ok so on my way home last night my car started acting funny in neutral/idle very jerky, somewhat sperratic, allmost stalling a few times. i had this problem once before when i first bought my '98. it was a simple problem brought on by a non sealing gascap. ( vaccume oriented i assume) well when i got home i checkedthe gas cap and things were fine there, i pop'd my hood and my oil cap was gone.

ok so i figured it was running like shit because no oil cap = no vaccume = bad idle (amonst other things). today i bought a mew ooil cap and a gas cap ( just to make sure.....) and little difference.

the engine doesn't seem to be thrashing itsself to death but my idle is still pretty rough. allmost like a Harly's idle. so what the hell do i do?

also at idle at redlights its sounds like every now and then theress allmost a clicking noise when the car starts to idle rough ( idle goes from rough to normal back and forth.






argh.....i just started it and was lookin aorund with a flash light.


umm in my exhaust there seem to be a little bit of water, if i look down the exhaust ( to the first bend) i can see where water has traveld down the exhaust pipe.

does this mean im f*cked?

the waters most likely just condensation .

yeah, after i posted that i realized i had seen other cars with a little bit of water runnign out of the exhaust, usually from the airconditioner causing condensation.


but i dont use my airconditioner, but still yeah could be condensation.



unfortionatly still doesn't solve my problem >.<

i'd hate to drive it around like it is but hey i gotta work....

How many miles on it? How old is the timing belt? Tenioner?

Then again, if your oil cap was off, what are the chances you had some oil slop out? I know there is a little gaurd in there to prevent such a thing, but who knows. Water in a spark plug well can result in shitty Harley-style idle. Pull your plugs and see if it's wet down around the plugs. If it is, use compressed air or something to get it out of there.

132k

yeah some oil was among the missing, maybe an 8th of a quart or so, i topped it off so the oil level is fine.

im forcd to drive the thing to work like it is.

ill pull the plugs in the morning, but shouldnt running it dry shit off in there?



pcv is fine, intake is fine, vaccume lines from head ot intake and intake manifld are fine, had a small collant leak that i fixed, still not the solution to the problem. ill have to check the timing belt soon....

spark plug wires maybe? Sometimes when they allow the spark to jump, it's loud enough to be heard in the car.

They're cheap, and replacing can yeild some new life-time warranty ones.

I'd check the typical: spark plugs, plug wires, & vacuum leaks.

hey thanks for the hell guys. but i think i fixed it?

i got tired of trying to work on it and fix it so i decided i was gonna run it like i never ran it before, if it blew up i wouldnt have cared.....


after the 4 or 5th redline in first or 2nd while taking off at lights or stop signs i noticed a change in my cars performance.

when i got to work the idle was back to normal, ride home was great. she ran like shes allways ran.


so i probably had a fouled spark plug or h2o in my top end.

i unno. shes better. im happy.