Well, for those of you who were wondering, here's my issues

VERY ROUGH 800rpm idle, would 90% of the time idle at 1500 and hunt (TPS was adjusted perfectly), or stall out. Checked over and over and over again for vac leaks. So, I eventually ripped everything off, and low and behold, they installed the lower intake manifold gasket backwards and broke it in 7 spots! The think was leaking like a ****, but i could never get any spray in that area to detect it! Just goes to show, it's always a damn vac leak!

 

Damn, now thats a pain in the ***.

 

Maybe i should check for that too...

 

that would be wise

 

Yeah, it's been stumping me for days, because no matter how much I sprayed it wouldn't do anything for me, so I finally bit the bullet and ripped it all down, and my god it was sad, I saw that the bolt hole of the gasket was sticking up out of the top and I was like, "God help me" Sure enough, it was backwards. Half the ports were torn together so it'd fit, and it was just a mess. Just goes to show, even if you can't find it, it's still a vac leak killing your idle!

 

I had a similar problem. Always a little lumpy idle, down on low end, etc. I unstuck my 5th/6th ports (this was years ago) and had everything in the car running perfectly aside from that. It was a little annoying, but also meant that the car would not pass emissions.

When I tore my engine apart, the problem became immediately apparent. Some jackass (previous owner, "helpful" mechanic, etc.) had removed the 5th/6th port valve sleeves. So the ports were always open...Just goes to show you...

Hacked FCs are a very common problem, and will only get more common as highschoolers buy the car and then follow the HORRID advice given out with regards to emissions systems, 5th/6th ports, etc.

 

Sadly, I feel this is what happened in this case. It appears like they attempted to free up the aux ports or something, and didn't pay attention when putting it back together. The one actuator arm wasn't even engaged on the shaft to turn the port, so that didn't help any. It was such a pain to figure it all out, the car would idle at 300rpm (very rough mind you) and no matter where I sprayed i could never get it to pick up a vac leak, so I stripped emissions/vac rack/etc in hopes of clearing up a leak, and it still did it. Then I knew it had to be the lower intake manifold. It's shocking the stupid mistakes people can make on these cars, and how annoying it is that everything works perfect except for that one little gremlin.

 

If that's the case... then when the rod rises from pressure(s5), or vacuum(s4), then your port isnt really opening? just looks like it?

 

son of a biatch. My car's hacked pretty bad, too. I'm about to put a new clutch in, and I'm dreading what I'll discover along the way...

 

Exactly, it just kind of turned inside there, but since the actuator rod wasn't hooked up it just turned around. Needless to say I was definatly unhappy. It pisses me off how much people screw with these cars not knowing what they are doing. Sorry, just had to rant. Finding idle issues are such a pain in the ***, and knowing some moron is the cause by putting a gasket on backwards isn't comforting. Ahh well, it's doing good now!

 

Yeah, but what else did the moron do wrong? Kind of scary, like when i noticed that someone had grounded my coolant level sensor.

 

That's what's really bugging me now, because it makes me wonder about everything else. They broke the plastic coolant filler neck, and replaced it with what looks like J-B weld and a tire patch or something, so that's going to be needing a change. They've also got some horribly small spark plug wires (6mm i think?) The FPR wasn't hooked up, and a few other annoyances.

 

Ahh - The challenge of restoring an inexpensive car with a lot of potential.

 

Hehe I had a similar experience. When I pulled my motor out of the GTUs and took off the lower intake manifold I found that the person that previously owned the car installed one of the 6th ports in backwards . Oh well I now know why my car never pulled hard up top.

- Dana

 

What is it with people who work on GTUs'? Do they just have a thing for installing parts backwards?

 

Not sure but the person who owned my car was a MORON for sure. He ended up buying an FD with a horable after market CYM paint job and he thought it was the talk of the town. I wonder if it blew up yet.

- Dana

 

I bought my FC, Drove it 800 miles back home and then when I replaced the lawnmower battery that the DPO (Dreaded Previous Owner) had put in I discovered that it wasn't grounded...at all....It must have been grounding through the tranny for 800 miles...

 

A lawnmower battery? Where did you buy it? In the mountains somewhere? But the battery had to have been grounded, otherwise there'd be no electricity.

 

It was bought in the LA area. Battery ground was there. No ground connections to the engine. It ran very differently after we added grounds from battery to engine and engine to chassis.

 

Wow...lots of horror stories in here. I'm about to go hunting for my vac leak in a few days and i'll definetly keep my eye out for all of the mention problems!

The previous owner of my car was actually a pretty competent person...but i guess u never know huh?

 

You never really know how well something was done unless you watched it being done or did it yourself. I found out (After driving it for a while) that my old GMC C2500 truck had its rear brakes "bypassed" (Presumably because the wheel cyls were leaking) by the simple expedient of cutting off the hard line ahead of the rear axle, rolling and crimping it with a pair of vice-grips and leaving the vice-grips on to hold the crimp closed.

 

There was pieces of metal coat-hanger wrapped around where the TPS screw should have been on my T2. Also coat hanger was used to hold the alternator up, since he mustve lost the bolt.. In the end Im kind of glad I tore the car apart rather than try to restore it.. lots of little **** like that was rigged up.