I'll give the background on my car and problems before I explain my new problems.

1995 TA, 6 speed, longtube headers/ory/hooker catback/cai.

I had problems with a weird miss before I left for the service for 5 months earlier this year, but it ended up being the ICM. After buying a new one, and doing the spacing mod, I had no more problems. I put the car up in may without stabil (didn't realize I was going to be gone for 5 months ) Upon my return, it seemed to miss whenever it was warmed up ( any hard acceleration was a fantasy, but I could slowly build up speed. If I tried to give it any serious gas, it would chug and miss ) Now, it has procedded to do it regardless for the past week or two. I've already put brand new premium gas into it, to no avail. I also replaced the coil/coil wire/icm.

Fast forward to today. I took her out, and sure enough the miss was still there regardless of how warm it was. Finally, the ses light came on and it ended up slowly dieing. It would start back up, but wouldn't stay running with any load. After 5 or 10 minutes of sitting there, it started up again and the ses light was off and I was able to drive her home( still had the misfire under any kind of serious load ). Also, while idling, it pops from the exhaust all the time.

One question I had , because my car is a 95 is has an obd1 computer with an obd2 outlet, can autozone scan it with obd2 and pick up the code? They (or advance ) don't have the adapter.

Any help now would be greatly apprecaited!


I figured I'd download pcmcomm.exe and buy a cable from akm electronics to hook it up. Will this cable from them work?

Cable with molded OBDII-style connector, approx. 15 ft. in length (RS232) or 11 ft in length (USB)
Recommended for use with LT1_Edit Software, TTS Datamaster, and other high performance communications software (go to my order form)

 

Your PCM can only be scanned with a scanner with OBD-I capabilities. It can not be scanned with a scanner that can only read OBD-II computers.

If you know someone that has an OBD-I scanner, but no 12-pin to 16-pin adapter, you can make your own jumpers following this photo on Shoebox's website:

http://shbox.com/1/xraycable.jpg

The cable you listed from AKM is the correct one.

 

I'm going to say that your code is probably related to the car running lean. I'd say your fuel pump is bad (when the pump heats up, it's not running properly). You need to test the fuel pressure at the rail. Get back to us after you do that.

 

Sweetred95ta, thanks for the response. I'm going to go and pick up a fuel pressure tester now, and I'll share the results asap. I wasn't even thinking fuel related.


Injuneer, good deal. I don't have a friend who has one, but that answers my question on if the Zone could have scanned it. Guess I'll be buying that cable! Hope it works out as well as it does for everyone else!

 

Ok, went and bought a fuel pressure tester, and tested it with the engine off and the key in the on position, and it reads 42-43 psi and stays there until I release the pressure from the gauge. It is still connected to the schrader valve, is there a way I can turn the car on and check the pressure also?

 

Yes, you want to test it under three conditions.

1 - At idle, pull the vacuum compensation line off the fuel pressure regulator (cover the end so there's no vacuum leak). Pressure should be in the range of 41-47psi. 43.5psi is "correct".

2 - Still at idle, reconnect the vacuum line. Fuel pressure should drop proportional to intake manfold vacuum. A 6-8psi drop from the "no vacuum" reading is normal with a stock/ish cam. Less drop with a bigger cam.

3 - Tape the gauge to the windshield, close the hood and take it out on the road. At WOT/max load/max RPM the fuel pressure should hold within about 2psi of the "no vacuum" reading, and should in no case drop below 40psi.

 

Well, good news is I ordered akmcables to check the code it displayed when the ses light when on, bad news is I think akm gave me the wrong cable.

I ordered this one

Cable with molded OBDII-style connector, approx. 15 ft. in length (RS232) or 11 ft in length (USB)
Recommended for use with LT1_Edit Software, TTS Datamaster, and other high performance communications software (go to my order form)

It has 12 prongs, 6 on top, 6 on bottom.

My connection to my pcm looks exactly like the one shown here.

http://shbox.com/1/xraycable.jpg


It doesn't seem to fit, and I feel like I'm breaking it when I try to put it in. Is this the wrong cable connection? I'm going to try to dig up my digital camera and put a picture on here tonite.

It looks kinda like this with the 12 prongs. http://tunertools.com/prodimages/OBD...lded_large.gif

 

You must have gotten the wrong cable. The description you posted is correct, but the OBDII style connector has 16 pins. The OBDI style connector is 12 pin, but I didn't think it actually had 12 prongs. Take a picture of it. You should email AKMCables and see what they say and recommend.

 

After talking with Andrew at AKM cables, he quickly sent me the right cable, and now I can easily hook up with my car. I am using pcmcomm.exe, and at idle for awhile it doesn't show anything too crazy.
Left and right O2's stay right around 250 or so. Knock retard is about 22 degrees.


I tried logging the information into a txt, but it looked like garbage when I went to open it up after I was done. Is it supposed to be a txt, or some other format? Also, what is the cheapest way to pull codes, or codes that appeared, then disappeared?

I'm going to try to get the log to work right, but so far I am very impressed with the setup!

 

That actually would be "crazy". The O2 sensors should never be "steady' at 250mV, except briefly, after a cold start when the PCM is in open loop. Once it reaches the required coolant temp and timeout it will switch to closed loop, and the O2 sensors should be swinging wildly from 0xx-9xx mV, and not necessarily in synch with each other.

And, you are getting 22deg of spark advance (not knock retard), which is normal for idle. The negative sign in -22 indicates "advance" with reference to TDC.

For info on the values you should be seeing, take a look at my online scanner guide:

http://members.aol.com/InjuneerZZ/ScanMast.htm
How did you try and open the .txt file? If you can, save it in .csv (comma separated variable) format. That format can be opened with Excel.
pcmcomm should be able to acces the DTC codes. What do you mean by "appeared, then disappeared"?

 

Injuneer,

First, thanks for your replies. They are really helping me to get my car working again! I ran it again, and it wasn't at 250 for the o2's, it was around 750, and it did vary alot as it ran. I couldn't read my log so I was trying to remember what it was reading. I'm going to try to save that file as a csv, if not, I'll run it again and try to save it as it. Hope it works!

And what I meant by it appearing, and disappearing, was the SES light on my car. Whenever it was dieing, the ses light would come on. But after it started up the light went away. That's what I meant. How can I use pcmcomm.exe to pull the dtc code? I only have the free version. Do I have to buy the full version to pull the code? If I do, is there a cheaper alternative to pulling dtc codes?

Thanks for the help!

 

I really don't know anything about how pcmcomm works. I pretty much gave up on the stock PCM about 7 years ago. Most scan software can pull most of the data out of the PCM, and that includes the "stored" DTC codes. The SES light does not have to be on.

Have you also looked at TTS DataMaster or FreeScan? Both of them should work with your cable and both are free.

 

Injuneer,

Alright, finally found a way to pull the DTC codes from my freaking car! The codes were

dtc 16 lo-res fail
dtc 23 MAT low ( I thought this had something to do with the IAC, and I accidently left that unhooked from my elbow on my last test run. don't know if that would set it off or not?)
dtc 36 hi-res fail

Sounds like my opti right? I have already replaced that wire that runs to it on the pass. side of the engine, so I know it can't be that. And the opti itself was replaced last year. What do you think?

I was using TTS datamaster ( the 20 run free trail ).