Alright I have a 92' 305 TBI RS and thanks to DE emissions I now have been having problems with my car. It initially started with needing to replace the cat back portion of the exhaust. Replaced it with an edlebrock exhaust and it sounded great. The car ran great however it just barely failed to pass emissions. I then replaced the plugs, wires, O2 sensor, and cleaned the K&N air filter. I also noticed the passenger side header had cracked where the A.I.R. system pumps air into the header so I said what they hey while doing all the other work to go ahead and replace the headers with edlebrock headers. Now the problem. The first day or so the car ran great. Now it has a hard time idling. It surges violently in 1rst gear forcing me to play frantically with the clutch to keep it alive. Once I do get upto cruising speed there isn't much of a problem just seems to lack power. I have checked and rechecked every wire, vacuum line, and and any other connection I can find. It will after about 20min or so idle somewhat regularly without dying. Today it just spit out a code 44 for the exhaust being lean. I love to drive this car even though it is a 305 and a RS which I know is short for really slow, but I am out of ideas at the moment. Anything would help at this point.

 

well the edlebrok headers dont have air tubes on them do they so thats one change make sure everything is plugged up and no vacuum leaks.

also your 305 likes some backpressure so sometime to freeflowing of an exhaust can hurt performance

 

Sounds like burnt spark plug wires.

Chagning to headers won't, by itself, create the symptom you describe.

The reason you're getting a code 44 "lean O2 reading" is because there's entire cylinders' worth of unburned fuel AND AIR in your exhaust stream; the oxygen that hasn't entered into combustion, because of the burned-up spark plug wires, is what the sensor is seeing.

 

A bad or dieing O2 may be your lean condition cause. You should find someone with a GOOD QUALITY scan tool and see how quickly the O2 is switching. It may not be worn out enough to trigger the ses light but bad enough to effect performance. OR where did they locate the O2....it may be to far from the heads to get an accurate reading.

 

+1 on the burned plug wires. The several day delay and the fact that you just put on headers makes it VERY likely.

Run it in the dark and look for lightning.

 

The headers I got did have the air tubes already on them I made sure of that before I bought them. Thanks for the tip on the bad wires. I got to looking around and checked the continuity on the wires and bingo. I have some accel spiral core wires on order as well as some sheathing for the areas where the wires are closer to the headers themselves. Thanks a million!!!!!