driving down the M54 i think it was about a month ago, going round a long corner at perfectly reasonable 70 mph when half way around the car just seemed to lose power. continued driving and all seemed well upto 60-65mph, at which point it became juddery and gutless and simply refused to go faster. problem stuck until a while later after a thrash around country lanes.

this seemed to clear up the issue, and on the return motorway journey all was well.

forward to yesterday, same road, same corner, exactly the same thing happened again!

any ideas?

i've been suffering with exactly the same problem on my pickup, after a long sweeping left hand bend taken at speed i seem to run rough for a while an occasionally get large amounts of oil smoke from the exhaust... i'm pretty certain it's caused by oil surge due to the centrifugal force from corning forcing the oil to one side of the sump which then gets whipped up an aerated and makes the engine run really bad for a few miles...

i would check in your case that you haven't overfilled the engine oil

i've been suffering with exactly the same problem on my pickup, after a long sweeping left hand bend taken at speed i seem to run rough for a while an occasionally get large amounts of oil smoke from the exhaust... i'm pretty certain it's caused by oil surge due to the centrifugal force from corning forcing the oil to one side of the sump which then gets whipped up an aerated and makes the engine run really bad for a few miles...

i would check in your case that you haven't overfilled the engine oil

heh, oil level is fine. slightly overdue for a change and it was cheap asda oil though, and it was indeed a left hander.

i had it in my mind it was more to do with steering or something, as it didnt sort itsself out until after i had thrown it around a few corners on country lanes, and fealt as if possibly only one wheel was driving..

Is fuel starvation a possibility on a Felicia? The Estelle and Rapid were certainly capable of 'running out' of fuel when turning left (or was it right? it's been a while) if the tank was a bit low, although in that case the design of the tank certainly exacerbated the effect. It's a thought, although I'd imagine it would clear up a bit sooner if that were the case, unless the fuel pump were struggling to maintain pressure anyway, which you'd probably know about. Oil surge sounds just as likely - I don't think the engine has been redesigned all that much since it's longitudinally-mounted origins.

tank is always pretty full

Carb or injection??

it could be the float tank in the carb is not filling to the correct level and sucking air when you corner at speed. Had this happen on an old Renault.

Oops. just notice mpi.

OK, could be something stuck in the fuel system that partially blocks the pipe when it moves, then gets knocked clear after some aggressive cornering. I would strip and clean the fuel pies, starting at the front and moving backwards towards the tank and paying extra attention to the pipes either side of the fuel pump and fuel filters.

I suspect you ran the tank dry, or nearly dry at some point an sucked some crud out of the bottom of the tank.

how the heck do you open the access hole under the back seats? im assuming it unscrews? cant shift it

my advice is leave the fuel pump well alone, there won't be any blockages there

would still like to check the tank etc for crud if at all possible?

would still like to check the tank etc for crud if at all possible?

You would have to get the tank emptied, removed, and cleaned.

The problem is people rarely let their tanks run really low, so the crud builds up instead of being regularly pulled up into the fuel filter, the more it builds up the more likely it will cause a problem when you DO run the tank dry.

I ALWAYS run my tank down to the last couple of litres before refilling; so the crud cant build up, but gets pulled into the fuel filter and removed at every other service. In the last 25 years I have twice had a car run dry due to guage problems and both restarted without any problem when the tank was refilled.

would still like to check the tank etc for crud if at all possible?

undo the 3 screws and lift off the cover... you might need to jab a flat bladed screwdriver in there to persuade the cover off if it's been on there a while

all is well in the tank, fuel level seems to make no difference. problem still exists with fresh oil (minimum).

could it be electrical? something shorting maybe? as the battery seems to have started draining overnight occasionally, and there sometime seems to be a slight delay after turning the key before engine turns over. also the stereo (non standard) turned itsself off/on a few times recently while driving along.

havent been able to notice any other patterns of when it happens other than long fast left-handers. motorway exits etc.. can be flying along at 70ish *cough* then mid-corner the power loss hits. if i nurse the accelerator it will just about maintain 60mph max, while flooring the accellerator causes it to slow down more.

changing/reselecting gear seems to solve the problem for around 2-5 seconds before it starts up again, and will continue until I can give it a good thrashing on country lanes. a brisk lap or 2 around a service station just wont do, even though it drives perfectly normal upto 50-60mph.

thanks for the help so far, still hoping we can get to the bottom of it

on another note, it has been suggested the cat could be damaged/blocked, could this be a possibility?

Edited 25 September, 201015 yr by J242

problem solved with new fuel pump

I was about to say fuel pump as we have done a few like that..

one note about "crud" in the tank... the same amount of it is in there whether its full or empty so not really any benifit to running it really low, especially when you consider the pump is pumping the fuel thru at such a rate that every litre in the tank would have passed thru the pump 100's of times by the time you have used a tankfull..

we had a felly that would cut out after going straight over a largish roundabout (left right left lol) then go again and I found that the + wire had actually parted from the pump and was just sat on the terminal merryily sparking away as the fuel washed over it :S

it had burnt away the spade terminal over time and how it never caught fire i do not know.

good that you fixed it

on another note.. i mentioned a problem before where after driving along normally, coming to a stop (when putting clutch in) would cause engine to 'die' rather often but restart without problem. this also seems to be solved

edit: never mind, problem persists :(

Edited 7 November, 201015 yr by J242