fires up but will not stay running, FIXED! now I have to watch Eddy dance around in his Minecraft Sui Options

[VavAlephVav]

I have a 94 Celica GT with the 2.2L 5sfe.
for a couple of months I have been nursing a bad head-gasket, I'm having a rebuilt motor installed in September.

the head gasket leaks exhaust into the coolant system and blows coolant back out the overflow tube, for a long time this has been the only leak and lately I drive real cool, shifting at 2200 and setting the cruise control at 55 and it does just fine without overheating or loosing much coolant. a couple of months back I flushed the coolant system just to see how dirty it was, and it wasn't very dirty at all yet after I flushed it the headgasket leak got worse from this I decided it may have been stop-leaked before I bought it (just last 0ctober) and therefore it is a better idea to get a whole new motor instead of doing a headgasket on this one. I have another guy doing a full rebuild for me it just isn't going to happen until September.

for the most part it has still run just fine and been quite dependable. except that the idle is often up around 1500-1800, until you goose the throttle a bit and it will come down to 800 or so like it ought to. and lately if I top off the radiator it doesn't want to start on the first try in the morning (most likely coolant leaking into the cylinder). but after it warms up it runs fine, sometimes it might die when its cold but always fires right back up.
then, I started messing with the throttle body to try and fix the idle speed problem. I took the throttle body off, and cleaned the Idle speed control valve, the coil ohms out like it should, and the valve turns freely. and I calibrated the TPS with an ohmmeter and feeler gauge as it shows in the 5sfe manual I have. but I think I set the closed position of the throttle plate too low, I don't have an angle gauge to measure the 6 degrees position from all the way closed, I noticed that the screw was out so far that the throttle opener diaphragm would only move the throttle about 1/8" when it was all the way out. but it ran fine for several weeks it just that when it was idling you could hardly hear it running.

but for weeks that worked fine and I was too busy to take it back apart and mess with it, but once in a while when it was cold first thing in the morning it might die the first couple of times. and the idle was still too high, and it was best to Let it idle high because as soon as I goose the throttle and bring it back down to idle speed it might die. but it would always fire right back up with no problem. but it was slowly getting worse. and it started giving me CEL codes, 12 - distributor, ignition coil, starter circuit. 14 - Distributor coil, igniter. and 21 - O2 sensor.

So this week summer class ended and ive got three weeks off and I started to mess with it... I went to pick-n-pull and got an igniter, O2 sensor and a fairly new looking ignition coil from a Camry 5sfe. at first I had the sense to change things one at a time and tried the igniter and it still wanted to die the first couple of times when cold, but it would start right back up. then I tried the O2 sensor, and mine has had the plug rigged this whole time and was held together by black tape so I took that apart to redo the whole wiring connection( hopefully improving it) installing the plug connectors I got from the salvage yard. But at this point I also sprayed intake cleaner down the throttle body (B-12 chemtool).

after this part it didn't want to start at all, it will crank and fire up, but shuts right back off. I had though at first I just needed to burn off the throttle cleaner but after starting it several times it just won't run anymore. and It fires up almost instantly but then seems to cut out as if something is cutting it off. and if I hit the key again it will not fire, but if I turn the key to OFF and then try again it will at least fire up for a moment and then cut off again. after trying dozens of times and running the battery down and jump starting it I have got it to fire up and run 3 times and I revved it and seemed like it was going to run and as soon as I let off the throttle it dies, and does not want to start back up.

today I took the dizzy off and swapped in the ignition coil I picked up, the ohm readings from the dist connections were within spec( G- G+ 200 ish ohms, Ne- Ne+ 440 ohms) but my ignition coil was the original 20 year old one and had a big split in the plastic and instead of reading .5 or so ohms it fluctuated wildly from 10, to 5 to 15 ohms before finally settling down to something close to 3 or 4 ohms so I replaced the coil thinking for sure I'd found the problem. I set the crank to 0 degrees and lined up the tabs on the dizzy and slipped it in. and it still does the same thing, after trying several times I got it to fire up and as long as I kept it reved up it was ok, and as soon as I let off the throttle it died and will not fire right back up. again, if I hit the key it fires but cuts off immediately, and if I just hit the key again it cranks but wont catch, if I turn the key to OFF and then try again it fires up and cuts off. about every 6 tries it will start and as long as I keep it revved up it will run.

so what do you think? what should I look at next? really the whole thing got worse as soon as I started dicking with the O2 sensor connection. how picky is that thing? I mean the guy I bought it from had it just twisted together and held with black tape this whole 10 months ive had it. or did I just spray too much throttle cleaner down it and need to burn it off?

thanks for your help

This post has been edited by VavAlephVav: Aug 19, 2014 - 7:12 AM