The plugs always come out with a black coating of carbon on them. Maybe a couple of them have very tiny crystalized carbon on them, above the black carbon layer that is.

Leads are new, plugs are new. Althought interesting thing with the plugs, XR6 ones in my stock engine gave me 12.3 Km/L, my new ones mean't for the stock I6 (non XR6) gives me 12.4 Km/L.

The K&N hasn't had the 50,000 Km oil recharge yet, and no oil has left the filter so far, as far as I know.

Coolant is spotless, even though I lose 1/2 an overflow tank roughly every
5 months.
Oil is really good, slightly discolured after 6000 K's, will do another change next week.

I tried the hose to the brake booster this morning and I could easily turn the hose around on the booster by one hand, easy play back and forth, I then replaced the clip on it and it's now tight as. SHOULD IT BE THAT LOOSE?

So this is the symptomology so far:

[Breathless power 99% of time, sometimes the power come back. Sluggish with that pulling back feeling on gear changes, after off for 5 hours, and when driving off, power suddenly goes away and acc.pedal does nothing, then after stuttering power comes on strong as if after being flooded and getting air, then may lose power again straight after]

- Had an intake gasket replaced, and before a little gask.goo got sucked in

- lose 1/2 an overflow tank of coolant every 5 months

- spark plugs always come out with carbon all over them

- air-con makes the revs drop 200RPM and they stay down until turn off.

- poor idle unless Idle screw set to above 750 or 800 RPM, air-con (reduces revs to an incredibly rough 500RPM until switched off.)

- Revs sometimes flare to near 1900 RPM after recent driving when warm at startup

s**t that is a lot I would only use maybe and have been only using 100ml in a 1 year. I have marked on the Overflow tank with a Texta the line of the coolant and I check it early in the morning and every week and it never drops below that.

Yeah ever since I had the radiator flushed and I changed the thermostat soon after, it drops off every 5 months. But the temperature of the engine is good now, even in 40o it barely goes 1/2 way, before it'd get very hot over 3 quarters on the high side. But now I have disappearing coolant instead..

I know its slightly off your main topic Kit. But the last time I was loosing coolant like that it was like 6 months before my Waterpump s**t itself. I only noticed it after I checked under the bonnet and saw that I was loosing coolant slowly and it was dripping out from the front of the motor.ie: Waterpump area

Thanks for the headsup on that Sly. Will check it out.

Just noticed I have a 5 or 7 mm diameter hole in the bottom of my cat converter. Would that be a worry. Is that just the outer skin or could it be collapsed or rooted inside, when I place my finger around it it doesn't feel like a whole lot of air is coming through the hole?

Its probably just the heatshield man, don't worry too much about it.

what he said
teh heatshield is around the cat to keep it hot so it works better...

meh i took mine off

I also had similar problems. Is your car running lean by any chance? and at the same time using lots of fuel? I had these symptoms, but mostly BIG flatspots. and it felt like you said breathless.

One day (last wednesday) in the burnout competition at WSID, I blew up a muffler.. like, oval goes cylinderical blew up lol. So check that your cat isn't blocked/collapsed, and maybe exhaust is clogged like mine? I thought it was a fuel issue also, went through 5 fuel pumps, a couple of filters, lots of agony and money, to get my exhaust blowing up.

My explanation for that would be a build up of gasses around the ego sensor due to the block in the exhaust, and the ecu thinking the car is running rich, leaning it right out. Showing me that my car is running lean. And everynow and then, it would richen it up, or foot flat its in closed loop. But a blocked exhaust would cause significant decrease in power.

...takes a breath.. so yeah.

Cheers

Yeah cool thanks for that. I'm not real sure if it's running lean, it did feel very rich when I had a 91de or higher thermostat in it. Done because last summer it ran a bit hot with a 30% clogged up radiator. Had the radiator rebuilt but went overboard with a higher rated stat aswell. Just wouldn't warm up and ran rich, so it was breathless and rich at the same time, sometimes I felt like getting out and pushing the car to work instead of driving it, maybe get there quicker. Anyway put the original stat back in and solved that problem.
With the problem now, perhaps one or 2 injectors have been affected by the inhalation of parts of the old intake gasket breaking up (causing the gasket to have 3 large holes at number 6 cylinder), and perhaps the inhalation of some gasket goo due to some home reapair job that didn't work (goo never dried, sucked right in when it was wet). Maybe an injector occasionally causes a cylinder to drop out or something?

With the cat, it came attached to some second hand Pacemakers, these Pacemakers no longer have the heat treatment coating on them and the cat may have been modded, but it didn't look great, I've noticed a bit of water at the joins at the cat and Pacemakers, and the fact the cat has a hole in the heat shield, maybe it's rooted. Does anyone agree or look at something else do ya think?

I have to tell ya, the new clip on the hose at the booster end has tightened it up. You could move the hose around by hand with the old clip, must have been dodgy when warmed up?
The flat spots haven't really appeared since I replaced the clip, could be that the power responsiveness has improved a bit too, give me more time. But what is happening now is every 3rd or 4th cold start, at the turn of the key she splutters and kind of chokes and dies a bit to the point of almost stalling, then fires up and becomes stable. Driving off though seems to have improved.

Well my car is a manual so I don't have power mode... but they are the same problems I have. The car has only done 87,000km, new oil, K & N filter, plugs (iridiums) and leads only 2000km ago. Have checked vacuum hoses for leaks and found none displaced.

Sounds like either blocked exhaust, O2 sensor or Throttle sensor. or all three.

Check O2 with ECU codes, check throttle with the same and/or multimeter and take the car to an exhaust shop, they should inspect for free.

Since I tightened the ends of the hose going to the brake booster, especially the booster end, it has improved. And this is interesting because when the problem was happening, (power dropping off at cold starts when driving off), it was mostly brought on by applying the brakes soon after driving off, to turn a corner or something.

That plastic attachment that the hose goes onto on the brake booster is very loose, but the hose that goes onto that could be turned by hand, now it can't. What happens if you take that hose off while the engines going, will the power drop out?

The power response has improved too, shes steady through the revs and gears, feels a bit stronger. Knock on wood that it shall continue hey..keep ya's posted.

I've only had one problem with the connection to the brake booster when I had my EB. Everytime I put my foot down to accelerate hard off the line or overtake I got a loud "whistle" till I touched my brakes to make it stop. Fixed it by grabbing another connector off an ED.

But on the subject... the hose to mine is tight as can be. I have thought it to be the O2 sensor. Just have to confirm it before I waste money if it isn't at fault. Otherwise looking at MAP....

$$$$$$$$$

I have to say it again. My car has been better, especially from cold starts (all the engine power is available from cold startup onward), since replacing the loose clip on the brake booster hose. I can't believe it was that easy, it had been like this for a good couple of years. A 50 cent clip..

Thanks to Dre for that booster brake tip too. Touch wood it continues this way.