Awful weak 1st gear on hills

[Belker]

Hi everyone!
bought a Starlet GT EP-82 a couple of weeks ago, I'm driving it in Nairobi which is a painful town sometimes. The traffic can be horrible and there are a lot of steep hills with queues all the time, which means a lot of balancing.
Now, at some points I feel my 1st gear is way to weak if you start the car just in the beginning of a very steep hill (we are talking about a lot of degrees...) The 1st gear just don't pick up power enough, even if I press the pedal to the floor. Instead the engine switches off.
What's wrong? Even corollas from the 1960:s can go there, but not me.
What's the first thing I should check out? The car works excellent from gear 2 and upwards, so it's not misfiring.

Thanks for any help!

 

[ralphie_EP82]

think you might just need to rev it up a bit more to spool the turbo because its sounds like turbo lag bud.

 

[96v]

i dont think the lag is that much on a ct9 mate! even without a turbo im sure it would make it up a hill, just slowly

 

[alotofpower]

did you try switching the tubes for more boost in first gear

 

[somal]

u dont need to be on boost to get power out of first gear, u seem to have something breaking down, u gotta check to see if the car is reving high because if u are in traffic u cant allow boost to come in

 

[yiph]

Hi everyone!
The 1st gear just don't pick up power enough, even if I press the pedal to the floor. Instead the engine switches off.
What's wrong?

What revs are you running at when the engine is struggling? And when does it cut off?

 

[chrisinflight]

Hi, Have you cleaned the intercooler fins and replaced/cleaned the air-filter?

 

[Murray]

Is your gear selector cables ok?
It might be that they are defective and you think you are in 1st gear but the box is in 3rd?
The cables might not be moving the linkages to select 1st.

Murray

 

[Belker]

Below 2000 rpm the engine will stall when pushing the accelerator. So I have to rev to 2500 before releasing the clutch, which makes me burn a lot of fuel. However, I have a guy working with rally teams here that will check the car tomorrow. I'll talk to him about the cables. He actually said I needed a new air filter.

 

[Belker]

Well, got the car back now. Some adjustment made to the distributor and the car works excellent. Apparently, I need to adjust the ignition timing as well. That's gonna happen next week...

 

[HYBRID]

hi,

i take it that he advanced the timing for you, by adjusting the distributor.. ask him at what the timing is set to as you dont want it to be more than 10 deg TDC mate.

kon