On a 1984 13B, how to tell if ports 5 & 6 are opening?

I've searched this site for info on this and I can't find exactly what I need to know.

I've got an SE with two hollow pre-cats and one '90 third cat that I had to use a sawzall on the stock bolt slots to make them wider. The '90 cat has the outlet for the port 5 & 6 actuators and they are hooked up.

With this setup, I can pass CA smog easily.

However, I can't tell if the secondary ports are opening. I've read that just flooring the engine without load doesn't create enough back pressure to open the ports and when I do do this, they don't open. I'm tempted to take off the hood and put someone in the engine compartment to see if they open. For some reason, no one is up for it. I've thought about mounting a cheap digital camera that takes movies and mounting it facing the port actuators to see if they work.

The car is plenty fast, I just put the 2nd gen leading coil on and put the trailing wires on the leading spots on the dist cap and it seems to rev easier. I can manually move both actuators through their range and they move easily enough.

Does anyone know of a surefire way to test if those ports are opening?

I guess I could disconnect the port actuators and see if the butt dyno notices anything but I'd rather know it they're opening, at the same time and at the same rate.

Thank you,

 

Ive tried a few methods, but twist ties on the actuator rods is my favorite!

 

ok im would like to know the same thing on my 85 se but i must ask the idiot question as im new to se's and all the efi stuff, where are the actuator rods? does someone maybe have a pic of them?

 

Here you go.

 

I smear some antiseize on the actuator rod, take a drive, then look to see how far up the rod the antiseize ended up. ALso, if you can't push each rod with your thumb the whole way in with the engine off, they are probably seized and won't open unless cleaned.

 

that's a great idea

 

thanks for the great detail pic. if i fixed the 5th and 6th port to where they were open all the time would it effect the idle or anything, that way you could run a presilencer that doesnt have the backpressure tube on it?

 

Thank you, both yours and Gen1onr idea's make sense; I'll try them tomorrow and let you know.

Mazdal tov.

 

Yes, but that defeats the purpose of the 6 port engine. if you permanently have the ports open, the engine will feel like a torque-less wonder until almost redline.

Enjoy the advantages of the GSL-SE. Fix it correctly.

 

What i did so that i could keep the six ports working and still use my pre silencer that didn't have a port for it was I took my header and right after the bend i drilled a hole in it and welded a 1" piece of metal brake line in the hole then i attached a piece of rubber line to it and ran it up to where the six ports hook up and it works flawlessly.

 

I can't agree more. My ports were somehow seized (carbon) in the fully open position(must've been wired open at some point) when I bought my current and first SE. After a few summers, I realized this and had them properly cleaned and fixed. WOW, what a world of difference. It felt like a monster compared to the previous 5 12A fb's I had.

 

I found out that if you have the car sitting and running, you raise it up to around 3k, let it sit there a moment and then give it more gas and voila, the 5&6 ports begin to open, excellent!

Well after putting in an FC leading coil which made it run smother and it had a better idle, I was still having problem with cold starts.

I had an MSD6 I'd had for a while so I hooked it up to the FC leading coil and it seems to make an impact on the butt dyno. I could, however, be a car hypochondriac but it does run and sound better. I should know when I start it tomorrow; I'm also hoping for a small increase in gas mileage on the freeway.

The worst thing was finding a place to mount the damn MSD. I ended up putting it under the radiator/condenser top cover place and mounting it there. It should get all the cooling it needs unless I get stuck in a serious traffic jam.

I'll keep everyone posted on MPG.

Thank you all for your help!

This is how I hooked up the MSD direct from MSD who has awesome tech support; it took less that a two minutes (including hold time) to solve my issue and get me the correct schematic!



I ignored the trailing part and used FC coil so I didn't need the dist so I put my trailing wires into the leading positions on the dist.