I am having some issues with the 96 T/A that I recently purchased, here is a list of what is going on. The car had a cracked radiator when I bought it. So I replaced it, then it started overheating. I realized my fan's weren't coming on, and replaced the temp sensor on the water pump and they started working. But now that the car is going into closed loop, it is running real bad(it didn't go into closed loop with the bad temp sensor). The car kinda jumps, and sputters. To get it started when it is warm, I have to push and hold the gas pedal on the floor, I am guessing that it is flooding it out, I figured bad injectors, but it starts with NO problems when cold. Also, if I am driving and I push my clutch in and tap the gas to try and rev it, all I can hear is the intake sucking in air, and the tach takes a nosedive and the car almost dies. When I push the clutch in to shift gears, the motor never goes back down to idle, it stays up around 2 grand. I can smell REAL rich gas all of the time, which is weird, because some of the symptoms point to a lean mixture, sometimes it smells like I am running alcohol in the car. I really think it is the 02's because it only does all of this after the car is warmed up and has gone into closed loop. When the car is in open loop, and I push the gas to rev it, the car will rev up, but it backfires and pops. Also, my SES light came on after I replaced the water temp sensor, so I went and had it checked out. It was P0118 I believe. It said something about water temperature and high input. I had it cleared, but it came back on. What could this mean? I have also replaced my AIT sensor, and 2 of my 02's. I still need to do the driver after cat and pass before cat, the two pain in the butt ones. I am totally stumped, and have nothing to drive until I fix it. Please help.

 

First of all, the after cat O2's only monitor the efficiency of the cats and have no control over the fuel ratio therefore to change them is a waste of money.

Second, the 118 code you are getting is directly related to ECT circuit which is controlling the entry to closed loop. If you are indeed going into closed loop, it's only from default by the PCM caused by the sensor circuit fault. You need to unplug the sensor and test it's resistance when it's cold and then warm up the engine and test the resistance of the sensor again. Then plug it back in and measure its resistance from the connector at the PCM. That proves out the connection to the PCM and its function.

It's all over but the crying now.

 

I did all of that already, that was how I discovered that my other sensor was bad. Do you think that maybe I could have bought a faulty sensor? I know that the car is going into closed loop because it runs good until it warms up, except for the popping in the exhaust. The previous owner just had all new plugs and wires put in about 2000 miles ago, do you think that some could be fouled out? The only reason I am replacing all 4 of the o2's is because the car is still on the original ones, and I figured since I was there, I might as well do it.

 

Doesn't matter how many times you did it, you have to fix the problem for the code to go away. You got to deal with the 118 fault first. Not sure about the sensor quality but my money is on some sort of wiring issue that is holding the signal wire high.

 

When I replaced the temp sensor I used a Borg-Warner Sensor. That kinda puzzled me because I thought they only did tranny's, but I guess I was wrong. Also, there was a spot on both of the temp sensor connector wires that had some of the covering kind of cut off, it was exposing the wires, I just wrapped it in electrical tape. Could this be the problem with the 118 code?

 

No, the 2 wires going to the sensor are signal coming from it to the PCM and ground. If the 2 wires were touching it would give you 117 "low" not the high fault.

Did you check the yellow wire for continuity from the sensor to the PCM? I think the sensor wire will read high if the connection is broken. Try this. Reset the code with a scanner or disconnect power from the PCM for a few minutes. While it's disconnected, unplug the ECT. Now run it and see if it gets the same code. If so you probably have a broken wire from the sensor to the PCM.

 

I did check for continuity, and the wire was good. Now it is throwing P1115, and it is a hard code. No matter how many times I get rid of it, it comes right back. I finished doing all of the o2's and it is still running bad. But for some reason the car wants to stick in open loop mode sometimes, but other times it goes into closed loop. I am totally stumped. You have any more ideas of what it could be?