Hello Everyone, I have a 91 Sambar S/C Van. A couple days ago had it die on the highway when I tried taking it on its first road trip. It sputtered a bit and then died and wouldn't start. Upon inspection there was no oil on the dipstick. I got it towed home and have now tried: -Changed oil and new oil filter -New spark plugs Once I got this far the van would fire and idle normal. But once I try driving it and it is under load it will spit, sputter, and backfire and will not rev out. If it is stopped and in park it will rev out normally if you ease into the throttle. If you go to hard it will sputter and backfire. After this I tried: -Putting a wrench on the crank shaft pulley to make sure everything is turning good. To the best of my knowledge it seems like it is. --I cut open the old oil filter to look for metal .There was a small amount but nothing too alarming -- I changed the fuel filter and turned the van over to make sure there was a steady stream of fuel .there was. - I pulled exhaust apart at the header to make sure it had good exhaust flow .didn't change the issue - I pulled the intake apart to make sure it had good airflow .didn't change the issue - I pulled and cleaned the MAF sensor .didn't change - I pulled and cleaned the dirstrubter cap - I made sure the supercharger spun no problem. - I checked all fuses - I tried clearing any codes - I compression tested all cylinders at 120psi At this point I'm all out of ideas. Any direction would be greatly appreciated!
You have an ignition problem, bad coil or wires or not knowing if that model has points ignition, points closed up or bad condenser.
To the best of my knowledge everything looked good in the distributer cap and rotor to me. I do know it has new plug wires on it as well .
I would maybe try unplugging the coil and seeing if you can find a spec for resistance and see what you get, just to try and narrow it down. Seems like it's a spark issue more than anything, I don't think these are bad for chewing mass air flow sensor. The other trick you can do is unplug the mass air flow while it's running, if it seems to run better there's a chance the mass air flow is bad but I'm leaning towards Spark
Thanks for the reply .Have tried unplugging the MAF sensor .sounded very bad .so don't think it's that. Will try playing with the spark a bit next time I get a chance to work on it
Little update. I changed all spark plug wires and dielectric greased all connections, I also pulled the 02 sensor in the exhaust and cleaned it up. I also opened the distributer cap and inspected the posts. All looked in good shape to me .I electric contact cleaned the rotor and posts as well. Still no luck getting the Van to stop sputtering under load.
Check the spark strength. Pull a plug wire slowly away from the plug and see how far you can pull it before it starts to miss, should be at least an inch and you should be able to hear the spark snap. If not the coil could be weak or it's leaking spark somewhere, I have seen rotors cause that.
In all my years I have never seen a belt jump "a" tooth. Have seen them put on a tooth off, strip the teeth off or break, that's it. That's not to say it couldn't happen.
Well, not suggesting that the EN engines are at all the same as EJ engines.. but Subaru EJs with their very long timing belts with multiple idlers have had occasion to jump a tooth, especially on the DOHC models. I am not saying that it is widespread, but it has happened.
Update: Problem solved .Ended up being a bad coil .It made enoigh spark at idle, but as throttle was increased, spark dropped off. Replaced and is now running again. Thanks for the help!