Hi guys,

I have recieved an old 2.6 TR wagon for free from a deceased relative which has had(not joking either) $12k+ spent on it in the last 3 years at a mitsubishi dealer in Perth. They have blatantly ripped the poor old bugger off($120 for winshield wiper rubber as an example...)

HOWEVER, the car runs like crap, it has great compression, head gasket was done by mitsubishi last year and it has pretty much new everything(head,radiator,exhaust,brakes) and the auto and a/c were serviced by mitsubishi EVERY 6 months lol.

It idles too slow to the point of heavy vibration(i'm guessing lazy ISC)

From a cold start, it runs ok but after 30 seconds will try to stall when driving, so you put it in neutral, give it a few 3k hard throttle revs, wait another 30 seconds and it goes again.

It also DOES NOT rev past 4k EVER...

If you're cruising at say 100kph, it will begin to shudder some times until you take your foot off the accellerator, then re-apply it and it will run smooth for a minute and do it again.

It randomly uses a lot of fuel, but other times not so much?

If you give it a bootful(4k shifts floored) it basically runs out of power above 3k, struggles to 4k and then you give up, back off and it shifts at 4k. Then sometimes after that, it basically dies(putt putt putt) and the car will stop. You then wait a second, and turn the key and it runs on a couple of cylinders(thats how it seems) before waking up again.

At low throttle inputs and normal residential driving, it will get around ok, but thats pretty much all it can do.

I'm guessing it may need, 02 sensor, coolant sensor and a new MAF as a starting point? Maybe new plugs too?(although mitsubishi have changed them every service it seems by what they charged?)

Any help will be appreciated!:nuts:

By the sounds of it, you have burnt valve/s.
The valve seals at idle, seems ok for a few 1000 revs then nothing, well not nothing just no more power.
I know this from my last car (TS magna). Similar problem only found out after I brought a new car and decided to fix it to sell it.

Can be overlooked as a problem if the mechanic does not know about the 4g54 motor

Has the fuel filter been changed lately? or the pump for that matter?

Would valve stem seals cause smoke? This car doesnt blow any smoke that Ive ever seen?

I should also mention these faults are not exactly consistent. Some days it goes ok, for example I towed a furniture trailer requiring a bit of held throttle for longish periods(well as much as I could give it without it struggling/dying) and the next day it ran much better, but the day after that it ran like crap again!

I have no record of the fuel filter being changed, and no record of fuel pump changes.

Also I've noticed that its like the car has a delay on the throttle, so while driving at say 5% throttle and you apply 30% throttle, you hear the induction note change and slight accelleration, then it seems to increase power by 30% again. So for example, I slow down for a corner, re-apply power, wait 2-3 seconds and it goes.
I have reciepts from mitsubishi saying the throttle body has been serviced probably 8 times. lol

But just for fun, I'll do the filter when I can. :)

Could be faulty throttle position sensor. Does the check engine light ever show?

When I was talking about the valves I meant where the valve and the valve seat mate together in the combustion chamber

Hmm, sounds like it could be anything lol!

I had thought maybe tps, as it seems to feel like the pedal and engine dont seem to communicate haha!

I'll do the fuel filter when I get some time(and this stormy weather goes). Where is the fuel filter on these? On my last mitsi(l300) it was under the car near the fuel tank. I'm assuming this is the case here. The L300 had a blocked fuel filter on a regular basis due to crap in the tank, but that just felt like there was a reducing limit on maximum throttle but otherwise drove fine to that point so I'm not sure this is what the problem is here, but it's worth doing anyway.

Wish I had spare sensors lying around to check like my other car! Might get on gumtree and see If I can pick a few used ones up and see if that helps :)

Fuel filter is located against the firewall under the bonnet. Just trace the fuel line back from the fuel rail.

I would do a compression check on it to see if the intake/exhaust valves are ok. If that checks out, remove valve cover and see if the cam chain hasn't jumped a tooth or two on the cam cog.

Could be blocked exhaust through a collapsed cat, or MAF sensor. (It is EFI, isn't it?)

Hmm, dont think exhaust is blocked most of it is fairly new(it has a hole in it too lol), but i guess its possible. And yeah its efi. The head should be ok, chain and head machining was all done last year.

Hmm, dont think exhaust is blocked most of it is fairly new(it has a hole in it too lol), but i guess its possible. And yeah its efi. The head should be ok, chain and head machining was all done last year.

. . . . and I bet it has been running like crap ever since. lol So worth doing some checks, yes? Don't take anything for granted - after all, a Mitsu mechanic touched it!

I suppose you have checked ignition timing?

I've only recently 'inherited' the car, I'm not sure of how it ran before/after this was done. It was done by a dealer with a hefty price tag attatched! They even replaced the radiator ($1700) because the hose blew off twice....

