Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Secondaries not opening?

So lately I've been noticing that if I drive my car around for too long on a hot enough day, I'll all of a sudden lose power in the upper rpms. If I try to accel hard after the point (point in time, not point in rpm) where I lose power, right around 3-4k when (as I understand it) the secondaries should open up, I get nothing. Just a slow continuous acceleration. If I turn the car off and let it sit for a little bit, everything goes back to normal.

So; Is it that the secondaries not opening? If it is, is there anything I can do about it? If not, what else could it be? I read a post from a while ago about the IMRC getting too hot and not working and it seemed like a similar situation to the one I'm in.

BTW, car has 44k on it and no CEL.

If you look under the air intake, right against the engine on the "vee" you should see a little metal linkage that will slide forwards and back depending on RPM. That linkage opens the secondaries.

It may not be working all the time, but I'd check to make sure it's working when cold and perhaps hasn't come loose.

Well, I know it works because everything is perfectly normal on a cool day or on a hot day for the first 30 mins or so, depending on the outside temp.

For example, the other day I was in the middle of about a 45 min drive on a hot day and I pull up to a red light. The car was acting normal. Light goes green, I go to accelerate, the car gets up to about 4500rpm, and makes a short almost inaudible popping sound (best way I can describe it). From than instant to the time I get home, the car feels like it has no secondaries. I turn it off, let it sit for 20-30 mins, get back in, works fine again.

Mine was doing the same thing...till I replaced the IMRC (approx. $120.00) that is located under the black plastic trim piece at the front of the engine. I had first popped the lid on the IMRC and cleaned/lubed the gearing. This worked for about a week until we hit 110F heat out here. Hope this helps!

Regards, Art

Looks like it's the IMRC. Took the plastic duratec thing off, opened and cleaned the imrc a little, the cars been running better. Hopefully I won't need to replace it.

Do you ever notice a surging during hard acceleration? Did the condition that you described result in a CEL?

I too have noticed that my IMRC does not seem to work all of the time. Sometimes I get the surging too. I was wondering if the problems are related.

Is there a way to get the secondaries to open a little sooner. When my secondaries open at 4000 RPM there is a very noticable power increase.

If there is that much of an increase at 4000, I was thinking that I might be able to get some increase at 3000 RPM and get a better power band.