Help...Loss of power and backfiring

[red95bird]

The car has always burnt through 02 sensors and had suity exhaust tips since I first got it (43k miles) It is now at 100k miles and it hasn't been running correctly for some time. It's always idled a little rough, been sluggish (it is a 3.4, so I thought this was normal), and generally been weird. It has never let me down though so I thought everything was at least in decent order. Last week the car started idleing horribly, would surge from 500 rpms to 2000, etc. etc. Turned out I replaced the idle control sensor and then everything seemed great. Ran better than it ever had before that I could remember. That was one day ago.

Now (today) it started having no power (like half of what it had) and is backfiring like mad, missing, and running extremely rough, when it idles you can hear various things in the car shaking as well as the exhaust. The best way I can describe it is that it is shaking like a small block with a wicked cam put into it. What is going on here? 101k miles on it, is the engine going on me? What should I look for/replace to get it running right again?

ANY help is appreciated,

Thanks,

Steve

[LwnGy83]

I had a similar problem... It turned out that my catalytic converter was clogged, so all the exhaust was having to go through the EGR Valve... it finally burned out the EGR and some other minor damage... you might try looking into a new cat.

[red95bird]

That might be it LwnGy83, when I opened the hood I could hear the EGR valve area and it sounded like pressure was coming out of it...anybody else have any ideas on what else it could be or what I need to replace? Could a clogged up Cat cause poor gas mileage?

[BLLDOGG]

yes^^^^

READ THE RULES
Seriously, you were suspended for this BLLCRAP before. And yes I'm keeping my eye on you, some people never learn.

[ December 07, 2004, 04:03 AM: Message edited by: navyblue2000 ]

[pontiac nino]

Tap the cat to see if it's hollow or not, and clean the throttle body while you are at it. Cleaning the TB helps a 3.4 a helluva lot with the idle and acceleration.
Good luck [img]smile.gif[/img]