Freelander power problems.

Hi all,

I have recently scrapped my Discovery and become the proud owner of a freelander.
It's a V-reg 1,8 petrol (the dreaded K-series engine I believe.)

I have had the car for around 6 months and I'm having problems with the engine losing power if I try to accelerate too quickly.

All is well if I 'follow the revs' with the accelerator pedal but If i put my foot down it bogs, regardless of speed, rev range and load of engine, eg, weight in back, going up hill etc and I have to back off to below the current RPM then accelerate slowly.
no engine light illuminates btw.

I know these engines like nothing better than eating head gaskets and I'm hoping this is not the case.

There doesn't seem to be any over pressure in the cooling system and no mayo under the oil cap or loss of coolant.

Has anyone come across this problem before or have any idea as to what could be wrong?

Tried the search but didn't find anything really relevant to my problem.

Any help would be appreciated. heck, I'll even let you take the **** out of my 1.8 k series engine :crazy:

oh yeah, one more thing, when I take the petrol cap off to fill up, I hear a hiss as if there is a lack of pressure in the tank (or an over pressure, unlikley as i believe the fuel system is non return.)
this has been the case since I bought the car but the problem I described above is around 2 weeks old.

I'm wondering if the hissing fuel tank is due to the fuel vapour management, designed to stop petrol vapours getting to atmosphere.

Given the description of your problem I would start with the butterfly valve position sensor.

Darmain said:

I'm wondering if the hissing fuel tank is due to the fuel vapour management, designed to stop petrol vapours getting to atmosphere.

Given the description of your problem I would start with the butterfly valve position sensor.

Click to expand...

Hi Darmain, thanks for your response.

Are you saying the hissing from the fuel tank is normal? and where would I find the butterfly position sensor? Is there any way to test it or do I have to slap a new one on?

Thanks,

Paul.

Hissing from the tank is very normal when you take the cap off. It's just the vapours in the tank escaping i believe.

You may want to check the state of your electricals i.e. plugs, leads, dizzy and rotor.

When you say it bogs down is it mis-firing at all?

I may be wrong in the case of the 1.8 Freebee, but on a lot of cars there is a system that purge petrol fumes from the tank, storing them in a carbon filter and then when the engine is in a certain running condition it lets the fumes flow into the inlet manifold so that they are burnt. As a result a partial vacuum is created in the fuel tank, which is controled by a one way valve in the tank breather. When you release the filler cap you break that vacuum and the hiss will be heard.

The throttle position sensor is on the throttle housing and is directly linked to the butterfly valve that controls the air flow into the engine. This in turn is controlled by the throttle pedal. This may not be where the problem is and Freebikers comment about checking the electrics is very valid. If you have a poor spark at the plugs then all sorts of funny effects can result. Check your leads, distributor and ignition coil. Try running the engine while looking at it in the dark. If you have any leaky leads you may see the lightening show that results.

Further to that, according to Hanyes, the 1.8 does indeed have what is refered to as an Evaporative emissions control system along the lines I described above. Therefore the hissing is perfectly normal.

Thanks for the advice guys,

It's recently had a new dizzy cap so I'm sure thats not the problem.

I'll chuck a set of plugs and leads at it and let you know how I get on.

I'm glad about the hissing being normal, thought I might have got blocked breather and that could be starving the engine of fuel.


Thanks again.

Paul.