Hey guys. The other day my car started doing some wacky stuff. When accelerating fast, it acted as if I was pumping the gas rather than holding my foot down. It jerks and shakes. Sometimes it'll be accelerating fast and then lose power and go down in RPM's instead of up. I was thinking maybe I have a bad ignition coil. I put a new fuel filter, spark plugs, and plug wires in it. It had a "check gauges" light on and a "service engine soon" light on. However it showed no trouble codes. Anyone have any ideas? Both of the lights went off now and it runs a little better but still hesitates during acceleration.

 

What guage on your dash was out of the normal range to cause the "check guage" light to illuminate? Did you notice your battery voltage while this was happening? I have noticed on the ole 97 that sits until the battery voltage barely starts the thing, the engine surges kinda like you describe until the battery has been charged by the alt. If I have a hot battery, it starts and drives normal.

 

The battery is brand new as of two days ago. None of the gauges looked out of place. All I can think of is that I was on an 1/8 of a tank of gas. All the other gauges looked fine.

 

When is the last time your o2 sensors were replaced, it could affect something if you weren't at WOT. But if "accelerating fast" is WOT, it could be a coil.

 

does it have this problem with the car cold?

 

Did you ever replace your clutch?

 

No I didn't get to the clutch because I needed motor mounts, trans mount, fuel filter, and a few other small things that brought my budget low enough that I couldn't afford the clutch...

The car has an issue starting when cold on some days. Sometimes I have to crank it 20 times to get it to start up. Other days it takes one crank and it fires right up.

I've never replaced the O2 sensors since I bought the car a year ago. If it were an O2 sensor it would have given me a trouble code. No codes were thrown when I hooked up. So O2 sensors are eliminated from being the issue...

 

If the o2 sensors were the problem it wouldnt cause your car not to start up off the first crank. So your right thats eliminated. I would suggest checking the wiring to the coils. Mine were torned causing me to lose power at WOT and i thought it was a coil pack. That, fuel supply, cam sensor and the tranny sensors.

 

check fuel pressure. throw some sea foam in her if you havent.

 

Sounds like your fuel pump is going out to me.