I just bought an ECT Sensor which I think should solve a problem I am having with my car. I've read up alot on similar problems where the ECU reads the car as cold after you've driven the car up to temperature and try to restart the engine so it feeds too much fuel and floods causing a no start. 5-10 minutes later it starts up and runs fine.

My question is can someone point me in the right direction of the ECT Sensor that sends the information to the ECU? I've heard there are a few similar sensors and I just need to make sure I put the part where it goes. I heard it's under the distributor but I just need a visual so I can go in there knowing what I'm looking for so I don't confuse it with another sensor. Any help is appreciated, sorry if this has been posted too often I've looked through alot of posts and can't find a definitive answer or location. Thanks

 

 

you can test, should be 2500ish ohms or so when cold, 180-250ish when warmed up

 

Would I be able to test that by using my odb2 scanner? Ive used it before but never really looked at much of the live information on there. I am pretty sure I found the location on my car, seems a little tricky to get to without removing the distributor completely. I'm also thinking my issue could be the heated o2 sensor considering the last time I took it to a shop the guy said the exhaust and everything near the heatshield is pretty rusted out and said something like it would take anywhere from $1000+ to fix. I am going to look into fixing all of that in the future considering how this car has treated me for the past 3 years.

 

You shouldnt have to remove the distibutor to change the ECT sensor. I changed the ECT sensor on my 2000 and it was very straight forward. You should buy a multimeter, theyre like 10-20 bucks, will pay for themselves and you could properly test your ECT sensor in a few minutes time. Also, yeah, your obd2 scanner should be able to read engine coolant temperature, mine does.

 

Be sure to drain the coolant or else coolant will burst through once the sensor is removed.

 

As long as the engine is cold, you definitely don't need to drain the coolant. The sensor is at the top of the block so there's not a lot of pressure on the coolant to flow out. Just have your new sensor ready to put back in as soon as you pull the old one out and you'll lose very minimal coolant. Also, you don't need to remove the distributor, but you will need a deep socket.

 

I lost a bit of coolant when I changed my sensor, without draining first, but it wasn't a big deal. It definitely didn't make me think, "damn it I should have drained it first!".