too lean and too rich?

[420Adriver]

ok when im driving my car goes crazy, it will start to pop at revs to high, and when i get on it, it will hit fuel cut real easy, my car feels like it only has like 20 horses i mean a go kart could beat me right now so what do you guys think the problem is? i have no gasket leaks and i checked for vacuum hose leaks and there is none. and my headers are turning blue(and i think that means im running to rich) and yes ive put stock injectors back in and it does it with either stock or aftermarket... and i have an safc2 and a wideband ordered on the way but its weird that its doing this. i already have a gauge to read my fuel ratio but its one of those cheap ones for like 60 bucks and it only reads at high throttle, oh and you can smell the gas coming out of the exhaust but its still got me baffled why it would be popping like that and still hitting fuel cut real soon, i did do a little programming with my safc and got it to run ok... but nothing like i would expect( its still acting like its a 5 horsepower honda motor even with the tuning and it took me hours with the safc just to get it like that)

 

[brute]

Maybe you have a boost leak and you're running rich

 

[nightspeed87]

Maybe hes a n/t 420 according to his profile...(unless you turboed your n/t but I think you wouldve mentioned that if you had ) so there fore check all the basics on the car what is the a/f ratio gauge saying at wot ( rich or lean ) also maybe your air sensor or something got messed up or something and is giving wrong signals you didnt hack nothing did you.? ( actually i dont thnk 420s have a mass do they. ) well anyways
and the headers I never heard of that I had n/t 1g and the headers turned a little blue
I think thats just how it happens. As for the popping yea I do believe that is richness
run your car at wot, then take out the spark plugs and check to see if the are all black looking because then yea its mad rich, if there white and blistered or melted looking then no its lean... Also Id recommend a compression check, and try resetting the ecu by unplugging battery so if the fuel maps got screwed up or something and if resetting them helps restraighten things out... other than that I dont know...

 

[420Adriver]

i dont have a turbo, and i do belive i have a mass air flow sensor, and the only reason i mentioned that thing about the blue headers is because i had some mechanic friends that were looking at it and one of them mentioned that blue headers meant it was running rich, and the other one said the popping was it running lean, but i will try the sensor thing and resetting it ( but why does it still do it with stock injectors?) and who get i get to run that compression check for me? im relying on you guys because noone around my area works on imports and they all do muscle cars so all they ever do is give me false information on how to fix it

 

[nightspeed87]

actually from my knowledge the popping is from it running rich... Unburn fuel in the exhaust pipe, maybe there a different view point on that. But your car sounds like its running rich, but like I said just check your spark plugs, if it was running too lean it would be bogging and the exhaust temp would be really hot, and your a/f gauge would stay in he red even under wot ( which means your about to mess up your engine ) If you hooked that gauge up right it will at least give you an idea enough to save your engine to catch somethin from going horribly wrong. Put your hand to the exhaust gasses coming out and if it feels really hot then maybe it is lean, ( but this idea wouldnt work unless its considerably hotter than normal. )

 

[kenamond]

i dont have a turbo, and i do belive i have a mass air flow sensor, and the only reason i mentioned that thing about the blue headers is because i had some mechanic friends that were looking at it and one of them mentioned that blue headers meant it was running rich, and the other one said the popping was it running lean, but i will try the sensor thing and resetting it ( but why does it still do it with stock injectors?) and who get i get to run that compression check for me? im relying on you guys because noone around my area works on imports and they all do muscle cars so all they ever do is give me false information on how to fix it

You can do the compression test yourself, but I don't think this has anything to do with your rich/lean situation. Buy a compression tester or take it to any shop. A compression test is a compression test. Check here for the 2g N/T specs for your car as well as how to do the test.

I recall someone telling me that a 1g N/T has a MAP rather than MAF/MAS sensor, because it doens't have to deal with boost. A lot of help that does you, but that's what I recall.

If you have a logger, that might help.

Checking plugs would be easy and tell you if you're rich. If you're somehow switching between rich and lean, then I don't know what your plugs would look like. Popping in the exhaust could be pig rich or it could be bad plugs/wires/ignition (not sparking in all cylinders all of the time) which would lead to unburned fuel in the hot exhaust.

If you have a Haynes or Chilton or whatever manual, you can go through the basic tune-up stuff, checks, etc.

Hopefully, someone will chime in with definitive ideas on this.

Good luck!

 

[420Adriver]

actually from my knowledge the popping is from it running rich... Unburn fuel in the exhaust pipe, maybe there a different view point on that. But your car sounds like its running rich, but like I said just check your spark plugs, if it was running too lean it would be bogging and the exhaust temp would be really hot, and your a/f gauge would stay in he red even under wot ( which means your about to mess up your engine ) If you hooked that gauge up right it will at least give you an idea enough to save your engine to catch somethin from going horribly wrong. Put your hand to the exhaust gasses coming out and if it feels really hot then maybe it is lean, ( but this idea wouldnt work unless its considerably hotter than normal. )

Well with my a/f gauge ive been to afraid to go full throttle with it to check my ratio (which i think is the only way it works with these cheaper ones) but when its there idling the gauge will go crazy when i rev it from rich to lean but i know i hooked it up right because its really not that complicated it was like 3 wires ground battery and 02 sensor and i ran it all through the ecu wiring ( if i didnt hooko it up right though the gauge wouldnt be responding to my throttle response would it?)