I recently got a basically unwarranted engine for my car (warranted only against blown engine for first week). At first, it had poor power at low rpm, my mechanic checked and found the timing was retarded so he fixed that.

The problems it has now are:
1. On startup, it wants to be left to idle for about 30 seconds, otherwise I get misfires and stalling
2. When I get to moderate boost - about 0.75bar+, (it's set to 1bar), I get multiple misfires. The best way to describe it would be like a tiny misfire at each engine pulse. BTW, I have new PFR6Bs in it.
3. My compression looks a little bit low, I get 400mmHg instead of the 450mmHg I used to get with my old engine.
4. When I try lugging it, at about 1k to 1500rpm, it feels weird, more like 1 cylinder is not firing and the rest are firing.
5. Sometimes I get surging under boost.

Can anyone offer suggestions as to what would cause these diverse symptoms?
My thoughts are that the valve-cam clearance might not be adjusted properly, could this cause these problems?

Any suggestions appreciated.

 

what year of car,

is it individual coil packs(on end of plugs)it could be one of them

 

It's a MY95. individual coil packs.

Hmm, hadn't thought of that. It might be as simple as coil packs. I will get some tomorrow to test with.

Thanks, eggy

 

Thats only 5 problems! As eggy said,one or more packs could be iffy,bad or incorrectly gapped plugs,boost/vac leak, ect. Have a good look at anything you can see for problems. Also worth checking your engines grounds/connectors as they can cause problems.
Wouldn't have thought cam clearence would be an issue.

 

I guess this was a case of imagining a heart attack whenever you feel heartburn :-) Thanks, I will check all these simple items first.