need help. car is dead at the moment?

[junbug8]

Re: need help. car is dead at the moment?

And it goes on, lol. I installed the new cam pos. sensor, and guess what? It wasn't the problem. I am taking blizzards advice and checking the map sensor. So far it checks out ok. I wasn't able to compare voltage readings with vacuum just yet as the engine died and I am going to have to wait a few prior to starting it again. What I did notice was that on throttle increase, the voltage jumped to 2 but immediately dropped back down to around 1.4. Going by a previous vacuum check, I don't think that is right, but I will have to wait for a true comparison.

[junbug8]

Re: need help. car is dead at the moment?

Ok. I need help with some numbers here. I thought I understood what the engine vacuum should do as rpms increase, but what I am seeing is different from what I thought I knew. First off: What should idle vacuum range be on the 3.4? Second: As engine rpms increase, should I see vacuum decline right away, or does engine rpm need to reach a certain level before vacuum goes down? I had the car running in idle and vacuum on my gauge showed approx. 21". As I increased the throttle slowly, vacuum stayed fairly constant, maybe only dropping 1" up to the point that the engine started stuttering. Not sure if this is normal or not. If it is, I may need to get an actual vacuum pump to check the MAP sensor.

[junbug8]

Re: need help. car is dead at the moment?

Update: The Map sensor checked out good.

[Blizzard242]

Re: need help. car is dead at the moment?

lmao, you've just about completely rebuilt the engine by now right? This is a very annoying problem. I'll read through all of this tomorrow when I haven't been "influenced" and see if I can come up with anything that might be a possible problem. Hopefully someone else who does know enough might chime in. It's probably something stupid that we're just not thinking of.

[junbug8]

Re: need help. car is dead at the moment?

lmao, you've just about completely rebuilt the engine by now right? This is a very annoying problem. I'll read through all of this tomorrow when I haven't been "influenced" and see if I can come up with anything that might be a possible problem. Hopefully someone else who does know enough might chime in. It's probably something stupid that we're just not thinking of.

Thanks for the help blizzard, and yes, other than actually pulling the intake and heads, I have just about rebuilt the entire top half of the engine, including major portions of the engine management system.

[junbug8]

Re: need help. car is dead at the moment?

Victory is mine!!!!!! :lol (If you discount the $$$$ spent, time wasted, and overall frustration). After stewing on this since my last post, I decided to give the internet auto forums one last try. On one camaro board, I went through somewhere around 40+ pages of threads searching for any problem that sounded like mine. Two of them looked promising, but the solution was a part replacement that I had already had checked. It was the ICM. When I took it to autozone to have it tested, I was armed with the knowledge that even if they were to pass the first test, they could still be bad. So I had the guy there run the test 10 times right in a row, hoping the current running through it would heat it up a little to the point it would fail if it was indeed bad. No dice, as it passed every single time. Well, several days later and running across those threads convinced me to go ahead and purchase the part, hoping it was it, and also thinking if it wasn't, that I could at least take the part back and get my money back. I replaced the part, put everything back together and started it up. It fired right up, I let it idle for awhile, then revved it in park. It had immediate response, including all the way to about 5k rpms, with no hiccups, coughs, or sputters. I then took it out on the road and gunned it and guess what? The response was great, the engine didn't even miss a beat. I am hoping that this thread will at some time or another help another poor soul like me who is at wits end with a similar problem. Thanks to all of those who responded and made suggestions, especially blizzard and tko.

[Blizzard242]

Re: need help. car is dead at the moment?

Awesome, that makes me happy that you found it. Too bad autozone's tests aren't more accurate. lol, no wonder why we couldn't figure out what it was.