RPM fluctuation at idle
Doing other work in the car, I had to take part of the exhaust out. Having access to the inside of the pipe where the O2 sensor is installed, I was able to see a gap between the bong and pipe. That said there is another lead for hope that I could get this issue fixed. I will weld this gap up and hopefully this will take care of my issues. Unfortunately, I won't be able to test it until next year after the white stuff goes away.
I am so upset with the guy that did my exhaust. He definitely did a crappy job and did not even check the weld in this so important area. This is not even going over how low he left the passenger pipe and how crappy some of the bends look like. I have only outsourced two jobs in my car: exhaust and alignment. This kind of issues remind me of why I do it myself. Others don't care if they do an incomplete job as you care for your own car.
Great (but unfortunate) find! I bet this is a large contributor to your issues.
Yes, once you get that sealed up in your exhaust, you should notice a difference in your AFR even at idle. I was sucking in air before I corrected mine, causing the AFR to read very lean on the handheld to have good plug color, about 16. As soon as I fixed the leak, my AFR went down to normal about 14, so I had to adjust the target AFR to about 14 to get good plug color. Those O2 sensors are very sensitive to leaks. Those EFI systems are also very sensitive to voltage while cranking. If my battery gets a little low, even though it starts, it will run like crap. I have to run it for awhile like crap to charge the battery a little, before turning the car off and starting it again, then it will be fine.
slow to the party but did that fix the issue??
Okay. So I finally went out for the first drive of the season. I had very high hopes that welding the gap around the O2 sensor was going to fix the issue. However, it didn't. The fluctuation at idle still persist. This is mind boggling. Now I am really out of options. Frustrating to say the least! I created a log so I will compare to last year's to see if there are any diferences.
Hi Tony, apologies for jumping on this thread but do you have the dropbox email handheld update that you could send me at all? Thanks In advance