My car is a 1991 Camaro with a 305 and a 700R4 transmission. It has 163.6k miles on it. Now onto my problem.

When I bought the car in late 2009 I used it for a daily driver until I went to college last September. Since last September, it only gets driven maybe 50 miles a week maximum. This summer I've been driving it more than I do during the school year, but not a whole lot more.

In the last few weeks it has had an odd loss of power while I am driving. The spot I've had it happen the most is on a steep hill by my house, but it has also happened once while merging onto the freeway.

What happens is I'll give the car gas and it will get up to about the 1600 rpm range. At this point the car will start to lose power, so I give it more gas. The car will continue to stay around 1600 rpms until I give it a far amount of gas. Once this occurs, the rpm's of the car will get sporadic, going up and down between the 1600 and 1900 rpm range. After a while it will "catch" and jump up to about 2100 rpm's. Once I get to the top of the hill, the car seems to stay in 2nd gear far too long and I accelerate up to around 35 mph extremely quickly, as if all of the throttle I was putting into the car before is catching up at the end.

I honestly have no idea what this is. My dad and I thought it could be the cable that connects to the TPI that tells the transmission how much throttle I'm giving the engine. When I bought the car the P.O. broke the connector for that cable and tied it on. Over time it became lose so we created a new connector for the cable. The car shifts much better now, but this problem still occurs.

Any ideas of what this could be?

 

mine was acting crazy like that i did a tune up and a new throttle positioning sensor and it cleared up

 

Possibly restricted exhaust, low fuel pressure, ign. timing not advancing, dirty air filter & fuel filter.

 

Hmm I will have to look into those things. I know my air and fuel filters are good because I just replaced them a little while ago.

The fuel injectors on the car are original I'm pretty sure, and they are pretty gunked up. Would that play into this at all?

 

I know it's fuel related now. My dad and I are thinking it may be the fuel pressure regulator because if it was the fuel pump the car wouldn't run normally 99% of the time. Does anyone have any experience with a bad fuel regulator?