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No power when warm


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Hey has anyone had the problem of the car puking out when it gets warm? My 83 ZX has seen two different mechanics and after replacing the ignition coil, thermostat, one fuel injector, air filter, plugs, wires, distributor, flushing out the radiator and cleaning up various switches and sensors, still the car gets worse and worse at loosing power, bucking and coughing once it reaches the halfway mark on my temp gauge which seems to be normal operating temp. It gets progressively worse untill it finally has no power and will start and run again once it's sat for awhile and cooled off. It spent a week at this last shop and he (the mechanic) was convinced it was an ignition coil. He said he'd let it idle and had no issue but I didn't even make it home, it died out and left me hoofin' it once again. Anybody have any ideas? I'm not a mechanic but I'm becoming one with this car.....

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Don't take this to the bank, it is just a grab at straws cuz I am not really familiar.  Some of the ZX's had a cooling fan for the injectors, might only be for turbo model and I just don't remember correctly.  Sorry this ain't much help but all I could think if right off the bat.

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Get rid of your mechanic. Coils seldom go bad and easy to check. When coil is replaced and no improvement obviously it wasn't the coil. You should have the original coil put back is as it's known good and better quality than the one put in. In addition everything replaced that didn't help are unknowns and could add another layer of problems to what's there. Trouble shooting by replacing things is not trouble shooting. It's damn expensive for YOU replacing things that don't need replacing. 

 

Runs well cold.... runs in warm up mode, generally slightly rich mixture.  O2 sensor is in open loop mode. (not used) No vacuum advance to distributor and no EGR

 

Runs poorly when warm.... O2 sensor is in closed loop (providing feedback to computer) and engine mixture is adjusted to be close to stoichiometric. Vacuum advance and EGR now working above idle positions. 

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You need to diagnose what's happening warm that's not happening cold.  This could be as simple as a bad (high resistance) set of plug wires that's overheating the coil, or as complicated as a ground fault with the EFI that's nearly impossible to diagnose.  A mechanic needs to determine if coil output is decreasing, timing is off and fouling the plugs, fuel pressure is changing, etc...  You need to find the smoking gun instead of guessing by swapping parts, or you'll have a whole new car before you know it.  Its not likely anyone here will guess the issue.  

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