Brian makes a good point. Time your 0-60 in a safe manner and either put it on the site for comment or have a look in the archives. Then you have a known baseline. Suspect yours may be a little slow though as you quote you have to pre-engineer your travel. But then again I am even a little cautious in certain situations as well with my 240d.

I suggest you consider these two tread - well okay "threads" - which I just happened to have started:

The first has to do with the in tank filter.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=124027

The second has to do with the replacement of a leaky primer pump, which allows air to get in with the fuel. I had a similar loss of power as you have described.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=109076

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Peach Parts W124.128 User Group.

80 280SL
85 300SD
87 300TD
92 300D 2.5 Turbo
92 300TE 4Matic

the car is fabulous! its roomy, heavy, loud and stinky. everything my vws werent.

it does ok on the big hills here in dixie(alabam') but only on the interstate. the maintenence helped smooth the car out a great deal, and i ran motor flush through it just to see if it would ungunk anything. seems like it did something, but that might just be my imagination. at one time i would have sworn my neon ran better when it had a fresh coat of wax on it!

i do enjoy the car. a great deal, its just very sturdy. i like how bumps dont make the entire dash jiggle and squeak like a cheap pair of shoes.

eventhough i like it as much as i do, it cant be ignored that i am a college student that commutes 80 miles a day. i need it to be reliable. it hasnt been unreliable, per se. just has needed constant "tweaking" which is a blessing and a curse

i like that the car is well built enough that you can turn screws and fix things, pop fasteners suck ass. but i also dont like that you HAVE to turn these screws to fix things every weekend!

oh yeah-- the car is still doing it, ill get my mom to push the throttle and see if the linkage is weird, ill also grease all the connections when im under there.

what is the alda adjustment? i thought that was a turbo thing?

Even the non turbos have an "altitude device" that can be adjusted to give you more fuel. Though I am out of my league on this one...see if anyone else picks up what this specific model has.

ohh, no more fuel, it only gets about 24mpg! i was told(before i purchased it, of course) that these cars would get nearly comparable mileage to that of my neon. its never really happened.

as an aside, could too much fuel bog down the engine like this?

Unless its streaming out the fuel pipe...no.

Also...ALDA adjustments on my 300SD increased my MPG becuase I got up to speed quicker and let out of the throttle quicker.
WHen you keep having to mash your foot into it, you are using more fuel than if you quickly got up to speed with the slight increased fuel rate.

Your car could be starting off in 2nd gear. Mine did. Transmission flush and filter helped.

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83 300sd
3 fords

the kickdown works on this car. sometimes, it feels as though second gear is stronger than first!

you can push the button under the pedal and then just wait and hold up traffic and hear people honk and flash their lights.

it really does take from 5-7 seconds to start going, and all it does in that time is crawl with the engine idling.

this doesnt always happen, though! and it is usually when the car is warm, as opposed to cold.

sometimes i feel as though the car gets "tired" thats the only way i can describe it really. it runs great, but wont roll. it shifts fine i wouldnt think its a transmission problem, but ive been wrong before! would the torque converter be slipping that badly? my dads ram truck just needed one and to think about it, it did sort of show the same symptoms! wouldnt it do it alot more if it were the torque convertor? i know when i ran it out of gas the first day i had it(the tank screen was plugged and the gauge sender was full of yuck too so it registered 1/4 tank at empty) it exhibited the same symptoms of an air cooled vw burning a valve and dying a quiet death. heh heh

ill eagerly be awaiting youalls torque converter stories. i greased the linkages and that didnt help, btw

If the torque converter was slipping, the engine would rev way up to redline and the vehicle won't go anywhere.

In your case, the engine won't rev and the vehicle won't move, so it's not the torque converter, or the transmission.

The engine is not getting fuel for some reason.

Did changing of the filters help the situation, even temporarily? Did the symptom go away for a bit and then return?

not at all, its the same with new filters as it was before.

it works fine for a while till its been driven to full operating temperature and thats when the problem is.

Have the valve adjustments been checked? I never saw a single comment about that in the thread as its only when it is up to emp and not cold.

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

nosir, the valves have not been set.

i do not know enough to do that myself, nor do i have the tools to do it with. my dad said he would help me set them sometime, i guess i could just pull it halfway into the garage and have the valve cover off when he gets home today(in 2 hours)

heres a question: we're in the south and our driveway is a hill, i have to start the car to get it in the garage enough for water(its going to be raining for the next week) to not get into the open engine, will running it for like 30 seconds and pulling it into the garage impact valve adjustments?

i know on the vw it was always said to do them completly cold(not that i ever did those, either...they always died before i had the chance!)is that cold enough?

30 seconds won't matter....the key is the motor is at ambient temps.....

you may find you have tight valves when cold and its holding valves partly open when hot killing power....if not...you will have a baseline as to when it was done and what its adjusted to. Nothing lost...

Move the car and let it sit 15-30 minutes what heat was generated will dispersethroughout the motor and basicly still be at ambient temp...

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
---------------------
Section 609 MVAC Certified
---------------------
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Your fuel pump is dead. I would bet anyone here. Its not valves, its not filters, when the pumps go, they go and thats all there is to it.
When you replace it, stick oil in the tank (like 3 oz) each time and you will get 300K from the next one....

So, this is a defective fuel pump that is affected by engine temperature??
When cold it pumps just fine, and then when warm, it won't maintain fuel pressure??