Car problems

[Army31u]

i just brought a 99 ro and it ran beautiful...then about 4 days ago i put 87 octane gas in it and it just started to run like siht since then...it dosent accelerate fast at all and when i hit a hill my speed will drop down to like 20mph...i changed my fuel filter like 20 mins ago and it still is chugging....can some1 help me

[cuda_dude]

where i live there have been a few incidents of bad gas recently and that could be your problem.....i would fill up with 89 octane from another gas station and just see if it improves.

[Army31u]

i tried that and its still running bad....tune up???

[Hypsi87]

the octane of fuel won't cause that problem. You have something elese wrong. I don't know what but, I just wanted to say that the octane of fuel was not the cause.

[Army31u]

ne ideas?

[89IROC&RS]

what may have happend is that by running the lower octain fuel, you had spark knock, causing the engine to pull timing out to compensate, this could possibly have caused you to foul a plug or O2 sensor, and might have put the car in limp home mode for some reason. have the car run for codes. write them all down, then pull the positive battery cable for a minute, reconnect it and take it for a drive and see if the problem has gone away.

[Army31u]

how do i run my car for codes...im pretty new to this so i dont know much

[89IROC&RS]

only way with OBDII (second generation GM onboard diagnostic system) is with a scanner, you can go to autozone, or the dealership, ive heard autozone does a good job, but personally, i would go to the dealership, but im kinda biased that way.

[Army31u]

the mechanic that has my car sais that my cat is clogged up so he has to put a new one on or cut this one and only leave headers...i believe him because b4 it ran like shit my cat was rattling really bad...so i told him to cut it all off.....sound good???

[89IROC&RS]

i normally say put a new one on, but it really depends on weather or not you have emissions testing where you live. I like to have the car setup the way it was from the factory, as original as possible. but thats just the way i do it. But if you dont have any emissions testing, you can cut it out and put a strait pipe in its place. but i wouldnt run open headers on it for any length of time, it will get old, not to mention the exhaust has to exit behind the passenger compartment for any street legal car.

[Army31u]

but will it damage my car at all cause im going to run it open headers untill i get some $ for dualz

[89IROC&RS]

dont even waist money on duals. First off, its gonna be a pain in the ass to find out a way to custom route the twin pipes in the same place as the single exhaust it has now, because there aint enough ground clearance for true duals. not to mention if i remember correctly your camaro is a sixer is it not? true duals is going to overscavange it, stick with a single pipe.

as far as causing damage by not running the cat, only thing i can think of is it might have the effect of causing the engine to run lean, kinda the way it will when you add headers, and your gonna have to adapt to that. might screw with your O2 sensors, and in fact, im pretty sure youre gonna have to run O2 simulators behind where the cat was supposed to be in order for the engine to have a prayer of running right.

[Army31u]

damn...well the guy said hes going to add a cat and straight pipe it or something like that