Car is acting WACKO!
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12 Second Truck Club
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 5,574
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From: Sacramento, CA
Car is acting WACKO! The thing is getting worse and worse everytime I drive it.
My symptoms are:
The speedo needle jumps around like I'm getting a bit on a fishing pole, sometimes it just zeros out and stays there for awhile. Sometimes the car surges while this is happening but not always.
The car does not want to shift correctly at part throttle. Last night driving around in 3rd or OD it felt like I had no first gear, kinda like starting off in 2nd. But if I manually put it in first it defiantely had a first gear.
On the way home I tried giving it full throttle to see what it would do and 3 out of 4 times it started cutting out like it was going to die then would TRY and take off but felt like I was leaving the line in 3rd gear. The car has a hell of a time trying to idle now and I have to use 2 feet to keep it running when coming to a light.
I have LS1 Edit and even tried puttin gthe stock tuning back in but this only helped a little.
Also when I mash it I imediately get a Service Vehicle (not SES) light, sometimes an airbag light and sometimes the SES light. But both go away after awhile.
Someone mentioned it might be a gound problem somewhere. Anyone know where I should start looking??
Also I thought maybe during one of the many times I have reflashed the PCM that I might have damaged it. If I did what would the symptoms be?
My symptoms are:
The speedo needle jumps around like I'm getting a bit on a fishing pole, sometimes it just zeros out and stays there for awhile. Sometimes the car surges while this is happening but not always.
The car does not want to shift correctly at part throttle. Last night driving around in 3rd or OD it felt like I had no first gear, kinda like starting off in 2nd. But if I manually put it in first it defiantely had a first gear.
On the way home I tried giving it full throttle to see what it would do and 3 out of 4 times it started cutting out like it was going to die then would TRY and take off but felt like I was leaving the line in 3rd gear. The car has a hell of a time trying to idle now and I have to use 2 feet to keep it running when coming to a light.
I have LS1 Edit and even tried puttin gthe stock tuning back in but this only helped a little.
Also when I mash it I imediately get a Service Vehicle (not SES) light, sometimes an airbag light and sometimes the SES light. But both go away after awhile.
Someone mentioned it might be a gound problem somewhere. Anyone know where I should start looking??
Also I thought maybe during one of the many times I have reflashed the PCM that I might have damaged it. If I did what would the symptoms be?
Re: Car is acting WACKO! Find out what code you got first. V.S.S. tells pcm speed and pcm uses it for upshifts (A-4) and sends input to speedo. head. Code may help you find problem on either input (VSS) or in the logic/output (PCM).
Re: Car is acting WACKO! </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by F8LPONY:
<strong>The thing is getting worse and worse everytime I drive it.
My symptoms are:
The speedo needle jumps around like I'm getting a bit on a fishing pole, sometimes it just zeros out and stays there for awhile. Sometimes the car surges while this is happening but not always.
The car does not want to shift correctly at part throttle. Last night driving around in 3rd or OD it felt like I had no first gear, kinda like starting off in 2nd. But if I manually put it in first it defiantely had a first gear.
On the way home I tried giving it full throttle to see what it would do and 3 out of 4 times it started cutting out like it was going to die then would TRY and take off but felt like I was leaving the line in 3rd gear. The car has a hell of a time trying to idle now and I have to use 2 feet to keep it running when coming to a light.
I have LS1 Edit and even tried puttin gthe stock tuning back in but this only helped a little.
Also when I mash it I imediately get a Service Vehicle (not SES) light, sometimes an airbag light and sometimes the SES light. But both go away after awhile.
Someone mentioned it might be a gound problem somewhere. Anyone know where I should start looking??
Also I thought maybe during one of the many times I have reflashed the PCM that I might have damaged it. If I did what would the symptoms be?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Been there, done that.
Check your grounds located at the back of the heads. There should be anwhere from 2-4 grounding points between both your heads. If one of these is not getting a good connection, then you will get the sypmtoms you describe. Each grounding wire is connected by an 'eye' point (ie, just a loop attatched to the wire). Remove the bolt holding the wires down. Take some sort of electrical cleaner (Aluminum Friendly <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" /> ) and clean both the back of the head, and the 'eye'. Then re-attach. It should take care of the problem. If not, read on, maybe you did what I did.
My car did EXACTLY the same as yours. After pulling my heads I decided that it would be a good idea to group all of the grounds (3) on one bolt, on the right side head, so I could get the heads off easier next time.
For whatever electrical phenomena (floating ground, whatever) this does not work. My PCM / Speed / Gauge Lights went berzerk. I cleaned and re-attatched the wires several times. Finally, after being fed up, I dug up two extra 15mm bolts and gave each wire its own grounding point. This fixed the problem.
Good Luck
<img border="0" alt="[cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/gr_cheers.gif" />
<strong>The thing is getting worse and worse everytime I drive it.
My symptoms are:
The speedo needle jumps around like I'm getting a bit on a fishing pole, sometimes it just zeros out and stays there for awhile. Sometimes the car surges while this is happening but not always.
The car does not want to shift correctly at part throttle. Last night driving around in 3rd or OD it felt like I had no first gear, kinda like starting off in 2nd. But if I manually put it in first it defiantely had a first gear.
On the way home I tried giving it full throttle to see what it would do and 3 out of 4 times it started cutting out like it was going to die then would TRY and take off but felt like I was leaving the line in 3rd gear. The car has a hell of a time trying to idle now and I have to use 2 feet to keep it running when coming to a light.
I have LS1 Edit and even tried puttin gthe stock tuning back in but this only helped a little.
Also when I mash it I imediately get a Service Vehicle (not SES) light, sometimes an airbag light and sometimes the SES light. But both go away after awhile.
Someone mentioned it might be a gound problem somewhere. Anyone know where I should start looking??
Also I thought maybe during one of the many times I have reflashed the PCM that I might have damaged it. If I did what would the symptoms be?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Been there, done that.
Check your grounds located at the back of the heads. There should be anwhere from 2-4 grounding points between both your heads. If one of these is not getting a good connection, then you will get the sypmtoms you describe. Each grounding wire is connected by an 'eye' point (ie, just a loop attatched to the wire). Remove the bolt holding the wires down. Take some sort of electrical cleaner (Aluminum Friendly <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" /> ) and clean both the back of the head, and the 'eye'. Then re-attach. It should take care of the problem. If not, read on, maybe you did what I did.
My car did EXACTLY the same as yours. After pulling my heads I decided that it would be a good idea to group all of the grounds (3) on one bolt, on the right side head, so I could get the heads off easier next time.
For whatever electrical phenomena (floating ground, whatever) this does not work. My PCM / Speed / Gauge Lights went berzerk. I cleaned and re-attatched the wires several times. Finally, after being fed up, I dug up two extra 15mm bolts and gave each wire its own grounding point. This fixed the problem.
Good Luck
<img border="0" alt="[cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/gr_cheers.gif" />
