slow acceleration on 90' 525i

I'm at my wit's end with this problem. Everything was fine with this car that I purchased about 6 months ago until one night I parked it in my garage and the very next day it started to give me problems with acceleration in low speeds and the car started to shake. I noticed that after making a stop it was difficult to take off. After giving the car ample gas it would pause and then go. I was told to change the engine coil and spark plugs which I did. As you can guess the problem continued. After two more weeks of this I changed the gas filter. Once again it continued. A pretty knowlegeable mechanic friend of mine told me the car was out of timing and that i should have the timing belt changed. Today I went to a gas station for the timing belt change and the problem persists. Please tell me there is hope. My last hope is to change the head gasket which I don't want to do unless it's absolutley a must. What do you think? :banghead:

If you just randomly replace things without doing some scientific tests to determine the problem, you'll spend a fortune and have no guarantee that the problem will be fixed.
Start off making sure you're not losing spark because of a bad wire. Have the car running at night and open the hood. If you can hear a loud 'tic-tic-tic', then look for a place where the spark is jumping. It should be pretty bright. My dad calls that 'looking for fireworks'.
If there's no fireworks, make sure you have a good spark. Take one plug wire off of the plug, stick a screwdriver in the end to connect the terminal, and then hold the screwdriver close, but not touching, something grounded, anything connected to the engine or the body of the car. Have someone twist the key. You should see a fat, blue spark. You'll know it when you see it. And if you don't see it, you'll know you've got something weak in your ignition.
Try that first, and get back to me, and we'll do some more troubleshooting.
Flunky

After receiving a nice electric shock, i took a wire from my other car just for a test. After changing that one wire I notice a difference in my ability to take off. I guess I should replace all 6 wires with the correct ones. I went to a local store for the wires they didn't have them(what a shock) but they told me it would be about $200 does that seem right? Do you think the test proves anything?

hi this might acctually sound hilorious when you hear it. your trannsmission is stuck in 3rd or 2nd gear, i had the same problem with mine, i couldnt get it going and when it did at higher speeds it kept very high rpms. THANK GOD my car was still on warranty after i bought it from a joe shmo used car dealer. after me not having the car for about a month he tells me that the computer is fried and it cost him 800$ do replace it :)
but now im parting my bimma out its a 1995 530i
still a crap load of parts in it
Mark K