96 Lumina Hesitation during acceleration

[tcopes]

The knock sensor is located in the front of the engine near the middle. It has 1 wire going to it which means that it has to be grounded to the vehicle to work. If you remove the knock sensor, it will leak coolant out of the hole. That is why I just bought a new sensor, left the old one where it was mounted. I just tied the new sensor to the aluminum AC lines as this was a good place to ground it. (The new sensor is not mounted in its proper spot, it's just tied onto the AC hoses.) Now when you accelerate quickly the engine has lost some of its get-up-and-go because the timing does not advance like it should under acceleration but the hesitation is totally gone which is a far better senario. Hope this helps your situation.

Todd

[talon2swords]

I believe I had this exact same problem on my 97 Lumina, 3.1L. Lost power totally and made very loud knocking noise.

I also replaced the lifters and LIM with metal aftermarket one. Yes, it also still had some lifter-knocking noise in it, although after time, it diminished tremendously and the engine totally recovered.

I never replaced the knock sensor (I might do that though-thanks), and it still runs good 10K+ miles later. I would guess if something was badly misaligned or improperly torqued, it would have bit the dust by now.

I think somehow the lifter(s) get starved of oil when the LIM goes bad, etc. I don't know what part gets "worn" but apparently it is possible to save the car when this happens, for an unknown period of time. I put some special "safe" sludge dissolver stuff in it as well. The engine still runs ok. I have a newer 99 model and it make a similar knocking (or ticking) noise although the engine is newer and tighter. I just drive them.