I have had headers(SLP LT,cats,y pipe) in my car for about 4 months and its already been twice that the SES light comes on. And the problem with the SES light is that ever since the headers were installed the o2 sensors burn. What can i do to stop it from happening again? Please help me out in this one! Also i'm looking into putting pulleys in my car. What kind do i get, something that's reliable for a daily driven car.

 

He may be calling it "burned" when it's really
fouling from a messed up mixture. If the sensor
looks black this is your bet. Missing AIR pump
can also contribute to fouling, nothing to burn
off soot with. Don't know if this is in the
picture.

 

I trust you mean the wires burn, right?

If so, wire tie them away from the headers. If not enough wiring is available to freely do so, I think some vendors sell pigtail extensions.

If you mean the O2 sensor itself burns, that I find kinda hard. Even if you were running too lean which would make them hotter, I've taken gas torches to them (which are far hotter than any temperature the exhaust can get) and they work just fine afterwards.

 

what do you mean by "messed up mixture"? They had just fixed the SES light yesterday(o2 sensors) and again today the light came on. i will be taking it tomorrow to the dealer again. What can i do to prevent this from happening? Please help me out!

 

I mean, if the headers have put you way lean
or way rich, beyond the system's ability or
inclination to compensate for it, you will
have a non-ideal mixture. If excess hydro-
carbon is the result (as in a too-lean mix,
or as in a misfiring cylinder; didn't
damage any plug wires, did you? Seems a
common accident in header installs) then
you'll be throwing "glop" down the exhaust.
I don't see this killing a sensor in a day,
but on the other hand, I ran leaded gas in
an EFI car once, and it took maybe 20 miles
before it started running like **** and had
a flame out the exhaust. So you can kill an
O2 sensor in not too much time.

Didn't use any silicone sealers on the header
gaskets, did you? Silicon poisons the zirconia
sensor element. Same can be true for some
metallic contaminants. How long have these
headers been on the car? Run long enough to
have burnt off any traces of manufacturing
oils, WD-40, etc.?

Might ought to put a good DVM to the sensor
voltage and watch it, from first start and
for a while. See what is happening there.
Happy sensors swing tight and fast, .3-.7V and
soggy old ones can crash and bounce, .1-.9,
slower, as their response gets slow enough
to dominate the feedback loop. A really dead
one will put out zero. Then your car sees the
situation as too lean, throws gas at it to no
effect, at least up to the limits in the program.
Does your exhaust have a gas smell to it?

Might check that there's no mechanical damage to
the sensor harness. Especially if what you see
off the PCM connector on your meter is abnormal.

 

I had the headers for about 3 months. i believe that some silicone was used to seal some leaks. like i said i don't know much about it.So should i use lS1_edit and see what's up? i don't have it but can get to someone that does. Any other recomendations?
Thanks for your help!

 

You said the s-word. Though, check the code with Autotap or some other scan tool. In addition to what Jimmyblue said it could be a rear sensor code and that would make it possible it's the cat. BTW, did you replace the 02 sensors every time it happened or was the code just cleared ?
If it was cleared and it's the cat then it would take some time to light the SES again.

 

Yes the sensors were replaced everytime the SES light turned on. They just call me from the dealer and was told that either the harness from the sensors or headers were bad and not the sensors.Since the harness is aftermarket or so they say. I don't understand, they couldn't fix it.

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by vomitcorpse:
<strong>Yes the sensors were replaced everytime the SES light turned on. They just call me from the dealer and was told that either the harness from the sensors or headers were bad and not the sensors.Since the harness is aftermarket or so they say. I don't understand, they couldn't fix it.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Might be an aftermarket O2 extension harness,
but it would be way surprising if there was
a whole aftermarket wiring harness in place.

Wire is wire, and if it's plugged in and
undamaged, then it doesn't mean dick. It's
just a convenient excuse to quit trying.

Still say to look at the sensor voltage at
the PCM, just so you know signal is getting
there. And you'll know how it looked to start,
and how it looks after the SES lights up, so
you can see if the sensor drifted or not.

My sensor voltage swing remarks are from
working on older EFI cars. I see the idle,
operating voltage swinging up and down in
a limited span about 0.5V, at least two
cycles a second, on a clean new sensor.
A slow, fouled one swings larger, spends
a lot of time "crashed" at both ends, cycles
take longer (maybe 2 sec per cycle). This
is somewhat obscured by my DMM update speed,
but maybe you get the drift. I haven't had
occasion to mess with the LS-1 yet, maybe
its loop behaves differently but I don't
expect by much.

But if you have silicone sealer in the exhaust,
I would get that **** out of there before you
do anything else. Even the "sensor safe" stuff
is only "sensor safe" when it's fully cured
and not subjected to overtemperature (i.e.
maybe OK for intake side, definitely not for
exhaust, and I wouldn't use it at all).

 

Thanks alot for the advice.I'm gonna **** around with LS1 edit and see what i can do. I am amazed the dealer changed my sensors 3 times without trying to void my warranty.

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Might ought to put a good DVM to the sensor
voltage and watch it, from first start and
for a while. See what is happening there.
Happy sensors swing tight and fast, .3-.7V and
soggy old ones can crash and bounce, .1-.9,
slower</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I just wanted to clarify what Jimmy said a little. When you have A-Tap (or other scanner) hooked up and you're monitoring your O2's. When you turn the ignition switch to on (not starting the engine), the O2's voltage should either drop below .3 or jump above .7 almost instantaneously. If you turn the ignition on and it slowly creeps down or slowly raises, the O2 sensor is going bye-bye.

As an example of the timing of the issue. I recently had a B1S1 O2 problem on a 96 Monte. I'd turn the ignition on, and it'd start out at .685v. After 30 seconds it was down to .635v. After 5 minutes, it was only down to .3xxv's. This verified the slow response code I was also getting.

Replaced the sensor (which was a B*TCH and a half mind you), and re-tested it over again. Turned the ignition on, and within 2 seconds, the O2 was down to .135v.