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Hi - I'm not really sure if this post belongs on this form, but you guys are the best match that I was able to find that may help with my problem.

My gf has a 1992 Mitsubishi Mirage (I4 1.5L NA, Auto, 89k). When she starts the car and its cold, it will not idle itself. You need to manually hold the throttle open and idle. You also need to give the car gas, kinda like it was carburated (sp?), but of course its not, it has FI.

Anyways...took it to a dealer (thinking maybe it was a sensor, ECTS or O2 or something) and they said that they wanted to replace the engine, or at least rebuild the top half. They said it basically has 1 good cylinder and three that are shot. We walked out with the car like it was, as I wanted to look into it more.

So, I did a compression test and here are my results (in PSI, cylinders 1-4 in that order):

170, 130, 70, 35

Then I added a cap of oil (5w-30) to cylinders 2, 3 and 4 and did the test again...

170, 170, 120, 55

Now onto what's wrong. I'm hoping its the head gasket out of simplicity sake. Figure a day of work and a $50 part to solve the problem would be great. This seems to be reasonable, because of the exhaust, coolant (she's loosing it slowly) and adjacent cylinders having problems.

However, the higher numbers on the wet test lead me to believe that the piston rings aren't in great shape either, and cylinder 4 may be in big trouble no matter what (totally shot rings, hole in piston, etc). Another possibality is stuck valves.

One more thing...once the car is up to temp it runs like a champ. The plugs looked good, so I don't think its a fuel issue or anything like that.

Now my situation. We're buying her a new car in a few weeks, so I'm not that worried about this. I was thinking of keeping it to toy with and tear apart and see if I could rebuild it. I'm not looking to swap engines or anything, I would just like to fix this one if it wouldn't be that expensive.

Has anyone seen a problem similar to this with these cars? Any thoughts on what the problem is? I don't have the tools to do a leak down test. However, I'm fairly confident that the head gasket is at least part of the problem.

Thanks!

Yeah this is a known issue I just replaced that motor with that exact same issue (It had about 150 000 miles on it). I got one with 30 000 miles for like $300 USD it runs fantastic now... (better than i ever saw this car do) I figured it was a bad O2 but then the timing belt slipped a few teeth and mashed my valves it was leaking a bit of oil already so I just put the new motor in. Fix 3 problems at once for the same price I would have paid to fix 1 problem.

got a 91 with 212,00 miles on it, runs better than ever, and since we had a new computter put in it has MUCH more balls than before, sorry though, we haven,t had any problems of the sort

The idle problem could be attributed to the fact that you appear to be running on only three cylinders, but the other could be the Idle Control Sensor Motor, which is a part on the throttle body. I work for Mitsubishi and one of our techs said this is a common problem. It needs to be fixed soon or else it WILL burn out your ECU. You can either get a new ICS motor and Fast Idle Valve, or just get a used throttle body with everything still on it. Make sure that it was working fine before it was taken off. You'll need to investigate that faulty cylinder on your own though.

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Jason Veraldi
Scammer
http://www.4g61t.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=34532

That motor is not worth the time, look for a used one from a junk yard, and just swap the same type of motor in there.

99 Maxima? KOOL!

ive got a 92 Maxipad SE 5spd.

http://www.maxima.org?