Ok guys, I got my SR about 3 months ago and its parked now because of winter so its time to fix it.
I have 3 main problems with the engine.
1> It is horrible to start when cold!!! I got the walbro 255 with the swap so its not the pump. I have HKS spark plugs and I am wondering if they are meant for warmer climates?? (stupid thought of mine) . I have now killed my starter because of 30 seconds of cranking waiting for it to catch.
I should mention it was a little hard to start before I got the SR but now its worse.
2> When it idles at around 1200 you can hear somekind of rattle coming from the top of the valve coverin the front. I took it off and checked all the bolts. Some one said that the timing chain tensioner could be gunked up with old oil thus not giving proper tension to the chain making the chain hit the guides. The solution to this is to take the front half of my engine off and clean/replace the tensioner, and remove the two top timing chain guides.
3>It idles whereever it feels like, sometimes 700rpm, 1200, or usually it is at 1700-1900. HELP ME, I know I got a junker engine but i need to fix it!!
Does anyone have any commments/ suggestions before i get my hands dirty?? Any help would be awesome, I need to fix this before summer!!
How come it idles so high?
As far starting the engine up goes, check the timing and make sure it’s set properly… whatever the FSM says it’s ok for the SR… That might even fix your idling issues…
As far as the timing goes the guy that put in my engine said that if he tried to advance or retard it, it would stall out or run like shit. The timing is set the only place where it wants to be. There is a giant chip in my ECU (half the size) and he doesn’t know what it does.
I tried switching ECU’s with my friend but when I switched them I never bothered to fool around with the timing. My car ran the exact same with my friends ECU though.
If it’s rough to start, odds are the cold start was never wired in.
I can’t remember off the top of my head what wire it is (I think it’s orange)
This wire signals to the ECU to go through all of the startup functions to start a cold engine (retard timing, richen, etc)
I know I did an engine swap (KADE into S12) and we never hooked it up. The car starts like an old carburetted car. If you don’t give it some gas on the pedal, it will crank for a long time before starting, especially if it’s been sitting.
The wonky idle, and not wanting to take timing …
This gets better.
First off it sounds like there’s a vacuum leak somewhere.
Second, I don’t think you can just walk the dizzy around on an SR to change timing.
I’m hardly an SR guru, but I’m pretty sure there’s an entire check process you have to go through, (shorting out something, unhooking something else?) or else the computer won’t recognize the change.
There has to be an FSM somewhere online that details it properly. It’s been at least a couple years since I last looked into it.
you forgot to mention my ECU is also chipped, just only 1/2 the size of yours lol.
the rattle is the tensioner like you said.
The poor start is the O-Ring in the fuel pick up.
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Thanks JEFF,
Just trying to get some opinions, from other people that actually have SR’s . Maybe some of these guys ran into the exact same problems, and my problems might not be as bad as we think.