Fairtax4me

Finally got the car to a place where I could try the above method and it worked like a charm. Finally got the green light and all monitors set ready.

That's the one. I said two bolts before but I think it's actually three, and another small one that attaches the timing cover on that side. Either way, it comes off.

The new style is entirely different. The bracket can be swapped to make it work but the old style is a much better design. Two bolts hold that bracket to the block. Take the bracket off and you can take it to a machine shop to have what's left of the bolt extracted.

Does it have the filter mount oil cooler? I'm not sure which years had those but the cooler is mounted to the bottom of the engine and the oil filter screws on to the bottom of the cooler. The cooler uses antifreeze so there are two coolant hoses going to it. One of the hoses could be loose or split on the end. Double check that before blaming head gaskets. Next guess would be that it could be a leak from the upper radiator hose that's running down the front of the block and dripping down by the oil filter.

BKR6E-11 is the V power copper plug with the same heat range. They'll work just fine, but you may need to re-gap them after 15 or 20 thousand miles. Spark doesn't jump the plug gap quite as easily with higher cylinder pressure that the turbo creates. This is overcome by closing the gap a bit, but as the plug wears the gap widens and can cause misfire issues under boost. The iridium tip plugs are more resistant to this problem over the long term, but they cost about 3-4 times as much. If you don't mind pulling the plugs every now and then, standard copper should work just fine.

These almost never mix coolant and oil. Head gasket leaks are either external or through the fire ring into the cumbustion chamber. A leak down test will tell you much more than a compression test.

The bearings in it are toast now. It needs to be replaced. The axle nut keeps the preload on the bearings so they all support the weight of the car. If the preload is lost then only one or two bearings are left to support the car, which causes severe wear instantly.

The bracket that holds the tensioner is replaceable. If the bolt was already loose you may be able to cut a notch in it and back it out with a screwdriver.

That would be a bad wheel bearing.

There's bound to be a junkyard near you that has a few. Dealer part number. Looks like it lists for $81. You can probably order from an online dealer for a little cheaper but shipping will be extra. http://opposedforces.com/parts/info/35151AC030/ There is also car-part.com.

You got it backwards. 140 ft-lbs of torque is exactly 140 pounds of force applied to the end of a 1 foot lever. Your mechanical advantage is that you use a 2 foot breaker bar to turn the bolt, so you only push with 70lbs of force, 2 feet from the center of the crankshaft. The hole in the flex plate is only about 6 inches from the center of the crankshaft (if that). 140 ft-lbs at half of a foot means the force applied to the screwdriver doubles. The screwdriver has to hold 280 lbs. A good screwdriver is able to hold this. A cheap Chinese screwdriver may break.

Two wires in the front upper corner of the door with the small black 2 pin connector is wiring for factory tweeters. You can pick up a set cheap from a junkyard car and just pop them in. Power mirror wiring has like 3 or 4 wires in the harness with a white (i think) 4 pin connector.

Grinding noise? Either the brake pads are completely shot or the wheel bearing fell apart. Either way you have multiple problems here. It probably needs a new master cylinder. Probably needs new pads, possibly a wheel bearing. Check the condition of ALL of the pads and rotors, and check ALL of the wheels for up & down and side to side movement. The caliper slide pins tend to get rusty and seize which prevents the caliper from moving as it should. Remove the calipers and inspect the slides, clean and regrease them with high temp brake grease. Replace them if they're very rusty or pitted or scored. Check the rotors for rust. Rust on the surface where the pads contact the rotor will just chew the lining off of the pads which will leave wide grooves in the lining. This decreases braking ability, because the rusted parts of the rotor never actually make full contact with the pad. If this is the case the rust can be sanded or wire brushed off in some cases so that new pads will make full contact with the rotor. Often the rotors need to be replaced, and new brake pads installed. If the brake fluid has not been changed in the past two years, that needs to be done.

I'm sure the ECU could figure out crank and cam position from just one sensor, but having two gives it something to check against to determine if the timing is out. There was a thread a few years back where someone was playing with adjustable crank sprockets with the thinking that it would affect ignition timing. Not sure whatever came of that. I'll have to see if I can find it again. Bad crank sensor will prevent the engine from running. An intermittent failure or poor connection to the sensor could allow it to still start but you will have a stored code because the ECU needs that signal. Usually with crank sensor failure it's all or nothing. It either runs or it doesn't. The cam sensor may be the same way. Easy to find out, just unplug it and see if the engine starts.

Sounds like a plan. I'd do it if I had a spare 2.5 laying around. Take pictures!

