Swapped to shorty headers on 83 crossfire, they came without the a.i.r. so since I took all that out i took the smog stuff out as well and egr block off. the headers came without anywhere for the o2 sensor so I haven't got that in yet, im running both headers i believe 2 and a half inch to a single magnaflow with a 3 inch outlet. fresh gaskets on in the top end so since I had it all apart I had to readjust the valves and reinstall the distributer, but my issue is when the car warms up it just wants to die out, dies out at every light and stop now after this, on the go it runs like a beast but stumbles out and dies at a stop and I can't figure it out... if anyone has anything info that could help me figure it out that would be great thanks

 

There is no chance whatsoever that your car will run right without the O2 sensor.

Put that in first before worrying about anything else.

 

O2 sensor. Even with an O2 sensor my car will run like sh&@ until it warms up to operating temperature since I put headers on. They say run a heated O2 sensor when running headers . I will be probably looking into that myself.
Maybe you can get someone to weld you in a bung into one of the headers.. you will have to have it.

 

Thanks guys I had a feeling that was the culprit haha I will give that a shot and let you guys know

 

So I put the o2 sensor in, so far I've only had one quick drive in it to get it all warmed up and it still dies out at the stops, gonna put a timing gun on it tomorrow and try to get that dialed in. But other than that what else could it be?.. Based on what I've done to it in the first section I posted. I only had one quick drive to see how it acted so idk if it needed to be run longer? Or what.. it ran before I did all the work to it.. other than bad head gaskets it ran fine

 

As you had the distributor in and out, I'd say double checking the timing makes sense, though unless it's off by an extraordinary amount, I wouldn't think that would lead to stalling.

Does it stall stone cold, as well as fully warmed up?

Going back through the work you mentioned doing...you mentioned adjusting the valve. Any chance you over tightened things? Was there an issue that lead you to adjusting them? Can you describe the steps you went through to do that?

 

it will start up and idle perfectly fine when cold.. when all warmed up is when it starts to act funny, after I put in the o2 sensor it did help a bit every now and again I can keep it idle when warm but still stumbles real hard, most of the time it just dies out when warmed up, i looked it up on YouTube how to adjust the valves, i tightened till i had no play in each rod, turn the motor, and check em again for play after doing that a few times till they were all even i did a half turn on each one and thats how I adjusted them ( when running i don't hear any bad valve noise or anything) according to the video I watched, I had to do that because I took off the heads to replace the top end gaskets. And in order to do that you need to take the rods an crap off. I got the timing gun on it but seems no Matter where I got it it just wants to stumble out, im gonna put a new egr valve on cause I hear the crossfire is temperamental without it. Any advice helps and I appreciate it in advance guys thanks

 

I forgot to mention I didn't take the heads apart just took the stuff off the top and rods to get the heads off

 

You may have overtightened the valve adjustment. When you adjust them, do one at a time and then leave it. If you rotate the camshaft around again, the force from the valve springs will bleed the lifters down and the lash will appear to be loose when you recheck it. Then, you adjust it again to take up the lash and when you start it and the lifters pump up, the valves will be held open a bit. Not sure if that's your problem here, but based on how you said you adjusted the valves, I would reset them and either it will be better, or it rules it out.

 

People can keep guessing random things but that's just what they will be- random guesses.

You took it apart, no idea why you took so much of it apart, there was no reason to take apart the top end to do a set of headers, and you put something together wrong. Judging from the fact that you took all that apart to do headers and your "valve adjustment" procedure is totally wrong (turn the engine over till that valve is on the base part of the lobe, tighten the rocker nut till it takes up all the play in the pushrod then tighten another turn plus or minus some, how much you tighten past 0 lash depends on you, the less you do it the better the engine will run, but the harder it is to get right) I can't imagine the number of random things that might be just enough off to cause a problem.

Good luck, try to find someone competent to look at it and figure out what you did. I don't think that the most competent person will guess out of the dozens of things it could be.

 

I took it apart to do the head gaskets... only really did the headers cause the stock manifold has to come off in order to do head gaskets.. smog stuff came off cause only half was hooked up to begin with.. if you actually read s#!t you would have figured that out tho... and this is my first car that I have worked on doing something that deep on it so yea mistakes are made.. im sure the first car you ever put hands on guaranteed that thing had some type of mistake that you had to go back on..idk why you are being an *******.. I was just seeking help if you want to just hop on and take the time to be rude you can find someone else post to be a douchbag on....

 

Nice.

Huh:

Yep, I can't read, that was all about replacing head gaskets.

I stated facts based on what you wrote which clearly shows that you don't know what you're doing in general with something wrong with everything you explained you did (maybe what you did wasn't as bad as what you wrote, but what other basis do we have to figure out what you did besides based on what you wrote?), forget specifically WRT to specific things to the crossfire. I'm probably one of the few still here that knows the finer details about the crossfire setup and engine management and can even still place his hands on a full crossfire setup. Good luck. Dumbass.

 

look man you don't gotta be a as#$%le, I was only seeking advice, I've done alot of basic stuff to my car but its the first time I done head gaskets to it so yea im sorry that i didn't get it right the first time if that offended you in some type of way.. and yea I should have been a bit more clear the reason I had it apart that far was to do head gaskets, but still doesn't justify you taking the time to be rude on my post.. and if you know so much about the set up why don't you just give me some advice instead of just being rude..

 

Well, this went south fast.

83 Crossfire's message is right, although the delivery was a bit harsh. We need to know the whole story if we are going to be able to help.

OP, you posted here in the exhaust forum and also the same question over in the TBI forum, so now you have two threads with different subjects with different members trying to help you solve the same problem. That's not a good thing. I suggest not doing that in the future.

So how about we start over. The assumption is that this issue wasn't happening before you tore it apart, correct? Tell us about the whole project and what you did to get to this point, what you have tried so far to remedy the situation. Then, we can give you advice.

 

First thing I'd get into is the base minimum idle adjustment. Even if the TPS and IAC are screwed up the base idle should not let it die.

 

Society might do it but I'm not going to waste my time coddling and making idiots feel good about themselves. Nothing I've written was rude, at least not my first reply. Maybe a little blunt but I'm not his mother. He'll learn or he'll spend the rest of his life pissed off that **** doesn't work the way he expects it to.

After initial start-up it will, well more accurately it might, on a crossfire car. On a newer TBI ECM (or most newer fuel injection) the timing should keep it running even if the IAC was blocked but not necessarily on a Crossfire. But the basics are still the basics, if they're right it shouldn't stall every time it gets warm, it might do it occasionally but not every time it comes to a stop. Of course, he's reported that it does different things in different posts so who knows.