Im trying to go through my car and find out whats causing it to run so poorly. The car was bought like this and doesnt start well, with it sounding cammed at first and pushing out a lot of unburned fuel. Trailing throttle the car feels lean with a snatchy uptake (although it could be so rich its got a constant hesitation). Part throttle the car is completely unresponsive, requiring half or sometimes more throttle to go up a not so amazing hill at 70k's or so. Under full throttle it blows no black (or blue) smoke and is flat off the bottom, pulls ok midrange then at higher revs (has no tacho atm) either pulls so poorly that it hardly accelerates in even first or vibrates enough that my first reaction is to shut it down. The car almost always idles rough but sometimes you can turn it off then back on again and instantly runs a lot better.

Resetting the ecu seemed to work ok for a tank of fuel, something i cant say how far that actually was because my odometer / trip meter stopped working 40k's into first tank, but it still had the top end vibration and lower than normal for a falcon power. After a tank of fuel the car is back to running like it was before the ecu was reset.

I have looked through a fair few threads on here about this, resetting the ecu, cleaning the throttle body with 3bond super engine cleaner, and replaced spark plugs & leads even tho im certain its not an ignition problem. The ecu also comes up with no fault codes. I also have a new o2 sensor to replace today, but are starting to run out of things to do.

As far as i know my options are dont probably in this order:

- Pull the isc off and give it a clean.
- I have a couple of sets of injectors not being used so was going to try them in the car then get them cleaned if they worked better.
- Double check base timing make sure its fine as it hasnt been done since i picked the car up a few weeks ago.
- Check / replace fuel filter
- Check fuel pressure for faulty reg or pump.

Are there any suggestions on what i could do different or if theres something ive missed. One other thing ive found odd is the occasional smell of fuel around corners. As far as i can see its not leaking out the filler cap so not sure if thats a seperate issue or not.

Cheers!

oxy sensor sounds like

Swapped the oxygen sensor and it seems a lot better. Reset the ecu so hopefully it clears up rather than gets worse like it did last time. Car still feels flat and has a heavy vibration at high revs if you could ever say a 4l revs high, so ill get to the timing tomorrow.

check dizzy cap and rotor ,vac line to map sensor and other lines ,inlet manifold gasket might be leaking .

Will do that tomorrow then get stuck into the manifold once i get some other stuff done. Drove the car around and its hard to say its any better than last time i reset the ecu. Sometimes it drives normal, others like a bag of s**t requiring half throttle to drive around town like its constantly under load even when cruising. Still taking ages to start, more so when its cold

Been sick so havent checked timing, not sure if thats enough to throw the ecu off, just figured it was going to be something electrical because of how it can be a lot worse than others at times.

Now that i think of it, its leaking a little from the join in the exhaust manifold seperating the front and rear sections, not sure if that gives the lambda probe false readings or not.