The car (95 firebird 3.4 M5) has always burnt through 02 sensors and had suity exhaust tips since I first got it (43k miles) It is now at 100k miles and it hasn't been running correctly for some time. It's always idled a little rough, been sluggish (it is a 3.4, so I thought this was normal), and generally been weird. It has never let me down though so I thought everything was at least in decent order. Last week the car started idleing horribly, would surge from 500 rpms to 2000, etc. etc. Turned out I replaced the idle control sensor and then everything seemed great. Ran better than it ever had before that I could remember. That was one day ago.

Now (today) it started having no power (like half of what it had) and is backfiring like mad, missing, and running extremely rough, when it idles you can hear various things in the car shaking as well as the exhaust. The best way I can describe it is that it is shaking like a small block with a wicked cam put into it. What is going on here? 101k miles on it, is the engine going on me? What should I look for/replace to get it running right again?

ANY help is appreciated,

Thanks,

Steve

 

hmm, as far as the idleing goes, check the plugs first(wires, coils etc). My friend had a camaro and 1 of his plugs wasnt firing, so he was running of 5 cylinders, and it idled rough and had a loss of power. So that sounds pretty similar to your story. Also you could check out autzone for 1 of those computers that plugs into ur cars comp. My families car was idling rough and my dad ran the computer and found out what was wrong. It will give you error codes and tell you whats wrong.

 

Could it be a clogged up Catyletic Converter?