guys i'm haveing some trouble with my 4gen h22a lude. here's the story. i was romping on it for a while, and all of a sudden it bogged down, the motor still runs, but its running really rough throughout the entire rpm range. sputtering and all kinda ****. i got a cel for the tps, i changed it, and still got the light, car is running the same. i checked out the ignition, everything seems to be firing correctly, checked the timing belt for possible missing teeth, its fine, checked the tension on it, seems to be fine. the car is running extremly rich, i checked the plugs, they looked kinda shitty, so i bought some new ones and replaced them, after letting the car run for about 5 mins, i checked them again, and there's all kinda **** on them, theyre completely black! i also checked all of my vac lines and stuff, everything seems to be fine. anyone got any idea of anything else that i could check or could tell me what else could be causing my lude to run so shitty? after everything, i'm still getting a cel for the tps. any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
daniel

 

sounds exactly like what happened to me when my CAT went out (minus the black plugs)

 

how can i tell if my cat is bad? would that cause it too?
thanks
daniel

 

a CEL will put your car in limp mode, which runs very rich. Running very rich will make your plugs look pretty bad.

does the CEL still say TPS? I'd check the condition of the wiring of the TPS, try yet another TPS sensor, and try another ECU if that doesn't work.

 

reset your ecu if you havent. go fill it with good gas. shell or something. throw some fuel system cleaner in there as well.

if it was just bad gas then that should take care of it or at least make it better until the next full tank is put in.

 

i have put good gas in it, also put in a new fuel filter, i tried two different tps's, still cel and running shitty,i also reset my ecu, still same cel and running shitty. tps is the only cel its giving me.
thanks
daniel

 

did you calibrate the TPS Sensors when you put them in?

 

yep

 

ok, i got ahold of another ecu and swapped them, the car is still running the same, but this ecu is giving me a diferent code, i havent checked to see what it is yet, but its cel 9, and thats the only code, anyone know what that is? also, i'm beginning to think maybe i bent some valves or something? what kinda signs do i look for with bent valves?
thanks
dan

 

also, where can i find a list or something with all the cel codes and what they refer to? i looked through a manual that a friend of mine had for ludes, but it had nothing about cel's. if anyone could help me out with that too that would be greatly appreciated.

thanks
daniel

 

CEL 9= CYP Censor (cylinder). Cause could be a defective circuit or unplugged/ deffective censor.

 

but why would the two different computers give me two different codes, one is giving cel for tps, and the other isnt, the other is giving for cyp and the other isnt?

thanks for the help
daniel

 

dont know about that.. but by how you described the problem sounds like you may have sucked a valve or bent one but not enought to prevent it from somewhat operating....the problem here sounds more mechanical...pull of the valve cover and check the valves to make sure one isnt stuck

 

code 9 is caused by the distributor, or the wiring to the distributor from the ECU. thing is the new ECU, was it the exact same ECU as yours? because there are probably wiring differences, however subtle between years.

 

you may have bent a valve thats how mine was runnin when i did

 

both ecu's were p13, same as mine, not sure about the year though. is there a diference with the p13's?

 

please appropriately title threads to aid the search function, thank you

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RudeLude &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">both ecu's were p13, same as mine, not sure about the year though. is there a diference with the p13's?</TD></TR></TABLE>

it's hard to say what the differences are. but when i swapped a 97 p5m into my 2001 5th gen, the IACV wasn't working correctly. when i swapped back to my 01 ecu it was fine.

still, i would trust your original ECU's code over the swapped one. though, If you can find a distributor that works, try swapping that in and seeing if it clears the code.

code 9 can be a bitch, it's been 6 months and i still haven't been able to fix it. I think i've isolated it is a wiring problem, since a new distro and a diff ECU didn't clear it.

 

ok, i just tried a distributor and wires out of a friends car that was workin properly, still the same thing, i also felt my headers, and i noticed that cylinders 4 and 2 are cooler that 1 and 3, is this normal? i know that when u put an egt on it, most people put it on 3rd because its supposedly the hottest? also, how can i check for bent valves if i take off the valve cover? what do i look for?
thanks
daniel

 

well in my case i had to take my head off and have the valves removed untill i found out for sure they were bent. i had took it to a shop were they compression checked it and said i probably bent some. so i took the head off and brought it back to them and the said it was fine just needed a valve ajustment witched pissed me off pirtty bad and i was pritty sure that i bent some (misshifted). so i decided to have a valve job done while it was off and when the valves were out it tured out all of mine were bent so i dont no if theres a way to check it with out takin it off or mabe the shop i took it to didnt no what the hell they were talkin about.

 

Try a leak down test. If you have a hissing sound and air is escping from the head you got bent valves. No way to really tell just by pulling the valvecover.

 

i'll try that tonight, thanks
daniel

 

Reinstall the original ECU, only this time RESET the codes. Sounds to me like you ignored when Shakes told you to reset your codes. You did everything but the simplest stuff. You got the CEL. Good. Changed the necessary part. Good. Drove off without resetting the codes? Bad. Your car is bypassing that new sensor you installed...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Lakeshow23 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Reinstall the original ECU, only this time RESET the codes. Sounds to me like you ignored when Shakes told you to reset your codes. You did everything but the simplest stuff. You got the CEL. Good. Changed the necessary part. Good. Drove off without resetting the codes? Bad. Your car is bypassing that new sensor you installed...</TD></TR></TABLE>

how do i do this?

 

did a compression test, everything seems normal