'93 Legacy Wg idles but won't rev up

Coming home last night, the car lost acceleration while I was doing about 50 mph. The harder I pushed the accelerator, the slower it got, but letting off the gas, the car idles well. I pulled over to let traffic by and only had to go about 4 miles to get home, but only by barely idling and shifting up to 4th gear as the car gained speed to about 20 mph.

This morning, I opened the hood and saw nothing strange. I started it up and it idled fine. When I hit the gas, it makes a whoosh sound with some grrr added in. If I hold the gas down, the car's idle will pulse between 1600 to 1800 rpm.

No check engine light came on. It had a new muffler/resonator/catalytic system put in March. I've been getting a little trouble with the power steering pump squealing and balking when making from stop turns.

Plugs wires seem fine - pulled one while it was running and it was very noticeable and had a long spark.

Car has 240 K miles on it and deserves a rest, I know. Any ideas what the problem is? Would this have a ceramic catalytic converter that could break and limit air flow?

TIA

Reply to
George
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Reply to
Edward Hayes

The symptoms suggest the catalytic converter. The Haynes manual for my daughter's Honda has a slick test that can be done with a manifold pressure guage. Essentially it is:

*connect guage to intake manifold (preferably with engine warm), start engine and note the idle reading *rev the engine to about 2000 rpm for a few seconds (long enough to stabilize) and watch the guage as you release the throttle If the manifold returns to the idle reading within two seconds the exhaust is not restricted. If the reading seems to hang or tries to settle at a higher reading (like throttle open more) it indicates an exhaust restriction.

The test works by pumping the system full of exhaust gases. If the gases vent right away the intake manifold still pumps down easily. If the gases back up the engine can't pump the intake down properly.

One of my sons had an old Toyota that had a melted cat. When we got it out and I tried to blow through it the restriction was about like blowing through a soda straw. I'm still amazed the engine idled.

Mike

Reply to
Michael Pardee

Thanks for the input.

Disc>

Reply to
George

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