chaseincats

why is there no afm to tb hose...

Yea - my alternator was overcharging the battery causing all sorts of weird electrical gremlins to pop up. After changing it out for a “new” (remanufactured ZX unit which is what was already in there), it was good.

Is the TVS another name for the TPS? Also, regarding the "sticking afm" would it be the resistance wiper that would be sticking or the air door inside the afm?

That's what we're trying to figure out. It happens every few weeks and is fixed by kicking the pedal a few times.

good god this again

"Lean boot" is a term coined by @Captain Obvious earlier in this thread to describe the car inexplicably running lean at startup.

I thought the ecu (fuel injection brain if you dont want to call it that) was a bunch of microswitches on the s30s, no? @madkawThat's an interesting idea with the afm sticking. I don't want to switch the car to megasquirt because it runs fantastically 95% of the time especially after this tuning thread.

Update again: I started the car today and got "lean boot" so I shut it off and restarted to another lean boot - I restarted it a good 4-5 times with no change so I took it out on the road anyway. It seems the only way to get the car back into regular mode is to leave it in a low gear and floor it/drop the pedal in quick succession - after that I didn't have a problem the rest of the day. My next guess is one of the microswitches in the ecu is getting tired. I'll try to give the computer a smack the next time it happens and will see if that does anything. Also for what its worth, I've noticed this never happens after the car has been sitting for days, it's only after its been parked and restarted after a few hours.

In order to get to that, I'd need to remove the fender, correct?

In the interest of guarding against potential rust, does anybody know the locations of the drains? If these are clogged, water backs up and rusts the metal out. For example, there are 3 drain holes on the bottom of both doors and one for the antenna Anybody know any others?

I noticed today that after taping up that burned wiring sleeve that the car starts up WAY faster. I don't think I'm nuts, it's pretty noticeable.

Update: Had lean boot happen today and noticed it while driving. I ended up kicking the pedal (flooring and dropping it) 4 or 5 times in quick succession and that seemed to fix it. So my guess is a periodically lazy TPS?

I just went to test it and got 740 ohms. The FSM says it's bad if it is "far less than, or more than, 720 ohm" so I guess that at least on paper isn't it.

Update: For a while (I don't remember how long) you could smell hot electricals on the drivers side of the engine bay when the car was running but without visible smoke or poor engine performance I ignored it (I know that was dumb). I noticed after the issue we've been talking about and taping up that burned pickup coil harness cover, that smell is now gone. Could a pickup coil wire build up resistance somehow and is there a way to check it? The car runs fantastically so I didn't think that could have been the case until I noticed the smell was gone last night for the first time in forever.

open the foot vents and if you have the drivers window open, open the passenger's too

Get your cabin fan going - that will equalize the pressure and push the fumes out.

Sorry, I did not close this thread. The issue was the clips around my new fuel filter which were tight but apparently not tight enough.

The wires inside look good but the ones outside look a little cooked. That said, it's been like that since I got it and it runs great after the restart and now.

@Captain Obvious In my experience when the pump dies the car stumbles a bit before the car dies as it burns through what's left in the rail before finally dying instead of it just all dying at once - at least that's how my car handles a fuel pump cutoff? @Zed Head I remember looking at the needles while sitting at the light before it shut off and everything looked great which was odd. I was being paranoid about the gauges since it was pretty warm out and was checking them habitually. @siteunseen The car doesn't have a BCDD anymore and I don't believe the tach needle was freaking out. I took the ecu and transistor ignition box apart and neither had any visible issues like burns/loose solder joints/etc. I then looked around through the ignition system via the wiring diagram and the only thing I could find was a mysterious burn on the distributor's pickup coil's wire bundle shielding (see below image). It looks almost like a spark arched out of it or something because you can see the red wire in the bundle as the outside protective wrap was melted through (the wire's insulation itself didn't look burned). If that's the case, then that spark arching to the engine would have shut it off. I don't understand how that could have happened though... That distributor was installed (not refurbished) about a year ago and that burn wasn't there otherwise I'd have sealed it with electrical tape or something prior to installing it. I'm not sure how long the wire has been like that or if that is indeed what happened though. Is my theory plausible? Note: the casing in this picture looks ripped/torn but that is just a bad picture its very much melted around the areas where the holes are.

The car will shut off while running if the ignition switch is faulty?

I will say I did not have the negative terminal REALLY cranked down as I was taking it on and off when working on it. When I got home I popped the hood to look and the terminal was on there. Before I removed the ECU I pulled the terminal off and it required some strength to do so but I still could. The terminal and connector are in great condition.

That makes sense but the strange part was that it wasn't right when I came to a stop, I was idling at a red light for a good minute or more before it died.

That makes sense but may be tough to put the engine on a stand. I replaced the ignition switch in 2017 due to it not firing during cranking so it shouldn't be that. Regarding the connections, I went through the AtlanticZ connection cleaning page (http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/electricalconnections/index.html) a year or so ago and everything is now 'like new.'

Gotcha It absolutely feels hesitant and is a real dog to drive so it shouldn't be the gauge in that case.

I removed/opened my ecu for my new problem here: https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/65578-sudden-engine-shutoff/?tab=comments#comment-624753. But since we were discussing what my ECU looked like, here it is too lol