I've got a 99 Cavalier that bout six months ago I put a new timing chain & gears in. A couple weeks ago it started acting sluggish coming up a hill, only getting up to 5 mph. Then it quit & ran fine. Now it's doin it again. It will start & idle fine but when you drive it, it's liike it has no power what so ever. I put it on a friends diagonstic machine & it said all cylinders were out of time. We checked the fuel injectors, compression, spark plug wires, & block sparkplug wires go in - all ok. Only thing we can come up with is the camshaft sensor or the crankshaft sesnsor. Does anybody have any ideals what could be causing it.

 

It's not out of time if it will run. I'd think if it were a sensor that would show as a code.

 

is the knock sensor failing and retarding the timing it might not throw a code for a bad knock sensor


Sean

97 4x4 burb

 

Thanks guys for all your help. Found out the problem was the nylon tensioner inside the timing cover where the chain is was broken. Put a new one in and it's running fine again.