REGAL 86 regal v6 acceleration issues

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jiho

Royal Smart Person
Jul 26, 2013
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unfortunately my car won’t pass regardless originally comes with 5.0 now it has a v6

This is yet another little-understood detail of the rules here in Californ. Because the car was available from the factory with either the V8 or the V6, you can turn up at smog with either one and it's good, so long as it's stock and everything is there and working. They don't consider that a swap.

There are two gotchas:

1) If the car was California-certified from the factory and there were two different versions of the motor, one Federal and one California, you have to have the California version in the car, the Federal version is illegal. If the car was Federal-certified, you can have either version.

2) It has to be the correct version for the car's year. If it's a later version, that's considered a swap, and you have to get it past a Referee. If it's an earlier version, that's illegal.
 
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ck80

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Feb 18, 2014
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For what its worth, I've had that happen with a distributor rotor making poor contact, the little metal tab was worn and bent away. for some reason it idled revved fine in park but when driving it it acted up. did a cap/rotor and cleaned up the issue.
 
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Albert714

Not-quite-so-new-guy
Sep 11, 2020
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8
Anaheim ca
For what its worth, I've had that happen with a distributor rotor making poor contact, the little metal tab was worn and bent away. for some reason it idled revved fine in park but when driving it it acted up. did a cap/rotor and cleaned up the issue.
Thank you I will try this out either way gotta do a tune up on this car
 
Oct 14, 2008
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Why would anyone swap a 307 for 3.8? Hopefully you figure out this mess.
 
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spidereyes455

G-Body Guru
Mar 6, 2013
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I had a very similar problem 20+ years ago with my 80 cutlass when it still had the original 3.8. It would idle and rev in park just fine but put it in gear and try to go and it struggled worse than normal, my first thought at the time was that the torque converter was bad. I knew the cat was fine cause it didn't have one. Turns out all the plugs were fouled. Put in 6 new plugs and it was fine.
 
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TexasCutlass

Apprentice
Sep 22, 2020
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I had a very similar problem 20+ years ago with my 80 cutlass when it still had the original 3.8. It would idle and rev in park just fine but put it in gear and try to go and it struggled worse than normal, my first thought at the time was that the torque converter was bad. I knew the cat was fine cause it didn't have one. Turns out all the plugs were fouled. Put in 6 new plugs and it was fine.

Thats probably whats wrong with his. I put new plugs in mine when I finally got it running. Over the last couple weeks its been running bad while I've been messing with other issues like timing, vacumm lines, butchered harness wires, etc. Yesterday I pulled my plugs and noticed they're all fouled already.
 
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Albert714

Not-quite-so-new-guy
Sep 11, 2020
37
3
8
Anaheim ca
Thats probably whats wrong with his. I put new plugs in mine when I finally got it running. Over the last couple weeks its been running bad while I've been messing with other issues like timing, vacumm lines, butchered harness wires, etc. Yesterday I pulled my plugs and noticed they're all fouled already.
Thanks I’m definitely gonna try this I haven’t done a tune up on the car yet I have everything already
 

Clone TIE Pilot

Comic Book Super Hero
Aug 14, 2011
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Galaxy far far away
Why would anyone swap a 307 for 3.8? Hopefully you figure out this mess.

That is a big issue here that everyone is overlooking. How good of an install was performed on this swap? Could verybwell be a complete basket case hack job and we can't tell over the net. This is a situation beyond a forum's help.
 
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