Pontiac Repair: 2001 Pontiac Montana, pontiac montana, head gasket

Question
QUESTION: My van started off losing power and bogging down only on the highway when accelerating up hill it slowly got worse over the course of a couple of weeks. Then it started doing it at lower speeds on city streets. The RPM Gage will spike up and down and I will lose all power and ability to speed up. The van starts to chug and and sputter and a bogging noise comes from the the exhaust. I was told it was a bad EGR valve. I replaced it and it seems to have helped abit but it didn't fix the problem. There is no service engine light on and a buddy has a computer and no codes of any kind show up. What else could be the problem?

ANSWER: Hi Charles:
on those older vans it has to act up long enough to turn the service engine soon lamp on in order for it to store a code(S) I would look at possably a plugged/restricted fuel filter that is usually the last thing to get replaced and they get so badly plugged they usually burn up a fuel pump. When it bogs down does it just lack power or does it seem like it's not running on all 6 cylinders? If that is the case It could be a bad plug wire set. on those vans the wires would go bad usually at the coils and burn the towers on the coils.

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QUESTION: about two months ago the fuel filter was replaced I had the intake gasket and head gasket replaced as well as new spark plugs, air filter and cleaned the cabin filter out and the heads were replained. when the van bogs down and all the power is lost the sound that comes from the engine and the exhaust for lack of a better description is like when you put the choke on, on a lawnmower and it sputters and chugs like it is on the verg of stalling out. will have the plug wire set checked and since wouldnt hurt to replace the gas filter again. just incase there is something in there.

Answer
another thing to have checked is the wiring between the ignition module and the crank position sensor seeing that this had engine work doen to it it's possable that harness was not routed back in the right place and the harness can come in contact with the exhaust cross over pipe and melt the insulation on the harness and cuae an issue where the harness "grounds" out agains the engine just another simple thing to look at. Does this van have a lot of miles on it? A dirty MAF sensor could cause an issue like this as well but not intermittantly it's either an issue or it's not usually it will not come and go like that. None the less there is a profduct called MAF cleaner it made by a compant CRC not sure if you can get it in canada or not but give that a try it's inexpensive. Just make sure it don't put it back in backwards. there is an arrow on the side of it that indicates the air flow through the sensor. good luck :)