hella-rich!!!!

[venom]

before winter my car was running crazy-rich...to the point where it wouldnt start up at the mall one night. plumes of black smoke were coming out the exhaust when it finally did start.

last night i yanked the plugs & O2 sensors. they were trashed. any other ideas on what would bring on this rich problem? coolant temp. sensor? tps maybe? I'm tempted to just buy all new sensors just because they are all 14 years old. i dunno.

[SonofaBish]

do you have a wideband in it? have you had it on the dyno to tune it??

[venom]

no wideband currently. i had it tuned a few years back, and really have not had any problems. the last few times it just seemed to be getting worse. im going to pull the chip tonight, clean the connections, and cross my fingers.

[SonofaBish]

Speed Density or MAF?

[venom]

maf. all current mods are in my sig.

[SonofaBish]

try cleaning up the wires inside your maf with an electronics cleaner... I find it highly unlikely that's what it is, but many suggest that to be done first....

I would get a wideband on it and see what its doing... If you had it tuned with the current injectors, then i see no reason the tune would change... If the o2's aren't reading right they will make the car run rich and then make themselves read even more wrong... so you could start with that and see what happens... but honestly i think the first move should be to get a wideband o2 sensor... even if you borrow one from a friend for a couple weeks... see if its indeed running rich... change the o2's and see if it starts to run better..... not gonna be the coolant temp sensor and unlikely that the tps would cause a rich condition .....

i'm surprised no one else has chimed in

[venom]

Thanks for all the input Bish. I have new O2 sensors to drop in. I'll try cleaning the MAF also. Good idea on the wideband.

Why is everyone else so quiet? :)

[badf250]

I have seen extremely rich mixtures from bad engine coolant temp sensors. I had them where the sensor was telling the computer it a 30 below, and the car would barely run. Makes sure it is the sensor for the computer, not the gauge. These problems were with GM vehicles, so I'm not sire if the Ford eecIV works the same way,

[venom]

update...

cleaned the IAC
cleaned EGR
cleaned MAF
new plugs
new O2 sensors
pulled chip out and cleaned the connections
backed fuel pressure down to 38 PSI just for the hell of it

The car started right up, idled sorta high, but smoothed out. After it warmed up the check engine light came on, still idling well. I jumped in, headed down the road and it bucked here and there at low RPMS. After getting on the main road I noticed that when I let off the gas the RPMs hang, and we when I pushed the clutch in the RPMs are about 1800 or so. No check engine after running it a bit. Back to my house.

Shut it off, look under the hood at whatever, try to start it and it won't fire. Its just flooded out.

TPS maybe? Does the TPS effect the mixture?