Tonight I rescued my car from my inlaws driveway. It has been there for two weeks, and we have had HEAVY rains nearly every night. I had an umbrella cover on it, but water still found its way into the engine compartment.

So when I start it, it is hard to start. I figure its just mad at me for abandoning it for 2 weeks. I get it started, and it is idling perfect. I take it for a drive to the gas station, and when I come to the first light the engine tries to die. I get gas, and bring it back to my inlaws for dinner. When I park, I let it idle. It will be idling perfect at 1000, and then drop off and sound like it is only running on 2 cylinders. If I blip the throttle, it goes back to 1000 for a few seconds, and then drops back and starts missing again.

When I drove home (~30 miles) its popping through the carbs like crazy when I am on the idle circuit. Give it gas, and the popping goes away.

So, what is it? Clogged idle jet is my guess. Probably not water in the gas after a 45 minute drive. Water messing with some other thing?

Zach

Sounds like it but why would it clog after a few weeks of "rest"? Wierd.

Sounds like a clogged idle jet. I had water get into one of my carbs and start some mild corrosion in less than 2 weeks time. Had these little bubble like goobers that would clog up the idle circuit.

I'm going to work on it tonight. Need to have it running good for Matt's party tomorrow.

zach

You might have seen it in my "new 914" thread. Up here, it's the ethonal that kills carbs. Stupid stuff will gum up those little passages in a few days.

I had good luck with the "Stabil" product. Few ounces each fill up did the trick. I'm sure there are other and even better products, but that worked for me.

I forgot to use it on just one tank, it took less than 100 miles to get gummed up again.

I was wondering about that.
I have been careful to fill up only at the station in town that advertises "Zero Ethanol" but I got gas from a different station the other day that does use ethanol. Had too. I'll get some Stabil and try that.

has anyone tried putting in injector cleaner or anyhting like that to keep the carbs from getting gummy?

When you cleaned yours out, did you remove them to clean them, or were you able to just clean the jets in place?

Zach

Just the jets, carbs stayed on the car. Usually only one or two of them would clog up. Little carb cleaner did the trick.

What a PITA though.

That was the straw that broke the back sort of thing for me. I did like 4-5 tanks with stabil running like a top, forgot just the one tank and fought with carbs until the next fill up and stabil mix.

That's when I did the FI thing.

There is the chance maybe that the ethanol and moisture has seperated from the gas and settled in the bottom of the tank and maybe you will just use it up and things will get better. Vented tanks don't work well with ethanol as the moisture and air change things up for the worse for me.

glad to here you rescued the teener.

I am still waiting for my exhaust, so i have not had a whole lot of motivation. Not goging to make it to the cookout, we should hang out sometime soon though.

On one vehicle, I pulled each idle, blew each jet out with carb cleaner, then stuck the extension on the carb cleaner and stuck it in the idle jet hole and sprayed.

On another vehicle, I removed the idle mixture screw and found boogers, then blew out the mixture screw hole. Then took the top off the carbs and sucked all the goobers out with a syringe and dabbed every nook and cranny with Q tips.

Hard to say where the source is coming from. Start out with the simpler and easy access points, then progress to the more complicated cleaning.

Hmm, this is a good point actually.

When running the carbs, my 914 didn't have the charcoal can hooked up. Since converting back to FI mere days ago, it's all hooked back up.

I bet the fact I had that small line open to the atmosphere didn't help.

I may have found part of the problem. As I pulled each idle jet to clean it, one of the jets had cut through the O-ring. New O ring, clean jets, and the problem seems to have gone away. Imagine that.

Zach

I need to find a "No Ethanol" Gas Station.

Eddie

I have the exact same problem with mine. Its a daily driver and cleaning those jets every weekend has gotten to be quite a drag. mine pops while driving but not too much just occasionally when i try to accelerate. but the idle problem is exactly the same, i start off with it right at 1100 and by the time ive gone through a few stop lights its down really low, but i dont use ethanol fuel so that cant be the probem

My issue ended up being that I was over jetted at my idles. Low speed operation was fouling my plugs. I jetted my idles down and the problem never came back. Now I am searching for an occasional air leak causing my idle to go from 1100 to 1700 intermittently.

I have the same issue from " Sling Blade Voice " time to time " Sling Blade Voice" Mmmmm Hmmmm

Blow them out and your good. I ordered some of the fine mesh air filter covers to catch crap that finds its way thru the K&N's