Car has 144K so I expected a few problems when i bought it. The owner said it had new fuel pump, plugs and wires put in right before i bought it so I didn't think about it too much. The car though from the start has had little power under 3K RPM and then it would take off and gain rpm like a normal car. The only way to get it to take off normally without bogging or RPM'S creeping slowly is to stand on the brake and throttle and keep RPM'S at the max stall speed between 1600-1800 RPM.
In the car a few days ago, I got a battery light, so I figured alternator was bad. have it tested and it tested in the 93% range so I re-installed original alternator. Now here's where the real problem began that put it down. We hooked up a scan tool, and no codes came back. The car is started to miss, then it would pop and sound like no fuel was getting to the engine. Tested fuel reg and its within spec, tested pump and within spec.

So it started to run better after i put a brand new battery in, and i started driving home at 8 o-clock at night and i start seeing a massive cloud of smoke coming from the engine. I pulled over right away and looked for a fire but found none. While looking under the car, the catalytic converter was glowing red hot. So the next morning it went to a muffler shop, both cats tested and are fine. So I am stuck because battery light is still on with new battery, car has no power at all at any RPM, and it also has good compression. if anybody could help me figure this out i would be for ever thankful.

 

Timing is wrong/off - at least that's usually what makes catalytic converters glow if it's not clogged.

 

And if your batt light is on and the batt is new it is most likely a bad alternater.

 

Does this white smoke smell like burning oil, or rich, like gasoline?
Do your coolant and motor oil look normal?
If alt tested good and you have a new battery, have you checked your primary cables and grounds?


(that clogged cat idea is interesting too)



oh, btw . . . what's an " lSC300 " anyway?

 

What he said. Lsc300???

 

an lSC300 is me not knowing how to type. And yes coolant and motor oil are fine, no head gasket blown here. the smoke smelt like burnt fuel, which there may be a stuck injector.

Well I got a new alternator put on, battery light is gone, car still has no power. Got out the timing gun and since the damper has two notches, i wasn't sure which one was for the ignition timing. The one notch that is yellow is way to far advanced, and the notch that is white is way to far retarded, but when we turned the distributor, it came closer to the marks so I assumed the white notched one is correct, if i'm wrong please correct me. All said and done even by turning the distributor and also removing it and turning one or two teeth on the distributor shaft, the closest we got was like 20-degrees BTDC and factory calls for 10. It drives, but it takes off slow so I'm not driving it as of now. Now here's my next question, it wont get closer than 20-degrees BTDC, could the belt be off by one or two teeth on the crank and that's what is causing the timing to stay out of factory specs? The marks line up on the cams, but the crank notch is off a bit it seems.

 

Timing belt sounds like it might be the issue.

 

Someone didn't line the marks up on the crank and cam shaft pulleys when replacing the belt. Luckily you have a non interference motor so no harm (except for the fact that your cat probably self destructed)

When you're looking down with timing gone by water pump pulley its the white mark.

 

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/att...2&d=1276875413

 

did you jumper TE1 and E1 to get the engine into "base timing" mode?
the ecu advances the ignition timing if these pins are not jumpered.

if you did this and it still is too advanced, then the guy that posted above is right, and the timing belt job was probably done incorrectly. if the exhaust cam is 1 or 2 teeth off (in the advanced direction) that will put your districutor way advanced, as it's driven off of the teeth on the exhaust cam.

i would just start over. re-do the timing belt and make sure everything is right