Hey Guys,

I have a 00 em1 with a Jackson Racing Supercharger. 440 injectors, and tuned on Hondata s200. Car only has 70k miles on it and runs great.

Lately I've noticed that on cold start the car will turn over really rich, so rich that it almost bog's out. This morning I got in my car and when it turned over it was rich again, and this time bog'd and died. I restarted and had to gas it to 2k rpm's for about 10 seconds until it lean'd out enough to idle on its own. When I drove it away it threw a CEL. Soon as the car warmed up, I shut her down, and restarted her a few times, and she'd restart perfectly everytime, and the CEL was gone. I haven't had a chance to check the CEL, just thought i'd ask you guys if you have any idea what it could be?

I'm assuming it obviously has something to do with my fuel system. but not sure.

Should I take it back to my tuner?

Thanks for any advice.

Doug

 

It's the tune. When a car cold starts it needs to have a fairly rich mixture in order to ignite the fuel properly as there is not enough heat to sustain a good burn at a lean condition.

What happens with a lot of tunes that were done during the summer is that the IAT compensations for cold start is off due to the larger injectors and it causes it to be extra rich. So you can either just deal with it by holding the revs up a bit until the car heats up enough to lean out or you can see what your tuner can do about it. Nothing really your tuner is at fault for, it's very difficult to tune a setting like that accurately, and even harder when it's done during in a much different temperature.

 

wow, I really appreciate you taking the time to give me a detailed explination. You really cleared that all up for me, and it all makes perfect sense. I'll just deal with it for now in these cold conditions. Would you happen to have any idea why it threw a CEL?

Thanks again man,

Doug

 

It could also be your O2 sensor going south. Once you check the code, you might find that to be the case.

 

How recently did you have it tuned? Will you check the code?

I doubt it is the O2 sensor, the engine ignores that thing until it's reached operating temperature.

 

whats the quick way to check code again? I can just get a paper clip and put both ends in one of the cables from the ECU correct?

 

I have a fairly strong feeling that the code is being caused by the overly rich condition, which is why it goes away. If it was the O2 sensor failing it would be continuously coming back.

When you start a car the ECU will check all functions and if it finds a problem it will throw the code. Also, bad O2 sensors will cause the car to be extremely rich all the time, not just during start up.

 

A lazy O2 sensor will take a while to heat up to operating temperature. Either that or his heater circuit isn't working at all, and that's the cause of the code and the richness after start up.

 

Jaker, an O2 sensor heater circuit has no effect on mixture.

Reread the OP's description - the problem goes away in under a minute, a long time before the engine reaches operating temperature and even looks for an O2 sensor. Once the engine is no long very cold and merely cold it starts and idles fine. This is not an O2 problem.

There are quite a lot of things that could cause the CEL, but O2 isn't one of them.

 

A jumper, or rather a piece of wire. Fold it in half and place one point in each side of the BLUE connector by the ECU. The CEL will begin to flash on your cluster if you did it right. There's a full explaination of codes and whathaveyou on here, but I'm at a loss on where to find it anymore.

However, my car does the same thing. By my guess, it's the tune as SovXietDay explained earlier. You could always get it retuned, my tuner keeps the tune on customers' cars stored to modify as needed.

As you have Hondata, you can check it yourself if you have SManager installed on your laptop. Do you?

 

No I don't have SManager on my laptop. I'm definetly going to have to get that program though. Where would I go to pick that up?

 

It should have came in the Hondata box, along with everything else. Although I have the S300, not the S200. I'm not sure about the S200. I'd consult their website about it. My apologies if I mislead you in any way.

Edit: The S200 system does NOT have SManager capabilities. The jumper would be the way to go for you.