well......found out why my cars temp wasnt rising properly

damn temp sensor is busted right off and melted!!!

must have happened when installing my headers.

im assuming that because the PCM doesnt know what temp my engine is running at........its probably retarding timing or something, which would explain why the car feels so slow.

could this also cause detonation or pinging?
a friend listened to my car yesterday who used to work for gm.......he said he could hear a miss or ping.

 

I assume the coolant temp sensor you broke off was the one on the driver's side head???

If so, no affect whatsover. That sensor is only used for the dash gauge. The PCM gets it's data from the similar sensor mounted on the water pump housing.

 

If it is the sensor in the water pump, that is the one the computer sees. If it isn't there the computer doesn't know to richen mixture on cold start which usually results in hard starting. Don't see how your could have broken off that one though.

 

yeah, thats the one................

so that means there is something else causing it to run crappy........

hmmm.........well........time to pull the plugs out and see whats wrong

 

It's hard to determine if it's missing or pinging just by listening. Get some kind of real-time scanning software, and monitor for knock.

 

well two people so far that heard my car said "hey, do you have a miss?"

thats a little too coincedental.........im gonna try pulling all the plugs tomorrow to see what they look like.

 

since you just installed headers, make sure no plug wires are melted to the headers

 

i put in new plug wires with the headers........i cant see any problems from the top............but tomorrow im gonna jack her up and check it out from the bottom..........its hard to see the passenger wires from the top.