engine lacks power

[michael24m]

the engine is a 2.0 litre, 320i '84 e30
for a time now, the engine lacks badly in power, i mean i can drive it no problems, but has very poor acceleration.
if i revv it up, by 4.000 rpm the acceleration surges and stalls.
have no ideea whats wrong with it, the fuel pressure the last time i checked it was optimum...
ditributor cap and rotor are new.
FPR is also new

[MONSPORT42]

At 4000rpm you'll be at the top of your torque curve so acceleration rate will tail off. But power should continue to rise to about 6000rpm. Unless there is something fundementally wrong with the engine, i.e. lack of compression, worn cam, etc., the problem is going to be fuel/air/spark. If you're happy that the fuel pump is working OK and you've changed dizzy and rotor, I would consider a new set of plugs. I find my 323/325/327s have all been sensitive to plugs and I change them far more often than is recommended. It sounds though that it might be air starvation so an air filter change and a good clean up of the AFM, bellows and throttle body would probably help. Unfortnunaetly it could be lots of things and unless you have access to a diagnostic tool and/or a rolling road computer read out it's a question of ticking off everything one at a time.

[michael24m]

hmmm, the airfilter is relativley new, it remains to check out the plugs and the AFM, hmmm...

the lack of power is like this: a daewoo matiz with 0.8 litre 3 cyl engine has more acceleration than my 320i now.

[Ant]

seized advance on the mech dizzy is prime suspect dude, the ECU controls only the fuelling on these, so any lack of power normally points to the dizzy, 8 degrees advnace right through the rpm range would make it down on power bigtime

pull it out, and see what you can see dude

Check all the rubber AFM bellows and usual suspects too

no diagnostics on LE-Jetronic cars( well, that are worth using that is )

HTH

[michael24m]

i checked things out a bit, and there seems to be no air/vacuum leak whatsoever...
hmmm i'm thinking of messing with the distributor a bit. i have no strobe lite for that.
how do i adjust the timing on the le-jetronic engine?
thanks!
ps: i never tuned the timing on this engine since i bought the car

[michael24m]

so...this was it
i adjusted the distributor at maximum. it seems to be just a bit revved at idle, like 1.100 rmp.

the exhaust fumes looked ok.

then i took it for a spin

uhhh mamma! it seemed 3 times more powerfull than before

never knew what beast i had till now