Automotive Forums

This problem is driving me crazy. I have been working on it for 3 weeks now. 3 weeks ago it quit running while moving and it wouldn't start again. It had to be towed home. I replaced the timing belt even tho it looked good. It was off by a few teeth. The car then started running, but it ran very poorly. The engine won't stay running unless I give it a little gas. I did some tests on the fuel pressure which turned out good. I Replaced the sparkplugs and sparkplug wires. I also replaced the air filter. It still runs poorly. The sparkplugs are getting a black powder on them. The check engine light has been on for a while, even before the car stalled out initially. The code showed that it was the egr. I just replaced it today and the car is still running the same. I listened to each fuel injector with a screwdriver while the car was running and I could hear clicking on each cylinder. It still runs poorly. I am out of ideas and am running on a very tight budget. I have to do a lot of this stuff myself because I can't afford a mechanic right now. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!  

Black soot deposits are a sign that it is running very rich.  Disconnect the MAF sensor and see if that clears it up.  

Thank you so much for your response! It didn't work, but at least it's one more thing I can rule out.  

It's possible you may have bent a valve, I would check the compression of each cylinder. If one of the cylinders is less pressure than the rest I would pull the head. I bet you bent a valve when the chain skipped a tooth.  

The timing belt would not look good if it jumped teeth, think about it.  

Next thing I would look at would be the engine coolant temp sensor and the base engine timing.  

Without seeing live scan data, though, it's all a crap-shoot.  You can shotgun parts at it all day long (as you have been) and it still may never get fixed.  

Thanks guys for the continuous input. I have tried a leak down test on the valves and they all look good. Also, I had someone do a scan on my car, and they said the valves appear to be good. Should I still do a compression test? I would have done that first, but I don't have the equipment. I replaced the fuel pump and the fuel filter. It still stalls out when I drive slow. I will check out the coolant temp sensor next.  

Check coil/electrical yet?  

Someone told me to change the Throttle Position Sensor.  

My user name here is Fun{d}sar{lo}w ,so I'm always doing my own work.

From what I've read so far the car was running good until the timing belt problem.
I would go back and recheck everything on that repair
I would make sure that the timing marks on both the crank and cam shaft marks are spot on. And check the camshaft sensor since that was right in the work area. Some cars also have two crankshaft sensors one in the back on the flywheel and another on the front by the harmonic balancer.  

I had a problem close to yours. I did the spark plugs and belt thing.  Even changed leaking oil sensor to see if it would help with pressure. Each thing would cause it to run a little better, but then it just ran like crap. I took apart the cover to the valve throttle and there it was. A peice of ribber blocking the valve from throttling correctly at low RPMs. It's worth a look!!!! Hope it hepls out.  

It's possible you may have bent a valve, I would check the compression of each cylinder.
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