Get the timing belt cover off NOW and check the lower cogged timing idler. They like to fail, and they can flap around and toss bearings out all over the place as they chew through the water pump housing right before snapping the timing belt. A broken timing belt on that engine will result in bent valves that end up costing you days of work and thousands of dollars to repair. A new timing belt kit now (with water pump and all idlers) will cost you about $200 on eBay. DO NOT drive the car until you find the source of that noise. The good news is you will probably find the suspected compressor noise is the timing idler.

I doubt this was an attempt to combat the effects of wasted spark. Somebody had problems with number 1. Probably cracked or broke so they put A new spark plug in, and didn't bother to match it to the type already in the car. The burn mark is where spark is obviously jumping to ground. This could be due to a crack in the spark plug or a split in the boot. Definitely a good idea to replace the wires. And yes, you should put dielectric grease on all of the boots to help prevent moisture breach and arcing. I would have put a set of BKR6E-11 copper plugs in it. It seems to me that the platinum tips wear more unevenly when used with wasted spark systems, but its just a theory right now. I don't like paying $35 for a set of spark plugs that last no longer than the copper plugs that cost $10.

White powder = lean mixture. Are only certain plugs coming out white? If its only one or two it could mean a couple fuel injectors aren't spraying properly. Vacuum leaks are also possible. You replaced the throttle body gaskets and that cured one issue, the manifold gaskets could be bad as well. MAF should be grounded through the control unit and it probably will screw around with the ground circuit when it's running. Its kind of a pointless test anyway since the connector is unplugged. Resistance may change when the circuit is loaded, so to get an accurate picture of what's going on you should back-probe the connector while its plugged in. The signal voltage that gets sent back to the ECU is what you should be more concerned with anyway since thats what the ECU uses to determine what change it should make to the fuel mixture. Can't tell you exact specs, but I'm sure that info is around here somewhere.

You've got a lot more experience tuning than I do, but doesnt the ECU use the cam position sensor to determine the fuel injector timing? Crank sensor for ignition timing?

Cam timing doesn't greatly affect spark knock. Ignition timing, fuel octane, air/fuel mixture, and combustion chamber design have a larger effect. Higher compression creates more heat prior to ignition, this leads to detonation after ignition when using low octane fuel. Octane is added to help gasoline resist combustion. Ignition timing too far advanced when combined with low octane creates the same effect, you get too much heat in the combustion chamber around the time of ignition. Combustion chamber design is another major factor because the chamber shape affects how much turbulence or "swirl" there is in the air fuel mixture as it enters the chamber. The wrong type or amount of swirl can cause the mixture to be uneven, basically lean in some places but rich in others. The lean parts of the mixture will ignite first, and can do so before the flame from primary ignition has spread across the chamber. More swirl means the mixture combines more evenly, and will then burn more evenly as the flame front progresses. Cam timing can have an effect on the amount of "swirl", but it has to be pretty far out to be detrimental. At that point the compression would also be affected since the valves would close too soon or open too late. I find the numbers you have for total ignition timing advance interesting. I've seen timing advance indicated as much as forty four degrees on the scanner in my 96 Ej22. This only occurs during part throttle cruise, when under heavy acceleration timing advance is usually around 25-30 degrees. When you say total advance do you mean the amount of advance over the base setting? Base meaning ignition timing at idle, which should be about 14 degrees.

Idle control motor. You can unplug that and it shouldn't affect your re-program. Does your charger not have a high charge setting (like 6-10 amps)? The low settings will hardly even keep up with the draw from the dome lights much less the accessories and ECU. If that's all you have charge the battery overnight, then put it in the car and keep the charger hooked up while you do the download.

Drain oil and check for glitter. How long does the oil pressure light stay on after starting?

Car manufacturers instruct to put a charger on the battery while updating ECU ROM. Not going to hurt anything by doing that. Not sure about the ROM ID. Backup the info that's on it, try uploading a few different ones, if none work at least you can go back to the original.

95 ECU probably wont work. 95 ECU pinout differs from 96-98. The engine side harness is the same, but the ECU end is different for some reason. Still would like to see some vacuum test results. Coil packs (this style) don't usually cause misfire problems on just one cylinder. That would be spark plug, wire, fuel injector, something specific to that cylinder. Plug wires are usually checked with an ohmmeter. All should be about the same resistance. Not sure off the top of my head what the spec is, but if one is significantly higher than the rest it could be bad. What did you set your spark plug gaps at?

This is pretty much normal. If the ECU loses the MAF signal it doesn't know what to do and the engine stalls immediately. It doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem with the MAF. Valves seem a little tight IMO. Intake is probably OK, but the exhaust valves need to be a hair on the loose side because they wear faster. Have you hooked up a vacuum gauge to it? Any fluttering or jumping of the gauge (more than 1 or 2") at idle could indicate valve problems. Does the car have a MAP sensor? What is its value at idle? Other readings like ECT, throttle angle, fuel trims?