Hi all, I'm really hoping someone can help me here! My 1988 323 has been a lemon since I bought it and is once again causing me trouble!

When I accelerate from stopped (or really slow) the car seems to turn into a snail and wont go more than 20km/hr even if my foot is to the floor. Makes it a pain to try to merge onto the hwy! It seems to me like as soon as it shifts into second it runs fine and picks up speed but ultimately the car has no guts. As it chugs along like a snail, the RPM's stay at idle level (1grand), but every once and a while it decides to high rev at 5grand.

I'm stumped. Something similar happened a couple months ago except to the extent that it wouldn't idle at all, which it idles fine now. The problem then was the timing because there was an issue with the idiot that owned it before me thinking he knew how to fix the crankshaft (didn't put a washer behind the harmonic balancer, the key wore a huge oval away...big mess...)

Before we knew what was wrong last time, we replaced:
-Fuel pump
-Distributor
-Spark Plugs
-O2 sensor

I've been reading around and in similar cases people have suggested timing belt skipping a tooth, plugged exhaust, pulsation damper (somewhere in the fuel line), or accelerator pump(?) I'm not a car person, my Dad, Bf and Father in Law are the fixers, so I'm just trying to do some research because apparently there's no book for an 88 323?

Sorry for the long post and I hope it makes sense! I really need help so anything would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Bri

 

My money is on that fact that it sounds like a vacuum problem to me. Sounds like you have an auto tranny. On auto trannies of this year/series, it was common that there is a vacuum control unit that helps the tranny know when to shift. It's a very inexpensive part and should be replaced even if it doesn't need it right now because it's a good maintenance thing to do anyway (in case you've never done it yet). Also, the vacuum advance component on/near your distributor should be replaced.

Good luck.