Today I was driving on the highway when suddenly the car decelerated and despite more throttle would not accelerate. When I opened the hood, the induction hose from the intercooler to the throttle body had popped of. I had just worked on the alternator the day before and may not have tightened it throughly.
Anyway, I rececured the clamp and started to take off. Whne I tried to accelerate, the boost gauge needle went into the yellow (boost) zone as usual, the RPM's went up and would max out at about 3,000 to 3,500. The car had no power and would barely move. There was black smoke belching from the exhaust and the best speed I could get was about 60 MPH. I limped on home and watched things as I went. Temperature was right in the middle, charging voltage was in the middle. There were no warning lights illuminated. the boost gauge showed in about the lower 1/3 or 1/2 of the gauge. As long as I didn't make any big power demands it seemed to run OK but was belching black smoke. I used about 1/8 tank of gas to go 12 miles.
I have had similar incidents in past years that have appeared and then just went away. Clearly I have too moch fuel getting in and not enough air. When I was on the highway I got the smell of really hot metal which went away when I got on the surface streets.
SO....
The question is this. Although this car has some miles on it. I belive that mecahnically it is in good shape. The is some oil that gets into the inuction system by virture of blow-by into the crankcase. but the dipstick is never blown out of its tube and the car has passed emissions and does not smoke.
Do I Have-
A plugged catalytic converter?
Some thing malfunctioning with the throttle/valve body?
Plug in the induction system?
I have looked thorugh all of my factory repair manuals and can't identify anything in there that would point to the problem.
Can you help??
Turbo hell in Las Vegas
David Shea
[email protected]