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Car won't go past 30mph, bogs down and engine shakes

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Old 04-18-2017, 05:18 PM
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Andre Servin
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Default Car won't go past 30mph, bogs down and engine shakes

My daily is an 02 Dodge Stratus.

It's currently having some issues that make it non driveable.

I was on my way to work and 15 min later at a light the car began to bog down (kinda like an old car with a carb). So I put the car in neutral and gave it gas to keep going. The car stayed on, as soon as the light turned green it was somewhat hesitant and with my foot flooring the gas it wouldn't go past 30 mph. Then it would bog down at lights, and I would have to continue putting the car in neutral and giving it gas to keep it on. I decided to turn back home and park the car, on the way back home it died a couple times from letting the idle get to low (I was making a u turn on a small street). Then once I hit more of an open road I finally got it to go past 30mph but only about 40mph, I would lay on the throttle, rpms would go up but the car would be so slow and not go past 30mph, then eventually from doing the same, it would suddenly begin to go faster but no more than around 40mph. Then I made it to the last light before home and while doing the whole neutral and giving it gas to stay on thing, I saw the mph gauge go from 0-120-0 and then some smoke came out from under the dash. The car was getting really hot I could feel heat coming out from my vents. Too be honest at this point, I had no idea what was going on.

Anyways I finally limped the car home and then I parked it. The inside was a little bit smokey, so immediately I popped the hood to see what potential mess was there for me but nothing. Underhood looked absolutely fine. No smoke, no fire, no nothing.

It was all just smoke from under the dash.

So the next day I turned the car back on and filmed a video of it. Seems to somewhat act like a blown headgasket. Only problem with that is...
1) The car never overheated, kept my eye on the temp and it never went past normal.
2) No smoke coming from the tailpipe or anywhere.
3) my coolant is still full
4)no milky oil on the dipstick.
5)A blown headgasket would explain crappy running, a poor idle, but it does not explain not being able to go past 30, and then sudden surges of power, and the speedometer going 0-120-0 and smoke from under the dash.

-Can't be a rod knock either. It sounds like it's knocking on the video, but I've actually had a rod knock in the car before and got the engine rebuilt a few years back, that knocking sound is the engine rocking in the engine bay. But you can see that it will randomly rock and idle bad, then the idle goes up and gets better and then when it drops back down it runs bad. I've also driven the car when I got the rod knock and it did not prevent me from going past 30, it was just knocking.

To be honest I don't know what it is... no clue....

Compression test showed all cylinders just around 180

So I made a video of it, and posted it to YouTube -here's the link-



So if anyone has any ideas that would be great!

I also changed out the crank and cam sensor and it still ran the same.
 




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