loke

Hoping for some advice on a sputtering motor.

I bought a new 22RE motor back in April. I put 700 miles on it without any trouble. In June, my baby niece got leukemia and I traveled 3000 miles away to support my family. I left within 24 hours of finding out and wasn't sure when I would be back, a week, a month, etc, so I didn't have any opportunity to prepare it to sit idle. It did have all its fluids changed for the 500 mile service by the engine builder only a week earlier. The best I could do was get someone (not mechanical) to start it up and take it for a little spin once a month or so.

I'm now back to my truck after 6 months. It started right up and went about 100 yards feeling normal before it started to sputter. It was really low on gas so I thought it might actually be running out. Rolled into a gas station and put 13.5 gallons of fresh fuel in it. That didn't help so I drove it home.

Here's a video of the problem.

http://youtu.be/98xwS8pJrOA

No change regardless of how much throttle. I was thinking old gas, so I added a can of sea foam to the fresh tank. I also put a little through one of the vacuum lines in the intake. The engine's warranty is most likely void, since I was required to change the oil every 3 months.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

loke

A few other details:

It fires up and idles perfectly at 700 RPM. And if I give it a tiny bit of throttle, I can smoothy increase RPM 1800 or so before it starts to exhibit the symptom.

ttrmike

Check your Throttle Position Sensor (TPS).

http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks/TPS/index.shtml

tim a.

There is a 4 wire plug on the throttle body that gets moisture in it.My truck did same thing.Pull plug and dry everything out.And your warranty cant be void because you didnt change the oil every three months.They cant prove that.

loke

The moisture in the TPS sounds reasonable since it had been raining for a few days, and it never does that in Phoenix, but I'm sure old gas could still be a factor. I let it sit and idle for a bit with the fresh gas and can of Sea Foam. I've seen Sea Foam bring my lawn mower back to life with similar symptoms after sitting for two years with old gas in the carb. I idled it while making the vid above, then making this post and waiting for your replies. By this time it was dark so I shut it down. Yesterday was sunny but I was busy. Today I fired it up and took it for a spin, no problems. Drove it probably 50 miles around town running errands, no problems. Sounds like everything dried out. Thanks guys.

On another note, I took the truck to get emissions testing. I thought for sure I would need a cat but took it in for one try anyway. It passed with flying colors. I'm running a stock exhaust manifold and a straight pipe to Magna Flow muffler. It sure will be nice to get to play with my truck and not have to mess with it all the time.