Thread: '98 SE hesitating terribly when cold. Need help!

I'll double-check those.

I assume you're all referring to the front O2 sensor, correct?

Thanks for all of the help so far!

both front and rear, u should see them cycling pretty fast. ive seen some that r lazy and some that dont move at all. from what ur telling me the rear 02 is stuck on stupid. just a guess tho.

tune up, clean and adjust everything. might as well take the time to do it now and avoid doing it later.

Figured I'd give an update.

The issue is the worst it's been since I bought the car. The car now essentially just doesn't have power ever. Warm or cold doesn't matter. It doesn't miss, it's running on all cylinders, but when you hit the gas nothing happens. There is a pretty obvious smell of fuel vapors from the rear of the car (near and under the gas cap) after you've been driving it for a while. Not exhaust smell, straight up fuel smell. I checked underneath and there is no leaks anywhere.

There is no CEL and the car idles perfectly fine. It just has no power. Gas mileage seems to be good too at anywhere from 27-30mpg. It towed a jet ski like a champ and since then I don't think the thing can get out of it's own way. I haven't replaced the oxygen sensors and don't have any monitoring equipment to check them with.

I know what the car feels like when it's healthy and it's the exact opposite of that today. It is running like complete dogshit.

I figured I'd update this in case any of the new symptoms help out any. Considering how terribly it's running I am at a loss as to why there's no CEL or anything to indicate a problem.

Tune up and check the cat.

gut that cat, and im having a similar problem, it kinda feels like the ac is on on mine sometimes, it just drags and then opens up really good uptop, idno ive been trying to chase this problem down for about a year now, its not so bad though, only does it when it wants to, try cleaning ur tb and intake manifold, that made a huge difference in my car, there was so much carbon buildup that it just suffered from air, also check ur fuel pressure, thats all i caould think of for now, advance ur timing and see if that helps and dont use cheap gas, pump some v power and give it a seafoam thru the intake hose, that seems to work good too

I noticed after driving it yesterday that the rear of the car near the gas cap smelled like gasoline. The fuel filler assembly (neck, piping, etc.) is rusted all to hell. When I remove the gas cap there was no air suction noise whatsoever so I'm thinking an EVAP leak might be causing it.

Try cleaning iac valve. Might work had same prob I did sea foam on my gas tank and intake manifold and idles perfect now.