along with the insane amount of timing retard, my car just doest wanna rev. i can lay into the throttle in park, and it will take like 5 seconds just to get to 3500 rpms. same happens in drive doesnt feel like its misfiring, and the only codes it has if for the crank position sensor, even though i replaced it and cleared the codes, but they came back. any suggestions?

96
A4
edelbrock headers, no cat, borla exhaust, ram air box
lt4 km, OVTC wires, msd coil, opti all with less than 150 miles on it
anyone ever experience that symptom before?

 

Your exhaust is whats causing the knock retard. The knock sensor is picking the exhaust up as knocking, so it will retard the timing. Mine does it with just a cutout after the cat. And I know that Borla with no cats is waaay louder. What gets me is the crank sensor. Check the wires and make sure the ground is good to the sensor. Also, you can have the PCM tuned to desesitize the knock sensor. IMO I wouldn't do it. I would want the knock sensor to pick up any kind of true knock it can. Don't want any blown motors. I don't knwo what to tell ya about the exhaust though. But atleast you can take what I said and decide for yourself.

 

well i just got my tags so its gonna kill me more for it to sit!!

would these symptons also relate to the rockers? since what still sounds like header leaks, seems to be coming from under the valve covers :-/