I had a similar problem to JohnLewis (although I have FI) while I was at ABFM Portland. It happened after a fuel fill up at a Shell station out west of Portland (small town). It happened the next day. I was at a stop light and I noticed it was idling at 500 rpm a little rough like it was on 3 cylinders. As I pulled away I only got about 1,000 rpm, there was no power there, flat. The guy behind me was honking because I was moving so slowly although it was smooth running there was no power. I pulled into parking lot and let it sit 15 minutes while I did some shopping (cookies and coke). It drove back to motel OK (just a few blocks). I'm not sure it happened the next day, but the following day going home it happened after 50 miles were it started slowing down from 3,000 slowly to 2,000 and when pushing gas pedal there was no response even though the engine ran smooth (no ignition missing), I exited the freeway and topped up with gas and with a 10-15 minute rest continued fine for next 50 miles when it happened again. Again I exited freeway, took a burger break and continued on figuring Seattle was 23 miles away so I should make it through the Seattle/I-5 crawl but the problem never happened again (150 miles).
Now my diagnosis is:
a: it's not electrical as the engine always ran smoothly (except for the 500 rpm idle which is to be expected). It happened the next day after a small town fuel fill so it might be bad gas.
b: the fuel pump (Bosch 50 lb. PSI/FI remember) was noticably louder, you could just hear it if you listen by rear of car to easily hearing it from drivers seat with window down or even over the rear diff whine. If there was water in the gas it might have caused the fuel pump to get louder?)
c: the fuel filter might be clogged over heating the fuel pump (fuel filters are huge and last 30,000 miles but I've no idea how much on this one.)
This winter I'm going to drop axle and tank to check tank interior and replace fuel filter and pump.
My point is I had a drop in rpm with no missing, it ran smoothly but just no power. Unlike John's it can't flood but I figure it has to be a fuel pressure drop because of pump/filter maybe bad fuel. If it wasn't for the loud fuel pump noise I'd leave it.
Does antbody have a similar experience with either TR FI or modern car FI or anything I might have missed?
TR7 Spider - 1978 Spifire - 1976 Spitfire - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra
