Vonrottes

I know this is LS1tech but someone has to know a little about the 4th gen 3.8 engines?

Anyways, my mom just bought a beater 2001 Firebird that has a 3.8 in it.
it runs strong....sometimes. other times.... no so much.

the problem is intermittent to say the least.
occasionally it will hiccup on hard acceleration, hiccups are a LOT worse at highway speeds. sometime it will just spit and sputter once or twice and be fine...
Other times the engine will loose power and drop down to idle on the highway and eventually stall then start up just fine after you turn the key off and start it.
if you leave it in gear one it runs down to idle it will surge TERRIBLY (like blipping the throttle in 1st gear) until you put it in neutral and it stalls.

Replaced the fuel filter and that helped a little bit, ran two different fuel system cleaners through it (they helped a lot while they were in the tank)

What's weird to me though is if it was fuel/spark related it wouldn't drop down to idle and take a 10-15 seconds to die, would it?

I'm kind of thinking it might be something in the DBW system? (I don't know much about them)


I don't know much about these engines all I know is it uses the same PCM as my S10...lol

Vonrottes

Yeah there is?
1999 to 2002 3.8 was DBW same as the bonneville and grand am I think

Vonrottes

Well that's cool, but you still have not contributed anything to the thread.

The 1999-2002 3.8 in the F-bodies are DBW.