1987 DL damp weather power fades

[robm]

Yes, that is the way it works.

 

My sister's mid-80's Honda stopped working well. I traced it to the flapper door linkage and bearings failing. New linkage, etc., and it was perfect again. The mid-80's carbed vehicles were really fussy. Earlier ones just needed warm air to prevent carb icing, but the later ones needed it to get the mixture correct.

[tempStrobeWylan]

Well, this is interesting to an old fart like me. I grew up in the 60's and the school of thought then was that the cooler the intake air the more dense it was. that made for more molecules per cubic inch. That was the idea behind ram induction. In fact all my Japanese car [Honda, Sub, Accura, Toyota] route the air intake from the outside so as to bypass the radiator. I have always thought that even in the winter that would be best. [the colder the better] I thought the only purpose for the heated air source would be in damp conditions.

 

We haven't had the right damp/cool conditions here since I started trying to solve this so I cannot test whether this is fixed yet. Murphy's law.

[robm]

The idea was to get low emissions, not more power, so the air temperature was controlled very tightly, and the mixture set very lean. Cold air into that situation will make it run really lean...

 

No doubt the warm air also helps with vaporization of the fuel. And carb icing just can't happen, unlike with cruder systems.

[tempStrobeWylan]

That makes sense. As I said before the car runs great except for carb icing around 35 F. It also got 28 mpg, which I could never attain with my other Subes.

 

Murphy's law has kicked in. We are getting >50 F weather ever since I changed the vacuum source. Mabey I can control the weather.