hey guys, i've been reading a lot in these forums trying to get myself more associated and comfortable with being able to diagnose problems with my car, i have an 86 13b non turbo. I bought it a couple months ago and have fallen in love with it. It's given me plenty of problems on account of sitting for two years and the previous owners didn't do any maintainence on it at all. After giving it a tune up and replacing the spark plugs 3 times, it started to run great! Just recently though, it started giving me another problem in which i have no idea what to do about. So here's the scoop, i start it up on a cold start and it does it's regular thing with reving up and then idling back down to warm it up, but then after about a minute of idling it'll idle eratically betwen 1000-1500 rpm's about two times a second... i've never heard of that being a part of a cold start warm-up, and it only does it when the engine's cold... so then i drive it around and after about 20 minutes of driving without any symptoms or signs, the engine will just stall out no matter what gear or rpm i'm at. Then it won't start for about another hour and will run for about another 20 minutes. Originally i felt it was a vacuum leak problem, i sprayed carb cleaner around all the vacuum hoses, nothing happened, but i noticed that when i open the hood after it stalls, i can smell a burning computer plastic smell..... i brought it to a mechanic who tested the timing and said it was fine but that the computer needed to be replaced, he didn't run any tests to really know if it was the computer or not, he was pretty much just trying to get money out of me. anywho, i'm going to try to get it to my school and hopefully diagnose it there, if anyone has had any similar problems or any ideas please let me know. Thanks alot guys!

 

question one would be what brand and #s of plugs did you use? you should have bought two leading, and two trailing plugs. if you bought four of the same kind you wil have problems and if you put them in backwards that will cause issues as well.

 

when it stalls and you try to start it is there any smoke?

 

Yes, make sure the alt and battery is putting out as well, it'll lead to a randomly dieing engine.

 

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How can this matter at all, please correct me if im wrong....

Trailing 9's
Leading 7's - in a stock app.

Trailing 9's
Leading 9's - in a high hp app.

Why would this make the car stall unexpectedly while driving if he ran a hotter plug in the leading????

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The computer is right in front of the passenger, it would be the wiring harness melting if you smell something electric in the engine bay.

Check your tps sensor and make sure that it is calibrated (also see archives for ohm meter and double light test)

Other than that it actually sound slike a small vacuum leak to me, try removing a vacuum line to see if it changes like cruise control... also check brake boosting to see if that changes revs at all.

 

yea i checked the leading and trailing spark plugs, they're all in the right plug holes. i was convinced it was a vacuum line too... not to sure but i've got a couple vacuum lines layin around, i'll take some off and see if it makes a difference and spray some more carb cleaner around them when the engine's more up to operating temp. thanks for the input, i'll keep you updated.

 

The TPS is out of adjustment... nothing more...

Set the TPS correctly and the stalling and erractic idle will be fixed.

 

got a link on how to do this? or what should i type in the search box?

 

^

 

related topic has been covered, use search tool wisely