I am ready to crash this car into a tree!!!!!!! (kinda long but please someone help)

[dsmoverboosted]

I am going to blow my mind if I don't get this problem fixed soon. I recently got a head rebuild done and installed the head myself afterwards. Before the head rebuild I had a problem with the car "poping" at idle but I could drive it fine till 5500rpm (I would hit fuel cut because of bad guides).

So after I finished the reinstall the car ran pretty good but I now couldent go wot passed 5000 rpm because it would sputter and backfire (defenently different than before). Now that wasent too bad because atleast I could still drive it normally but yesterday I went to the store and it drove normal, when I came out and drove off the car got worse somehow. Now I cant accelerate at all without poping, sputtering and backfiring so bad. I got black smoke coming out of the tailpipe now.

So today I had to see my parents for fathersday and its a good 20 minute highway drive there. halfway down the car fixed itself. I couldent beleave it, I pulled over to the side and took off through all gears boosting in each gear and it was the same as it was before i went to the store. I got there turned off the car and when I went to leave it was doing the same shit again sputtering and backfiring no matter how i accelerated.

This is driving me nuts!!

So far I have done the following to try to fix the problem..

New plugs bpr6es's gapped to .28
New wires
Swapped coilpacks with my parts car with no change
Swapped transistors with my parts car with no change
Swapped cas with my parts car with no change
Did 3 boost tests with only my tb shaft seal leaking
checked timing with a timing gun but it was at 5 deg

Also before I went to the store my stock gauge was pretty much dead on with my aftermarket one but now my stock guage will bounce around and hit as high as one bar when my aftermarket one hits 1psi. I also notice the only way for me to accel at all is to keep the 2 gauges as close as possible together.

Also I was playing around with the coilpack hearness and when i push the harness together with a good force the engine revs up. Is that suppose to happen?

I need some ideas. The big thig is getting my car back to running like it did before I went to the store so I can atleast drive it without holding up traffic like some asshole.

Thanks Axe

 

[dsmoverboosted]

So is there no way to fix this or what?

 

[toybreaker]

I hate intermittent issues like that.

I would say do a boost leak test, but i think you've already been there...

The thing with the coil pack/harness is interesting. I would do a very close visual inspection of the wires/harness/connectors in that area. It might also be possible to recreate the situation with a wiggle of the harness, and that might narrow down the areas to be following up on. Make sure the female pins aren't spread open/deformed...

I've seen some issues with harnesses from the snowbelt cars...(as in salted roads), and the actual electrical connection between the male/female pins. There's some electrical contact cleaner/enhancer that are sold at radio shack here in the states. It might be as simple as some corrosion on the electrical connections. Try some cleaner and see what happens.

On high mileage dsm's, we're going to start to see these issues. High underhood heat and moisture will corrode the contacts, as well as deteriorate the harness insulation as well, leading to broken wires and other weird and hard to find problems...

I would also check the caps/ecu for issues as well...

 

[Rex2342]

Just curious here but your mod list shows an intake? What did you do to the intake? The only other thing I can think of would be the caps in the ecu like toybreaker stated.

 

[TSITIM]

my cas went whacko on me and it took me forever to find out that it was that causing the problem. it was super inconsistant as your problem is also

 

[somdturbo]

check your MAF as well

 

[homestar1781]

Do you have any check engine codes?

 

[dsmoverboosted]

no i dont get any codes (that would take the fun out of it ) What I am hoping to do is get a local dsmer with a good running car (as rare as it is ) and "try on" some of his ignition parts to find out what I need.

My intake is just a hacked aircan with a k&n.

When I push on the harness, depending on how i push on it I can raise the rpms like to 1200 from my regular 700 and lower them to almost stall the car.

I was thinking mas too but i looked at my logger and the mas readings look pretty normal. my baro jumps between 13-16 psi (i was told thats normal) my air temp is pretty much a constant 100 deg f and my mafs gragh is almost a duplicate of my injector duty so that seems right.

 

[dsmoverboosted]

maybe i should check my ecu out. I havent heard any clicking and i havent smelts anything odd but maybe i should check it anyways. What would be the easiest way of doing this? Just remove the sterio i guess.

 

[toybreaker]

The ecu comes out nicely if you remove the 2 side panels to the center console.

If I wasn't such a computer 'tard I could do you the link for tmo's website, they've got a good write-up there.

Could you please clarify which harness changes the rpm with a bit 'o wiggleage?

 

[dsmoverboosted]

the coilpack harness

 

[steve]

my baro jumps between 13-16 psi (i was told thats normal).

That's not normal. Air pressure doesn't jump around unless your in a tornado. It changes slowly with the weather or as you change altitude.

I don't think this is anything more than another symptom of the root problem as is the stock boost gauge jumping around.

Pull the ECU and look for original/leaking caps. I say it that way because if the caps are original then even if you can't see the leakage the odds are 95% or more that the caps are leaking or have and the electrolyte is dammed up under the cap by the conformal coating.

Steve

 

[dsmoverboosted]

Well My ecu has a leaky capacitor, there is goo surrounding one of them. I have never been happier to find something broken in my car . I will be getting a new ecu soon and I will be rolling again .

Thanks to eveyone who went through all my jibberjabber and helped point me in the right direction.

 

[BradM]

Pull the ECU and look for original/leaking caps. I say it that way because if the caps are original then even if you CAN see the leakage the odds are 95% or more that the caps are.

Steve

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I have a similar if not same problem. My caps are original. Did you mean to say,"even if you CANT see the leakage"?
Just trying to make sure, I wont be able to get another ecu to test it for a few days.

 

[Gasolinebaptism]

Yes, that is what Steve meant.

 

[steve]

Did you mean to say,"even if you CANT see the leakage"?

Correct. I edited the post to be more clear. My thoughts outpace my fingers regularly.