Smelly/underpowered Mi16

[rob321 0]

Hi. For those that dont know, car is a 1989 405 Mi16 which had an engine rebuild in 1999. The car burns hardly oil and does not smoke yet when revs get above 5k it really starts to smell strongly of fuel/smoke. Also the car seems underpowered, getting over 100mph is a real struggle and it needs thrashing to get anywhere, absolutely no low down torque. I have a feeling it could need a new dizzy/rotor arm and leads, also im not sure about the ignition timing, does this wound like the typical symptoms of ignition problems?

 

Cheers, Rob.

[kyepan 291]

Has it always run like this, or is it just recently?

 

My guess, without asking any other proper questions and pulling one out of the air would be cam timing.. if it's that down on power.

 

but..

 

What do the spark plugs look like.

And have you had a look at the caps program that's a sticky post.. i would have said afm.. but that would tend to affect it more at lower revs, WOT@5k it would be open circuit.

does it use any water?

[GLPoomobile 958]

When I first got my Mi, it would struggle to pull past 120mph (1.6 'box). Not long after the AFM died. Started with the revs bouncing when they dropped down to idle speed, stalling, and then quickly got to the point where it just wouldn't run at all. The flap spring tension had gone in the AFM. After the AFM was swapped it pulled much harder and would, as expected, romp past 120mph.

[Anthony 1,003]

A sensible starting point would be a compression test to confirm that you've decent compression across all four cylinders (should be looking for in the region of 200psi) and then check that the timing holes on the crank and both cam pulleys line up with the corresponding in the head/block, confirming that cam timing is correct (assuming standard cams) and it's not jumped a tooth or something that would have a dramatic impact on power.

 

After that, check the colour of the plugs to get an idea of whether there's anything significantly amiss, check the condition of the dizzy cap/arm (on Mi's I've seen numerous caps where the centre pin is missing or jammed in) and as above, worth trying another known good AFM as many are now distinctly tired and the root cause of many fuelling issues.