I have doubts its timing as the engine runs fine sometimes, for 30 seconds then dies, then runs like shit then goes well for 5 seconds, then drives 10km no hassles then stalls after some power etc. Its basically posessed lol, which is why I'm thinking its a wayward sensor. But I'll check everything I can!:sook:

Check the injector connectors for corrosion as that can give an erratic running problem also. I have experienced that.
Also had some injectors fail not completely but would not operate properly. When they were tested the guys said they could not believe the car was still able to run and drive they were that bad.
Fuel pressure could also be suspect and also check the distributor cap inside ofr signs or arcing and plugs leads fo resistance. Vee

I have located a cheap wreck that I can try different sensors out of(it was running but head gasket has gone) and see if any of those help. I'll start with tps, afm and coolant/o2 sensors. Then I'll try injectors etc.

Before I go however, I'll be doing the fuel filter, and I may look at swapping the fuel pumps and press regs from the wreck too. I need to figure this out so I can sell my other car, keep the magna as my dog to beach/work car and buy my VE as my 'good' car.

Everyone has basically mentioned fuel issues, and the syptoms fit fairly well, especially the fact it can almost completely die, then 'slowly' wake up again(as fuel pressure comes back?). And that once its driven for a couple of mins, it will do slowish driving just fine, but wont rev, and takes time to recover from any hard accelleration. I think it may be in combination with other stuff to though, so a few sensor swaps may help even more. I will post results here so others can look it up :)

Going to sound overly basic compared to the other responses haha

But pop the dizzy cap off and have a good check, may not be it but I had similar problems as your describing when one of the points on the cap was melted so I'd start it and the initial few jolts would be good then it'd only fire on 2/3 cylinders :P

But if you gave it a rev the power of the spark would increase just enough to allow it to fire on all cylinders agian aha

Good luck either way lol

I'll probably do points at some stage soon for reliability :)

However if you let it idle in neutral or drive in gear slowly(it revs a bit low in gear thanks to lazy isc) around town(1500-2500 rpm) it drives reaonably well. The gearchanges slur a bit and dont seem to change 'right' but I can live with that. But sometimes when its cold, it will just completely run out of power and bog down if you push the accellerator. Shift to neutral, rev a few times(floor briefly up to 3k) and back in D and she'll go again. Basically you can drive it like an old man(just like its previous owner) and its reasonably ok, its just that on open roads it cant maintain 100 too well(shudders/lurches at any speed over 80 after a few mins) and if you try to accellerate at anything approaching half throttle or up, it runs rough, wont rev and dies in the ass when you back off. Sometimes it will go ok ish, other times it feels super slow like about 10kw lol

I would be much happier if the problem was consistent, but I dont feel confident with the car as it is. Sometimes when pulling out in traffic, it just accellerates soooooo slowly and I actually hve to back off to get it to pick up, then slowly apply a little more gas, and other times it will go just fine. Can be scary!

I've had cars with dodgy leads/plugs/points where at certain revs the dead cylinder would fire and it would smooth out, but thats not really happening here. Thanks for the info though, I almost forgot this car has points lol!

Ok, quick google shows dodgy fuel pump symptoms to be fairly close to what i'm experiencing. I'm doing filter(hopefully tonight if weather stays ok), and I can get a second hand pump cheap as to try(even if its only a little better at least it will drive better for now.)

I almost forgot this car has points
Magnas do not have points all electronic ignition. Vee

Has anyone considered the quality of the fuel???
Did the car ever run out of fuel completely????

I remember of a CE lancer when I worked at Mitsubishi with a similar problem....the car came in numerous times for weeks on end with the same issue

Apparently the car had the coil packs replaced, plugs, leads, ECU checked on the MUT (Diagnostic computer) Fuel filter, Fuel pump, Injector cleaner...the works (i hadn't touched the car at this point)

As a desperate attempt to try something, I undid the fuel lines that connect to the pump and the fuel rail.......ran some cleaning solution down the lines, then blasted them with high compressed air.......the amount of garbage that came out was astonishing!!!!!!!

The chances are, it was either dirty fuel....or the car ran out of it at one stage............i'd try this 1st....see if it gives an improvement in the cars perfomrance

Ok well I did the filter yesterday and it wasn't that easy to get out! But all done anyway and chucked in a new air filter while I was there. I also located 2 potential vacuum leaks or at least future vacuum leaks, and sorted those. Car felt a little better, but still had the same issues. Started up, drove to end of street where the engine basically stopped producing power but stayed smooth ish, and then drove ok ish at low speed to the servo where I put in some fuel.

