The car:
1995 2.2 Camry 177,000 miles
The story:
Bought Camry with leaking head gasket, drove fine.
Replaced head gasket and head bolts, proper torque specs, to the book etc etc...
New gaskets for the intake and exhaust manifolds
Triple checked cam timing, DOHC timing, and ignition timing
Cleaned the throttle body, checked for vacuum leaks, everything i can think of
Checked the cap and rotor, the wires and the coil (even replaced the coil since it had a crack in it)
Also did a compression test with two different gauges, and all 4 cylinders were a little under 200 PSI
The problem:
Engine idles kind of okay around 1k rpm at initial cold start, once settling at 750rpm, the engine is rough and you can hear it missing from the exhaust pipe. If trying to rev it in gear, the car will bog down like it is running very rich. If you let it idle and just slightly use the accelerator, the car will seem mostly normal. But i am talking VERY gentle use of the throttle. Below 2k rpm it doesnt even have enough power to get up low incline ramps.
However if I rev it in neutral it will seem fine above 3k. That may be the speed masking the problem, but it does seem fine.
What else can i check? I know cars pretty well, but this one is stumping me. Every test i run comes back negative as the problem.
Thanks in advance!
Linear Mode
