alrite, so with a new MAF and TPS (however my TPS won't pull the .55 Idle volts it should), my car sometimes will start up, then immediatly go to idle and drop steadily in RPMs to stall in like 10 seconds. Then, if I quick shift to drive and run it for a little while my RPM drop problem goes away, and then it'll run merrily at highway cruise speeds until I leave the thruway. Then some new interesting problems come up, the old crappy idle rev up drop down rev up drop down then stall at a stopsign or stoplight.. then comes the weird stuff, if I hit the pedal at all i'll do this jump to high RPM (4500) in no time flat then drop to like half that then way up again on and off in a very interesting stalling out not putting enough gas to the pedal in a manual (I have an auto) fashion, its the MPFI engine, then my check engine light will come on and my shifting will go wack as he11 and rev in between gears while driving at cruising city speeds, then I'll get it home, turn it off for a few minutes and turn it back on, then it runs somewhat normally, with the same hit the gas sputter issue, with backfiring happening on occassion.. not a good thing. so with all these issues here's the one problem I know needs work, my plug from my onboard into the TPS needs to be replaced. I know that. My seal around my gas tank/fuel pump meeting area (with the lock ring) could probably use to be replaced. Other than that I am out of my mind. I was thinking just a tune up needed and having my timing set too... but I dunno

 

Is your motor grounded properly to the chasis?
How about your negative terminal lead... is it old? You may have a bad ground which makes your efi struggle...
Yeah... it may be that simple.
If you cannot remember the last time you had a tune up you are definately due for one.

 

my negative terminal was grounding ot before i did all these repairs (actually i think the reason I am doing all these repairs!!) so the one on there now is like an 8 gauge hardcore mo'fo that isn't movin...

 

Ah ha. Make sure you get a new one, also get a very decent ground wire attached to the block and then to the body. Make sure all contact surface is bare metal, and best to use a star washer to help dig in. A few extra ground cannot hurt. The name of the game is to make sure all your electronics have the least amount of resistance as possible.
I hope this helps.

 

I think you misunderstood - I did replace the ground already, the ground wire on it now is heavy duty and held down with a washer (had my brother in law - an elctric technician do it with me) to make sure there's maximum contact.

 

what about from the block to the body? That is super important

 

wheres that located? i'll double check, I re-ran an @$$load of the wiring already, all redone, sturdy, new wires, etc.. but i'm not sure which ground you're talkin about or where it's located, or how to go about checking the ground voltage and what it should be on the block itself... I've done a lot of voltage/ground checking, just point me where to test it and I can check and see if it's good...(even though it doesn't seem like the ground wire would be disconnected when idling - it has more problems even when turning, so... yea, makes sense might be another ground goin out..) do you know somewhere that has a lot of god wiring diagrams with the grounds?

 

just get a heavy gauge wire and bolt it to an acessory hole in the rear of your block and the other end to the body.
The principle is, for EFI to work efficiently you need 13.8-14.2 volts. Which is supplied by your alternator. To make sure you get the highest amount you need to eliminate bad grounds, which cause resistance, in return cause voltage drop on a circuit. Lower than the recommended voltage and your system severely lags.

 

yea I think I came across one of our old posts at some point where you suggested this..
what do you mean accessory hole?

 

Your block and heads have several thread holes that are not currently being used. Get your new wire with a ring terminal and bolt it tightly to the block... and get a self tapping screw and drill the other end to your firewall... It wouldnt hurt to do two.

 

I'm still not sure where these holes you're talking about are... if i can find them I'll do it first thing tomorrow morning (got the day off!) and respond with uptdates, hopefully by the end of the week i'll have gotten a tune up, with the removal and addition of all my new sensors and almost a completely new vacuum/EGR system, I'm sure that I need a tuneup, timing, spark firing, etc.. aka - general tune up

 

Yeah get that tune up.... then we can talk in more details

 

haha meineke didn't want to do my tune-up -- they turned me away!! all the problems i've had with this car couldn''t throw off timing because it's computer controlled. I think that I'm ready to resign finally... this car may be going up for sale. With all the misfiring and backfiring I'm getting going on, I don't think the TPS plug, gas tank seal, and ground wire will do it. But those are my last efforts. I'll do those three repairs, then if it's not working after that, I finally surrender to my possessed camaro of suffering.

 

You do the tune up and I can walk you through it... its a cinch.

 

what else is in a tune up besides plugs, wires, and functions that are apparently controlled by my computer now? (Tming and I believe fuel/air ratio, etc..) and other parts which I've already replaced ie: PCV system, Cap, Rotor...

 

The BASE timing is set by the distrubutor. The ECM merely advances the timing to a max advance predertermined in the computer. So, you most certainly can have messed up timing. The ECM doesn't know the difference...

 

how would one go about messing up the timing, how would one go about fixing that, and does it sound like mine might be suffering from messed up timing to you too?

 

disconnect the EST wire ( tan coulor) and set it back to stock 6 * . See if that gets you back on track.

 

I'll give it a shot, disconnect from my distibutor right? And how would I go about grounding my block? I took it to get codes pulled, and I got 4 codes, one for each of the brand new parts I put on (TPS, MAF, EGR, and another TPS code), combined with some of the other stranger behaviors, and the fact that there was a major ground out/short in my system just when I began fixing all of this makes me agree with my friend I talked to and I'm leavning towards it being the ECM. I'll replace the plug to the TPS, the gas tank seal, the block ground, reset the distributor, and then maybe put in a remanned ECM and if that doesn't work then I'm throwing in the towel, I love this car too much, and I've dropped so much time and money and emotion in it, but I can't afford this project any longer...

 

you don't unplug it from the distributor

you unplug the black connector with the SINGLE TAN WIRE sticking out of the wiring loom on the passenger side under the windshield by the firewall.

set that, and do the other checks everyone suggested in the other thread

then change your Ignition Controle Module, cause after reading BOTH of these threads, that's what I think it is.

and make sure you get some good heatsink grease under it.