6G Celicas Forums

So because so many different things have happened since my last post i decided to start a new one. So here is the update: I got the new igniter put it in, car fired right up a lot easier. I was able to drive it and move it but the moment I let go of the gas pedal it died. Sprayed starting fluid fired up, let go of the throttle it died. We thought it might be the cat because there was a heavy gas smell when th car did fire up. started it once we removed the cat, it fired up but still would not hold once the throttle was let go. Changed the fuel filter, the old one was clogged, checked the pressure on the fuel, everything checked out. Injectors are getting signal just fine. now we are stumped.

Before anyone says ECU, we have swapped ecu's and it didnt change anything. So at this point any Idea's would be greatly appreciated.

This post has been edited by gotian: Jul 20, 2012 - 7:35 AM

Have you check the iac valve?
Idk if it could cause this or not but I know it can make your idle screwy so it might be worth checking

it's not an idle problem, its an ignition problem that I can't seem to find. I forgot to mention that I changed the distributor, cap, and rotor because the cap had a crack in it and the distributor had oil in it. But I cant get the car to stay on longer than a second to see if the idle is screwy and when I do get it fired up then it shuts off when i release the pedal

There's 2 diffrent ignition modules one on the fire wall an one in the dist itself
You might want to get your hands on a different dist. An see if that helps

Okay so I cleaned all the grounds. I found on the starter ground that out had melted the plastic casing and out covered the metal contact point. Car fires up without hesitation but it still won't stay on. It sits down right away. I pulled the plugs, they were extremely fouled with black carbon build up. I will change them in a bit. In the likeliness that the new plug don't do the trick could the timing be of from installing the new distributor?

you didnt touch the 2 main bolts to adjust it?? just the cap right?

we put a new distributor all together cause the old one was bad, the coil was fried and there was oil all over it from the seals going bad.

I also noticed that the person who did the plugs before put autolite platinum in there. don't our cars call for double platinum minimum requirement?

yep your timing will be completely f*cked then, find yourself a timing light, bridge the diagnostic connectors and set the timing to 10 deg adv. its important that you do it at operating temp and with the diagnostics bridged so the ecu runs at base timing and doesnt apply any extra advance

also still wouldnt hurt to pull apart your IAC and give it a cleanout with carby cleaner, make sure the revolving door turns freely

how can i get it to operating temp if it wont stay on long enough to do so?

Final update. The new plugs helped out to fire up and stay running. A ton of smoke came out from un burnt fuel. We put the o2 sensor and the cat back on and the cat would not run. Turns out the culprit the entire time was the cat. Thanks for ask your help guys

So today the car had a rough time starting.we took a look at it adjusted timing a bit and guess what, the coil in the new distributor was sending a bad signal, so now I'm waiting for them to deliver the replacement one

Bah, this is driving me nuts....I put in the new distributor cranked the car and it fired up and ran like new all the way home. Got home turned it off and on to make sure it would fire up great and it did, cool.

went to start the car 10-15 minutes later car wouldnt fire up, throwing code 13...WTF timing is good, we adjusted it when we put the second new dizzy in, ignitor is good, new plugs, new wires, new cap and rotor, cleaned grounds. Now were stumped.

Help me 6gc you're my only hope!

try to borrow another ECU.

i dont have another ecu to borrow. is it possible mine is bad even though when i opened it up it looked perfect, no blown capacitors or anything

So I hate it when I'm searching through the forums and find people who have had the same issue but never post if they have resolved it and then you see other people responding asking if they fixed it because now their car is having the same issue. So I'm posting that I have resolved my issue completely now after a string of codes and replacing faulty parts. The culprit for my no starting was the Coolant Temp sensor. The sensor was rotted out on the inside where the connection was and broke apart like a brittle lump of sand, the faulty sensor was sending a bad signal to the ECU which in turn was making the ECU send a signal to dump a whole mess of fuel into the combustion chamber.

Once I replaced the sensor and deflooded the car the car fired up with a nice smoke display. Afterwards I advanced the timing and drove it for about an hour to make sure I burn up all the excess fuel in the engine (im running on premium so advancing it did not make it knock.) once I drove it bad home I turned it off and let it sit for an hour. I went back to turn it on and it fired up no hesitation. For safe measures I ran seafoam through the intake to clean up any crap I might still have from flooding the car.

The real test was this morning since with the problem I was having was that if I did get it running after letting it sit over night it wouldnt run again. So this morning I went to go start it and it started up like it was a brand new car and ran like one too.

So if anyone has a similar problem now you know to replace your coolant temp sensor since it's cheap (I got mine for $12 bucks brand new 1 year warranty) In total I spent about $160 in parts but now I have a car withe a complete tune up (distributor, cap, rotor, ignition wires, spark plugs NGK Iridium, coolant temp sensor, igniter) and a gutted cat.

yea thats one problem that flew right by me, not an obvious one either, were you getting codes it was that sensor?

nope no codes, the coolant temp sensor doesnt throw any codes, thats why it ended up being the last thing i checked =(

i was curious because toyota does have codes for coolant temp sensor. like P0125 for example.

For obd1 it doesn't throw a code, obd2 will show a code for sure.
In my case I just had to recognize the signs, but unfortunately the only way for me to know the signs were to fix everything else that was wrong with the car

actually on OBDI you can jumper your OBD E1 and TE1 and coolant temp sensors are codes 4 and 22, what i gave as an example is for OBDII coding format. as long as its a sensor, your car should throw a code, thats where these trouble codes derive from - your sensors, and your auto tranny has the same thing, you jumper different pins and read the O/D blinks vice for engine related is Engine check blinks.

This post has been edited by trdproven: Jul 21, 2012 - 11:33 AM