Hi,
I have a 1986 Audi 80 Sport 1.8 injection engine, as of last year it has had a very intermittent problem.
The problem is that the engine seems to have absolutely no power if you put your foot to the floor it just has no grunt. I've had to pull over when it has happened on motorways and when you get off the throttle it manages to stall itself it has so little power. We suspect it could be a fuel supply problem as there is no miss-firing, that i would expect with a spark plug problem. We've gone though and check all the fuel pump connections but they all seem ok. The strange thing is that is is a very intermittent problem it happened once a year ago, about 1.5 months ago and 1 week ago. The only slight pattern is that it has been running for a bit in stop start traffic, the problem then occurs a little while after getting going again. All the dials are normal and it is not running very hot.
Once you stop the car and re-start it it is fine, although it can start the cycle again after a few miles but not every time. The fuel take is not running on dregs either but as we thought it was a fuel supply problem we did top it up with high octane fuel after each occurrence as it was fine after that, but that could also be as it was stopped for a little while too.
We've also tried disconnecting the vacuum tube that changing the timing at higher revs to see if it was that but it made no difference.
Does anyone have any ideas for experienced this problem in the past?
Many Thanks,
Richard