runs smooth but won't throttle above 2000rpm
 

hi all

im new to this forum so be gentle:rolleyes:

i have a 94 protege,in cold whether last year the car was running smooth as silk one minute and the next it refused to rev above 2000rpm, if i press all the way down on the gas pedal it revs at 2000 and all by itself goes to 2300back and forth as suddenly as this problem occurred after about 10 or 15 minutes the car went back to driving normal and did not re-occur,,,,today was the first big snowfall and the same thing happened ,,,,this time i let the car cool down in the hopes that when i restarted the car would run normal,,,,no luck,,,for one hour i was stuck,,,,just as i was about to call the towing i was trying to rock the car out of a little snow bank and park it,,,being that it would only idle at 2000 rpm i could barely move in the snow,then suddenly the car got the power back,,,well needless to say i drove straight home into the garage and am now weary to drive it until i can resolve this issue,,,even when the car has this problem it runs smooth the car is well maintained. it starts no problem and is running perfect now,,,,but i want to take care of this issue before it happens again.

any ideas?

is your throttle cable stuck? try manually reving it at the throttle body instead of using the gas pedal, your cable might be sticky because of how cold it is.

that was the first thing i did, the cable is fine,,,im sure this is an electronics problem like the air flow sensor or something.

to me, it sounds like a fuel issue. the filter can clog and cause pressure issues, but the pump is what i would be worried about here. check the pressure and see where you stand on that. the pressure only needs to change a couple psi to run bad. could just be a fluctuation of a dying fuel pump.