Hello,

I hope you mates can help me on this one, because i'm going bozo with it.
A few months ago my belt tensioner snapped (thanks fiat!), because the pulley was made of plastic... my mechanic told me it was a design flaw unfortunately.

This resulted in a new engine head, because the valves were bent and the cams were ruined. All the belts and tensioner were renewed.

Since the repair I'm having some trouble when I start the car. It starts fine, but then the RPM drops to about 800 rpm, giving it a rough idle. If I try to accelerate during that time, it barely responds to me stepping on the gas. Besides that, the car loses a lot of strenght. If I try to leave my garage I can't do it because I have a steep exit. Even if I accelerate it doesn't have any strenght at all...

When the engine is warm (about 2-3 minutes from start) it's good to go. Like it never happened, although I feel a little bit of power loss.
Ah. It's losing some oil from the left side of the engine (somewhere near the pulleys, but I can't tell where from), like 4 drops after I shut the car down.

Do you have any ideas that might help me on this one?
Thanks.

hi there,

sounds to me that it could be two things. 1, timing could be out by a tooth, giving rough idle, make sure the timing is correct before driving it any more as it could bend the valves again, 2, head gasket could have moved when putting head back on, and may be getting exessive blow by, this could be the reason for loss of power, and may also explain why after 2-3 mins its ok due to heat expanding gasket. it may have to be taken apart again and all of this checked, sorry i cant be more help,

good luck mate.