Need help - car sat for a long time...

[danielhv]

87 or 89GT, cant remember off the top of my head, but it sat for probably a year and a half or so... I changed the gas out to 93 octane, put some fuel injector cleaner through it, changed the plugs, wires were replaced a few years back, and changed the oil.

Seems to have a miss tho... lacks power, once started have to keep it reved up for a minute or so or it will die, highway speeds just cuts out every now and then. Feels okay when accelerating tho.

Another issue - no heat. When I first started it, it started overheating, bottom radiator hose was still cold. Replaced thermostat, bottom hose got hot then, but was middle of summer so didn't check the heat coming out of the vents. Sat for another 2 months, now I think the damn thing is stuck closed again. They are such a pain in the ass to get too! Radiator looks nasty inside... I assume thats whats stopping up the thermostat? Not sure if I should try flushing, or just replace it.

Thoughts?

[Snatch Napkin]

All of that nasty shit in the radiator that is probably clogging the thermostat will be clogging the heater core, thus no heat.


The miss and no idle could be a long list of things. IAC, vacuum leak, pickup coil, TFI, TPS.....



EDIT: Pull the vacuum line from your FPR and see if it smells like fuel. Maybe the ethanol ate up a diaphragm. Check your fuel pressure too.

[crapstang]

Just spray a TOOON of carb cleaner into it, then it'll run nice

[danielhv]

Ok, so I found a vacuum leak, repaired it, idle is more stable now, throttle response is much better... but it still misses every now and then, but not like it did. I changed the fuel filter, cap & rotor, pulled the IAC (which looks to have been changed at some point, still looks pretty new) and cleaned it up. Plugs were changed in March, wires look like they were changed not too long ago as well.

Is there anyway to diagnose the TPS? Or just swap it and see?

[Snatch Napkin]

Check the voltage at idle and WOT to make sure it is within tolerances.

Idle should be below 1 volt. I personally like to keep it at .94 volts to allow for heat soak which my raise it above the 1 volt mark.

WOT should be less than 4 volts, I believe.

Then you want to check the sweep. This is best achieved with an analog meter. Hook up the leads as you did before to check voltage. With the key on, engine off slowly open the throttle to WOT and watch for any erratic needle sway. You want a smooth run to WOT out of the needle.

The orange wire and Green wire are what you hook your meter to. I want to ay you put the ground on the green wire. It's been a while. Lol.

[white88]

Orange is 5V ref, you want the green and black wires.