On the way home I gave it a bootfull, pickup was a little better but as usual ran out of steam at 3k, and after backing off at about 80 as it would not go any faster, the engine just went pop pop putt putt until the car slowed back to 40 ish where a couple of cylinders woke up, then the other 2 a couple of seconds after....

Then after about another 5 seconds it was driving smoothly at grand dad speeds/revs again.

I blew through the old filter and there was definately loads of crap in it!

So I guess pump next, are v6 pumps the same? Then I have more vehicles to pick from :-)

Pumps I couldnt tell you i'm sorry

Just out of curiosity....how was this car driven previously??.....it is possible that the engine is just loaded with gunk and the car is having a hard time burning it out

I bought an '82 Sigma wagon once with 108,000km's......car ran smoothly but seriously lacked pwr........for a bit of fun, me and a mate decided to find out just how fast the car could go (i had about 5km's of straight road ahead of me).......the amount of smoke that came out of the exhaust was really something i was not expecting....but the car was running better and better for every km that the car travelled at full tilt.....

I certainly don't recommend you do this on a country rd (like i did)...but if you run it on a dyno at full tilt...it may burn out all the gunk out of the engine.....+ you can see what happening on the dyno computer...it may pick up a fault in one of the sensors...you never know

HAHA I've thought about that, It was driven infrequently by an 86 year old hermit with emphysema who didnt go out much and lived 2km from the shops. It might be worth a good flogging but I'm worried if it's starving of fuel then it may run lean and blow the motor up?

I've had it for a couple of months now and i drive it at least 3-5 times a week and I've done some 100km+ round trips in it and if anything its just getting worse. I did attempt to give it a bootfull a few times, especially when i got it but it just will not tolerate it, and dies really quickly(some times the car will come to a complete stop and struggle to start again(its auto and I hate jump starting if it cranks too long)

Like I've said, if you baby it, it goes as far as you want but you cant rev it or push it! Even when the torque convertor locks up at 80, if you lean on the throttle a bit, the car shudders quite a bit.

I just got to work and a few times for 5 seconds each it ran on 2-3 cylinders after accellerating from a corner(normal accelleration 20kmhr to 60kmhr) and then backing off for next turn. Then you start accellerating and 2 seconds later, it smooths out.:nuts:

So it dies if you back off, dies at first when you accellerate? Also I think the auto hides a lot of the rougness, you can feel it kick etc while driving at steady speeds but being auto I think the torque convertor absorbs it? And why over 80 you feel it more with the TC locked?

Have you looked at the spark?
Are the leads old? its possible that the leads have toom uch resistance in them...not providing the spark when under load
Is the timing correct?

Is the the coil upto scratch?
You have wet plugs?
I know that we used to change the plug gap on the plugs (from memery the stick on the bonnet says 1.1mm......we reduced them to .8mm)

Leads look as though they have been replaced at least once(they are red) but no idea on plugs etc but mitsu reciepts show them being replaced regularly.

No idea about coil etc. would explain hesitation/stuttering under load, maybe the engine overfuels and wet plugs take a second to clear to start running properly again?

Just went for another drive to get breakfast for everyone at work, and it drove about as well as it ever has since i got it which is good, but its still only capable of grandad speeds but it was smooth enough doing it :)

Guess I'll wait til saturday now, visit a wrecked car and grab a few bits :)

Reciepts don't tell you when that part was replaced...they tell you when they were last charged.....i'd double check everything fuel and spark related....but im thinking if its only happening under load....it's more of a spark issue.........but a good run at full tilt should help too :P

BTW, if you getting wet plugs....you aint running lean

Hmm, judging by the 30+ reciepts I have for the car all with a certain mitsi dealer logo on top(s***hside) for frivilous and blatantly rip-off work I'm guessing they may have neglected to carry out some jobs. I have over $500 worth of cabin de-odourising reciepts from them alone...and the car did not smell before when I used to get in it years ago. He owned this car for 15+ years.

So maybe I'll just chuck a set of plugs in(cant hurt) tonight, see if that helps.

I'm actually really upset with this dealer, the poor old guy was a hermit and not really 'in touch' with the world around him, and they SAW him coming. How can a car with $12k spent on it over 3 years be running like this? It has obviously NOT had the kind of work done to it that they claim GRR! :soapbox:

yeah....i'd get a set i of iridiums (if the budget allows it) maybe go a grade hotter perhaps????

Update***

Car still driving pretty much the same. The fuel filter I changed seemed to help, so now it drives ok ish, but still has that no rev over 3500-4000 issue. It drives ok at half throttle or less, but still with hesitation issues etc.

It also half dies for just a half a second when you first accelerate from lights, is this an Isc issue?

Might just do Isc and fuel pump next.

It idled at around 750 rpm most of the time but the car shakes, is this a dodgy mount?

Cheers!