[DML] No power to pass

["." <jdl@xxxx>]

Question for the group:

I have had my D for a year now, and I have not been able to get rid of a problem. When my engine is cold, I have all the power I can handle in any gear, as fast as I have wanted to go.  

However, when the engine heats up (perhaps 15 miles of highway driving), I can't get the car to move above about 70 MPH / 3K RPM in 5th. At about 67 mph, the car begins to shake a little. The acceleration problem soon affects all the gears, and I soon have no get up and go at all- O to 35 in about 8-9 seconds. If the car is on the highway on a slight incline, I sometimes can't even get the car up to 55 MPH! Trying to get the RPM's up by going from 4th to 5th seems to make the acceleration problem worse.  

Today's 100 mile trip took much too long- how am I going to make it to St. Louis in October like this?  

We thought the problem was a vacuum leak, but that on first inspection does not appear to be the problem. We could not change one spark plug when we bought the car, but that could not cause this problem, could it? The car idles fine (800 rpm) and we have good oil pressure and the oil temperature is normal. The car shifts nice and smooth. The electrical is not overburdened and everything else appears to run fine. After the car cools down it runs fine again.

We had a string of messages a couple of months ago about the DeLorean being designed as an around town car or as a long distance car. Perhaps the person who thought the D was an around town car has always had a performance problem- perhaps, to one degree or another, the same problems I'm having. Help!

David
Cleveland 


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