I bought a 1995 cx last week, I felt the car was underpowered compared to the other d15s I have had. I knew the last owner didnt do anything to it in 2 years exept timing belt so I did a complete tune up and a seafoam treatment. The car still feels slow and is very loud from the intake (cheap short ram), sounds abnormally agressive, more than my cammed d16.

I cannot reach the rev limiter, the car missfires at around 6500 rpms. The engine doesnt die, it just stops accelerating right before the rev limiter like if it was running on 3 cyl. The timing on the distributor was completely advanced when I got it and if we retard it, it runs worse and stumbles alot under acceleration.

Since we did the seafoam treatment, the engine cuts out under acceleration no matter where the timing is on the dizzy, the more we retard it the worse it gets.
The last owner had his brother replace the timing belt so I thought the timing was one tooth too advanced (didnt have time to check it out yet) but it doesnt ping under load and if the timing was wrong the car wouldnt stumble and cut out under acceleration no?

I wont be able to work on it until this weekend so I need as many clues as possible and if you could tell me all the things I should check it will be very apreciated.

thanks a lot HT!!!!

 

it wouldnt hurt to check the timing since the belt was replaced

 

Thats what I will do first even though the teachers at school said the symptoms I talked about don't sound like it skipped a tooth apart from the very loud, agressive and metalic intake sound. They said it would detonate and not just cut out. The plugs looked good, no obvious signs of pinging and a little bit on the white side but not too bad.

 

Being off a tooth will cause the motor to run like **** according to your discription. It wouldnt hurt to do a compression test.

 

So yea. Distributor all the way advanced other wise it runs like ****. Sounds like timing belt is off a tooth. Check it out. If that is the problem, you answered your own question in your own post. Lol