So I just switched out my water pump the other day for a new one. I had my friend fill up my coolant for me while i went to the bathroom and instead of using the water i had set aside he used the waterhose and somehow got water all over in the engine bay. The car immediately started running rough and flooding like crazy. So I had to readjust the tps and variable resistor for it to run right. I am not sure why those had to be re-adjusted, just saying what I fixed for it to run decent again.

But now, occasionally when driving it seems as if for a second I loose all power and it flutters and bucks. I do not let off the throttle or anything, this is when holding at constant throttle and sometimes when accelerating. It seems to fix its self immediately though and continues to run fine.

I am no even sure what to look for to address this issue. Can you wise rotorheads give me some guidance.

 

Loose battery cables? Poor grounds? Coil pack shorting out? The variable resistor tends to not do a lot, and are you certain you set the TPS properly?

 

+1 on the grounds. Generally water will mess up most anything electrical if they've been had. Especially tap water since it's conductive.

 

Grounds on the battery are good but ill have to check the others throughout the engine bay. I set the tps to 1 volt so im pretty sure its correct but i guess it wouldnt hurt to recheck it ti make sure its still set there.

 

In case you didn't do this the motor needs to be warmed up before you set the TPS. Someone else recently mentioned you can manually press the thermowax down or something instead... but I'd just warm it up.

 

Yeah the car is warm when i adjust the tps. (it was so warm i burnt my knuckle on the block taking out the plugs. Lol)

I should also mention that i KNEW the car was flooding because i could smell the unburnt fuel and the exhaust literally caught fire and had fire coming out of the tail pipe when i shut the car off before adjusting the tps and everything.

It seems almost as if its a bad 3800 rpm hesitation issue where the car will hit a brick wall every once in a while for no apparent reason. Except it happens in the low 2k range (between 2-3k rpm) then will run fine again.

 

The Water Thermosensor that is connected to the back of the water pump must have been disconnected to replace the part and it is likely that it is not plugged in properly. The plug "might appear" that it is plugged in okay but you can't visually tell if it is. There are two pins in the plug and they have a tendency to slip backwards thus causing a poor connection. If one pin has slipped then it will cause problems such as problematic cold starts and abnormal driving performance. Checking pin 2I at the ECU would be one way to check this as would removing the plug and visually looking to see if either or both pins have slipped backwards. With key to on, pin 2I would read 2 to 3 volts with the engine cold and .4 to .5 volts when warmed up. A high reading such as close to 5 volts would indicate the pins are not making the proper connection necessary.

 

Well the car isnt runnung rich anymore and i dont have toi much trouble cokd starting the car. The water thermo is brand new and i checked the connections when i put it in. I can check again when i work on the car. The only real issue im having now is the car dropping all power sometimes almost like it did when i was having bad 3800 hesitation issues. Except its a little more dramatice of a jolt and it happens at under 3000 rpm and only happens every knce in a while. Also it happens simetimes when accelerating or even just cruising on the freeway holding throttle steady

 

just thought I'd give an update and closure on this thread. I re-checked the tps again and it was out of adjustment again so after readjusting it back to proper specs the car has no issues. Checked it again today and tps is still in adjustment so i doubt the issue will be coming back. Thanks for everyones help