been having lots of fun with this thing. recently, the oil pressure light started coming on after a few minutes of running. I think, ok bad oil pump. so I change the oil pump. while I am at it, I get the water pump, and timing belt. put it back together. same problem. so I change the oil pressure sensor. problem solved. but then it started missing. changed the coil, plugs, and wires. that fixed the miss for a while but then it came back with a vengeance. so I think maybe I screwed up on the timing belt so I take it apart, and am very careful to get it right this time. fire it back up and in the first 30 seconds, it is missing again.

oh and about the power loss. most of the time i can get it through first gear, no problem, but when i shift to second and let off the clutch, it just bogs down. in second, it seriously takes me 3 blocks of full throttle (and not sissy full throttle, i am talking pedal to the floor full throttle) to accelerate to 30 mph. when i am spinning above 3000 or 3500 it does alright, but with any load and less than 3000 rpm, it just bogs down and wont do anything.

really don't want to take it to the dodge dealer. any help would be seriously appreciated.

 

was the timing off when you checked to see because from what i understand that can bend valves but i don't know if the timing belt has to be completely gone and everything had a chance to spin completely out of sinc. if it was fine when you checked are there any codes that might shed some light on the problem

 

I would do a compression test. It's easy to do and it would let you know if any valves were bent.

 

xarkhun.
its not throwing any codes at me. and when I redid the timing belt it couldn't have been off much, if at all. six degrees at most.
Richard.
did a compression test. started at like 160 the increased to around 180. nothing obvious there. it was a little low but nothing (at least I think) that would cause the problems I've been having.

by the way, heres an update. changed the plugs again, and it is running about a million times better. still shuddering when at an idle, but it doesn't take full throttle to make it move. but at the same time, it didn't get it back to full power. (by that I mean in second, on a dirt road I dumped the clutch and didn't even spin the tires.)

I am thinking this points to either a fuel system problem or something in the air intake. scheduled an appointment with the dodge dealer in town. gonna cost me $55 an hour to get a diagnosis from them. that's on the 11th. hoping to have it fixed before then so I don't waste a hundred bucks.