further down would get past the shuddering, but he car still accelerated very slowly and the RPM's seemed to rise very slowly.

 

At first, I thought it was an engine problem. Then, after looking through the Haynes manual I figured it was a bad CV joint. A local transmission shop swore it was a bad tranny. After they drove it they changed their mind and said it was an engine problem. Right now I have no clue what the problem is.

 

Any help / suggestions!?!

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Sounds to me like a coilpack went bye-bye on you. If you're going to replace them, do it as a unit, spend ~$30 on the coilpacks and ICM from a junkyard. I did that and it injected my old Grand Prix with new life!!!one

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How does it run no load and idle in park ? does it rev freely with no load in park ?

 

I would start by looking at fuel rail pressure, ignition system, pull codes even if light is off.

 

No knocking or other strange noises right ?

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Guest Gp crazy

coilpacks + icm all one unit replace it . hey for the 30 bucks you can't go wrong. may be less if you take yours off and get a core charge for it like i did at the pick n pull i got mine off a 1994 gp for 26 bucks good luck :)

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Definatly a power issue

Its probably NOT your coils or ICM.

A. Your battery is on its way out!

B. Your sparkplugs are SHOT

C. Your plugwires are making poor contact.

Thats where i would start

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