So I cleaned out my filter today, and its pretty old. Its all squished and not so cone shaped anymore but more of a beer can shape. But when I pulled it out today, it looked almost like it was sucking itself in. Like when you squeeze a beer can. So I washed it out and pressed it back out into a cone shape.

Ive been having a higher rpm stumble (5300) and bad gas mileage, Im just wondering if a "sucked in" cone filter would be attributed, at least somewhat, to my problems.

My thinking is if the ribs of the cone aren't opened somewhat and then all the air can pass through is the ridges smushed together, its got to impede air flow and looking at the way it was eating itself, it seems it was starting to suck itself in to get any sort of air.

Thoughts?

 

Any significant impedance of incoming air is going to reduce performance. Measuring air flow with a scanner vs. what it was previously would tell you if there was a reduction.

 

I can always squish the filter next week when we scan it. Do you think it would be a negligible loss in power/economy? I'll find out in 20 minutes when I leave for work. I'll report back with anything.

 

Try running the car without the filter for a couple of miles and see if this helps.I used an off road K&N filter(big)If you still get the high end stumble,might replace the coil wire.My02

 

Well, on the way to work it felt 95% better. On the way home, back to crap again. I got home and left the car running with the lights out to look for arcing. The coil arcs inside its little square mount (brand new) so does the coil wire. When i touch the coil wire i can see my fingertips light up. I didn't see any other arcing on sides of the motors to the cylinders.

Like I said, we will be scanning it this week, what should we immediately look at?

 

Was it a GM coil? or accel?My accel blew up the same day i put it on.

 

It was a new autozone one. The new GM one didn't change a thing. I don't think it a coil. Would a bad coil wire cause the coil to arc? The coil wire is a newer cheap autozone wire, the rest of the wires are accels.

 

Check for excessive plug gaps. If the voltage can't jump the gap in the plug, is going to take the next path of least resistance. A "cheap" coil wire may not have good insulation.

 

I know they are gapped at 55. I know its high, but whoever owned it before me did it and I know its a bitch to change them and the car was running great before so I never bothered much to put them back at 45-50.

Autozone and Pep Boys don't have them in stock. 5-7 days to get them ordered and by then I'll be in AZ where I can work on my car.

We will see. Knock on wood, but hope its not an Optispark, but 173k on the clock and its most likely still the original as the original coil was on the car. I don't want it to be the opti because I feel they are misdiagnosed so much as it is but Im no expert.

 

I would take the time to get your plug gap right. Might as well eliminate things that might contribute to your problem than blindly trying to fix things or throwing money in parts at it.

I like to fix things I know are wrong before trying to figure out what else is wrong. Did you check your air filter again to make sure it didn't collapse again? If its been collapsed once the odds of it happening again are greater. Might as well spend the money on a new one so you don't have to worry about it.

 

A filter doesn't just "collapse". There has to be some kind of pressure, and the only pressure would be a high differential pressure due to it being seriously dirty/clogged. I effect, the engine is sucking the filter in.

As noted above, the entire filter should be replaced.

Are you using platinum plugs? If they lose a platinum puck, you get a huge gap, and the spark may not be able to jump the gap.