I have an nb8b with VVT and recently my car has been playing up. I've been experiencing a lot of inconsistent idle drops where I will be idling at about 800rpms and the RPM's drop to about 200, chug a bit and then I will give it a bit of throttle and it comes back to normal. It started doing this randomly until about a couple weeks ago when i was going to MCM Nationals on a cold morning, driving up the mountain when the RPM's fell and I lost basically all power and it made a very strange sound like it was misfiring and not running on all cylinders kind of luke a "burrrrrrr" sound. I dropped down a gear and it came well again but it has been continuing to do this for a while now. It also happened really badly on the highway and i was forced to pull off and wait for it to start running okay, but it smelt like fuel. At the time I thought it sounded like a clogged catalytic converter or something. I was also recently driving in traffic and happened again and noticed it was almost in a "limp mode" where i was giving it throttle but was not going over 3000RPM and makng the weird noise. It happens pretty often too.
So far I have changed the cam angle sensor and spark plugs but it still happens inconsistently, I plan to change the ignition leads/coil packs maybe, check the cat, clean the MAF, replace the fuel filter/pump until I solve the problem but it would be a lot cheaper if someone knows the answer to the problem. If anyone has experienced this and can shed some light on the problem that would be greatly appreciated
