My car feels heavy and sluggish. It feels kinda lazy. Even when I release the brake pedal, it doesnt surge forward like it should. Feels like its in a equivalent of "sickness". I just changed the engine oil after a can of seafoam in the crankcase and half in gas tank. Full synthetic Motul 5W30. I did a 3X1 tranny fluid change with Redline D4. I feel like I'm loosing alot of horse power to the wheels. Any suggestions to put some life into my TL would be greatly appreciated. My cousin who has driven my car with its mods told me about a stock 02 TL type S that he test drove today was driving as strong if not better than mine. What should I do to energize my baby ? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

Spark plugs?

How many miles on the car?


Ive done two drain/fills with Redline type F. Its good stuff.

 

150K kms, around 93K miles. I would say around 40-45K kms since my last timing belt change and spark plugs.

 

make sure the car is starting off in 1st gear

 

ofcourse it is

 

Make sure your brake caliper isn't seized. Clean air filter? Ac off?

 

calipers are okay, I changed all rotors and pads recently, didnt see any problem there. Air filter might need to be replaced ya.
AC weather hasnt arrived yet in Canada lol but its warming up maybe that might affect the winter tires to soften up a little ?

 

Get that filter.

 

Will do that soon, U think that can affect performance that much ? 1 other thing I noticed this morning, when the shifter is in D, engine sound is harsh, I hold the brake pedal and slightly push the gas pedal, it sounded like a finished rusted exhaust pipe but when I put it in neutral and give gas it doesnt sound like that anymore. I know its normal to some extent with more load on engine but it shouldnt sound like this.

 

Maybe your headers are leaking? I remember when I had a leaking problem with my DC headers it would make a sound like bees in a can, but I don't remember it resulting in loss of power. It has been a long time though.

 

I also wouldn't gas and brake at the same time. It's not good for the trans.

 

I have the best idea. Get a Dyno and tell us what it is. We can tell you if its normal or not. All we have to go by is "it feels" but that doesnt mean that it is.

 

Ofcourse that's the best way. But that "feeling" is compared to how the drive felt before and to other cars in similar power and also cars with less power. I dunno how to put it in words but I think my car would and can drive much better if its in better health mechanicaly. I was looking for some suggestions to do general maintenance as to restore its potential and power.

 

Get a new filter, change to synthetic oil, get the freaking winter tires off, check your exhaust system. My car is a 03 TL-S I live in MTL, I noticed this whole winter my car drove like shit and felt like shit and was freaking loud all the time.

Turns out Flex pipe was rotted and my rear muffler had a huge hole in it just from corrosion. Changed all that, also noticed my Tensioner pulley was making crazy amounts of noise when accelerating slowly. I got all that fixed and my car drives like how it did when I got it new! Mind you I have 230 000k and still have tons of life left. Just keep up with regular maintenance. If everything turns out okay get a compression test to see how your engine is doing.

 

when is the last time valve adjustment has been done

 

It's time for a tune up

 

Did the seafoam job coat the plugs with crud,and the O2 sensors too?

 

Maybe your IM butterfly valve isn't opening anymore. That will cause a noticeable loss in power. Does your car accelerate over 5000rpm or is it hard to get it to smoothly accelerate into the higher RPM's? If so your IM buttery or IMRC may be getting stuck (that will not give you a CEL, but will rob you of a lot of power).

 

did you gain a lot of weight this winter?

 

Well unless you really have something to go by as far as it being slower its "just" a feeling

Unless things are terribly wrong with it to make it feel that much slower i doubt any maint you would do to it would regain the "feeling" you are looking for. If things were that wrong odds are you would have a CEL for some reason or another because something wasnt functioning properly. If your plugs were that bad to cause the car to be that much slower, you would feel it in the idle, smoothness of acceleration and mileage. A plugged egr port wouldnt cause the car to be slower and would throw a CEL, A bad o2 "could" cause the motor to run way to rich causing a degrade in performance but you would most likely notice that in mileage and the way the car drives. Also it would effect the cat and ruin that.

Also remember. Its Winter time. You live in a cold climate. Cold reduces power. Winter fuels are out there which also reduce power and the efficiency of the motor.

 

Comedy.

 

Limp mode? But then the would a CEL be on I guess...

 

bad fuel? using 91 octane? o2 sensor problem?

 

^ how do you know if o2 sensor is bad? check engine light would come on if its failed, but if its going bad is there a way to tell? my mileage has been down lately barely getting 275 miles to a tank mix of back-roads and highway and a little traffic.

 

Sorry guys for late response, computer problem for 2 days, now its okay. I'll try to answer everyone's question at once here.
1st of all, my weight stayed the same throughout the winter lol.
Filter definately needs to be changed. My engine and tranny both run on syntethic Motul 5W30 and Redline D4 3X1 done last week. Flex-pipe and mufflers should be good. I installed my WS 2, CAI n OBX headers last summer, they have less than a year on them but the exhaust was previously used for a short time. My CAT is original, that I'll need to check.
I haven't done any valve adjustment since I have it and I doubt the previous owner did so. I do have CEL on but its for evap canister. Its been there for a while so I dunno if any additional code might have come up also, will have to check. My car runs 90% of the time on Shell V-Power 91 octane the other 10% would be Petro-Canada's premium 91 which I believe is from Chevron. The IM butterfly's motion fluidity, I can't say bad, I can't say good, I juss dont know. But there was a problem with it once. The little piece of plastic where cruise control cable
is attached to right beside the throttle cable broke and the CC cable was loose and would get in the way of the throttle cable and stuck. My car was revving around 3000 rpm at a redlight. I folded back the cc cable and attached it a tie-wrap.
As for the rest, to be honest, I'm not very sure about what is the EGR port. And the seafoam, it was the first time I used it on my car, 1 can in the crank case and 1/2 can in a quater of gas tank. I dunno if it did anything to the plugs and the 02 sensor. Again, I'll have to scan the CEL to see if there's anything else beside evap code. I feel the my millage has decreased a little bit compared to when I first bought my car but then I didnt had any mods at that time.

Update : I always let my car minimum 3 minutes to warm up before I drive it. But in some emergency cases when I drive it cold, I hear a very disting sound or noise from the cold air intake. Its as if its not air flowing the tube but sand. Thats the best way I can put it. And I'm not accelerating hard by any means. But it doesnt do that when the car is warm.

 

That shouldn't happen even on a cold start. Wierd.
Get your codes read and a dyno test done, please. Butt dynos aren't very precise but if you feel a loss in power, something may be wrong.