Hi,
I'm Nick and this is my first post here at the J-body forums. I have been coming to this site for a couple months now, and I finally need the expertise of my fellow J-body owners. I picked up this Cavi a couple months back for a really good price, and it has been running sweet not a problem one. Till a few nights ago that is. I took my car on the longest ride yet and as soon as I reached my destination, about and hour and a half away, I began having problems. The car showed no signs of trouble on the highway and the temperature stayed exactly where it should be. As soon as I got of the highway the troubles began. The first indicator that there was something wrong came to my attention when I was driving at about 8mph in first gear and the car began jerking violently as if I was driving stick for the first time or something. I figured it was me doing something wrong so I took it out of gear and tried to accelerate again, same problem, but I realized that as soon as I got anywhere past around 1500 RPMs the engine smoothed out. So I pulled over immediately and popped the hood. The car had proper oil and coolant levels and was within normal operating temperature. I started the car and went outside where I could hear the very sporadic idle and slight ping to the exhaust tone, which was different sounding by the way. The cars exhaust also reeked of unburnt fuel. By finessing the clutch I was able to drive the car fairly smoothly and I brought it to my buddys house where I attempted to reset the ECU by unhooking the battery for a few minutes. I let the car sit for an hour or two then we headed back home. Throughout our journey back home I noticed that at times the engine seemed to be running perfect even at idle. Then without warning it would just become sporadic again. I am almost positive that the car burned a lot of extra fuel especially during low speed driving. The only recent changes I have made to this car are charging the A/C system and fueling with just over a half tank of gas from a chevron station. I put the car away for a few days and I just checked it out this morning. I removed the rubber intake tube from the throttle body side and pulled the intake silencer tube out and found it to be wet with engine oil, not much but certainly enough to make me question the state of my pcv valve. I really need to bring the car down and pull the error codes from the OBDII but any insight on this tragedy would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for the concern. The car is a 96 cavalier Z24 with the 2.4 in case you did not get that. Also I have had a check engine light on since the problem became apparent.

Check the MAP sensor, and the TPS sensor. That would be my first instinct. Best thing to do is get that code scanned, that will narrow it down to a specific area, hopefully its something as simple as a sensor. Good luck!

Thank you for the reply. I was browsing the forums for similar cases and I found that in a lot of the cases it was the TPS. A few minutes ago I started the car up and being in a more calm state of mind and not standing in the dark while it's raining, I was able to troubleshoot more effectively. I located the TPS and as stupid as it may seem, the other night I failed to notice the vacuum line for the sensor had fallen off! So I popped the line back on, fired the beast up, and just like that my problem was solved. After starting the vehicle I removed the electrical connection to the TPS and then turned the vehicle off. I then unconnected the battery and hopefully after a few hours I will lose the check engine light. If not, I guess I will just have to plug her in and clear the error code. Thank you for the help.