Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting 99 SE 4 Cylinder Code P1383 Rough Idle Low Power

I've seen some posts about this before, but it seems that the possibilities for the P1383 code are many. I'm a newbie and have just started to get under the hood of my car.

99 SE 4 Cylinder

Here's what happened. I added some oil, and out of curiousity, unhooked the sensor on top of the engine to the left of the row of spark plugs, and hooked it back up. I nosed around a little more, and realized that the place that changed my oil last did not clamp down my air filter on one side, and air was rushing past it. I clamped it down, after looking at the filter and seeing that it was pretty clean.

When I got in the car, I had no pick-up. "Moosing" is what I thinks it's called. When it idles the RPMs modulate up and down, up and down. I changed the oil and the oil filter, and cleaned the MAF sensor.

THEN I noticed a hose that comes to the left of the battery, from something under the battery. It doesn't connect to anything from there. Not sure if it supposed to.

That's as much background as I can come up with. Any recommendations?

stevehwms@msn.com

VCT cam overretarded.....P1383. Did you plug the VCT solenoid back in?

Yes, i plugged it back in immediately after un plugging it, and I've checked it a few times just to make sure since then. I wonder if it's a bad connection somewhere.

UPDATE - This morning the car won't start. The starter is just making a racheting sound and the engine is not turning over... That just doesn't sound good.

Sounds like the battery doesn't have enough jucie to get the car going, or your starter is slipping. In regards to the air filter thing... why did you pay someone to change your air filter? That is the easiest thing in the world to do. Anyways, if air was getting in, it means it was unfiltered. A full intake cleaning might be necessary. Sounds like you sucked a lot of crap into the intake. How long was it like for?

Paid someone to do a quick oil change before going out of town, and the air filter change was part of it.

It's probably been that way for 4,000 miles.

Going to try to jump start tonight after work. Still wonder of my unplugging the sensor and plugging it back in may have screwed something up.

Jumpstarted it just now, and it started. It's probably time for a new battery. Still running badly though.

Just read two old posts that both mentioned adding oil, over filling it, and having this problem. Could it be that I overfilled the oil, and that damaged the solenoid? Would over filling the oil increase pressure enough to damage the solenoid?

I will check the exhaust cam sensor.

I'm leaning towards it being a timing belt problem based on what I've read here.

Not adding the wrong grade of oil might do this.

And I don't know what the breather tube is for either.