90 Beretta running rough, picks up speed by itself

I'm at work, wife's at home, so I may revise the diagnosis once I've had
a chance to look at the car.

Was running fine as of yesterday...
(90 Beretta 3.1 V6, auto.)

Started running rough this morning, check engine light apparently is
flashing, and will gradually increase speed if you take your foot off
the gas around 30mph, but takes forever to get up to 30mph because it's
running so bad.

I'm going to dump the codes, but that sounds like a vacuum leak of some
kind, especially because it "just happened."

I don't think the car even made it into closed loop, sounds like it was
running for all of 30 seconds before it started to run like this.

Plugs and wires are a couple years old, probably due, but not horribly
old. Air filter was done about 3 months ago.

What about ignition coil failure? Would one of them just fail? (It has
the pack of three.) Other than an ohmmeter, is there anyway to test
them at home?

ray Wrote:
> I'm at work, wife's at home, so I may revise the diagnosis once I've had
> a chance to look at the car.
>
> Was running fine as of yesterday...
> (90 Beretta 3.1 V6, auto.)
>
> Started running rough this morning, check engine light apparently is
> flashing, and will gradually increase speed if you take your foot off
> the gas around 30mph, but takes forever to get up to 30mph because it's
> running so bad.
>
> I'm going to dump the codes, but that sounds like a vacuum leak of some
> kind, especially because it "just happened."
>
> I don't think the car even made it into closed loop, sounds like it was
> running for all of 30 seconds before it started to run like this.
>
> Plugs and wires are a couple years old, probably due, but not horribly
> old. Air filter was done about 3 months ago.
>
> What about ignition coil failure? Would one of them just fail? (It has
> the pack of three.) Other than an ohmmeter, is there anyway to test
> them at home?

A lot of those older 3.1s would "sneeze" sometimes on shutting down, or
if it didn't start on the first try....when they get older, and the
vacuum hoses aren't as tight fitting, that sneeze back through the
intake will blow them right off...there is a triple hose plug in on top
of the intake that likes to blow off and cause exactly what you are
talking about...


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jeffcoslacker > wrote in
:

>
> ray Wrote:
>> I'm at work, wife's at home, so I may revise the diagnosis once I've
had
>> a chance to look at the car.
>>
>> Was running fine as of yesterday...
>> (90 Beretta 3.1 V6, auto.)
>>
>> Started running rough this morning, check engine light apparently is
>> flashing, and will gradually increase speed if you take your foot off
>> the gas around 30mph, but takes forever to get up to 30mph because
it's
>> running so bad.
>>
>> I'm going to dump the codes, but that sounds like a vacuum leak of
some
>> kind, especially because it "just happened."
>>
>> I don't think the car even made it into closed loop, sounds like it
was
>> running for all of 30 seconds before it started to run like this.
>>
>> Plugs and wires are a couple years old, probably due, but not horribly
>> old. Air filter was done about 3 months ago.
>>
>> What about ignition coil failure? Would one of them just fail? (It has
>> the pack of three.) Other than an ohmmeter, is there anyway to test
>> them at home?
>
> A lot of those older 3.1s would "sneeze" sometimes on shutting down, or
> if it didn't start on the first try....when they get older, and the
> vacuum hoses aren't as tight fitting, that sneeze back through the
> intake will blow them right off...there is a triple hose plug in on top
> of the intake that likes to blow off and cause exactly what you are
> talking about...
>
>

and yes, a coil can and will fail all at once robbing 2 cyls. of spark.
you can do all the ohm tests you want but they are all without load so
MAY not show failure......test to see if you are actually failing load
spark and then move coil on module rack to see if failure moves with
suspect coil or stays put....modules fail also!......btw: i would
retrieve initual codes b4 ****canning them. all diag. are possibly
important.........kjun

jeffcoslacker wrote:
> ray Wrote:
>
>>I'm at work, wife's at home, so I may revise the diagnosis once I've had
>>a chance to look at the car.
>>
>>Was running fine as of yesterday...
>>(90 Beretta 3.1 V6, auto.)
>>
>>Started running rough this morning, check engine light apparently is
>>flashing, and will gradually increase speed if you take your foot off
>>the gas around 30mph, but takes forever to get up to 30mph because it's
>>running so bad.
>>
>>I'm going to dump the codes, but that sounds like a vacuum leak of some
>>kind, especially because it "just happened."
>>
>>I don't think the car even made it into closed loop, sounds like it was
>>running for all of 30 seconds before it started to run like this.
>>
>>Plugs and wires are a couple years old, probably due, but not horribly
>>old. Air filter was done about 3 months ago.
>>
>>What about ignition coil failure? Would one of them just fail? (It has
>>the pack of three.) Other than an ohmmeter, is there anyway to test
>>them at home?
>
>
> A lot of those older 3.1s would "sneeze" sometimes on shutting down, or
> if it didn't start on the first try....when they get older, and the
> vacuum hoses aren't as tight fitting, that sneeze back through the
> intake will blow them right off...there is a triple hose plug in on top
> of the intake that likes to blow off and cause exactly what you are
> talking about...
>
>
and that's exactly what it was. popped right back on. and yeah, it no
longer fits very snug. wonder how many billions the dealer will want
for a new one.

I'm impressed... you nailed it.

Ray