Hey all, my son just bought himself an '89 Camaro RS with a 2.8L V6 and 5 speed manual trans, with approximately 185,000 miles on the clock. It's a very cool ride in relatively decent shape, but there are two issues that need to be addressed from the start...first is an exhaust leak under the hood due to two studs being stripped/broken in an unsuccessful attempt at removing the stock manifolds to install headers. The second problem is that the engine refuses to idle...it stalls whenever I take my foot off the gas, but runs relatively fine when I maintain about 1800-2000 RPM. The "genius" he bought the car from told me he drove it for about two years after causing the leak...which I'm sure may have contributed to the stalling issue. He also replaced the timing chain and gears by himself, but I don't know if he actually knew what he was doing...so I can only imagine the damage this guy caused by trying to fix things!

For what it's worth, I have yet to check the timing with a light, but I did take the car to a friend who is usually a fairly adept mechanic who feels the timing chain may have been installed incorrectly (i.e. a tooth or so off)...but refuses to help me out with either problem (needless to say, he's no longer my mechanic, even though he's still a friend). I was told the car has fresh plugs and wires, new-ish injectors, the new timing chain/gears, a new mass air sensor, a new-ish dual exhaust system (Magnaflow), and a little silver box on top of the air box that claims to be a performance chipset (the car runs the same whether it is connected or not). From a quick look, I have no reason to believe dude lied about the work he did...everything looks pretty fresh.

The stalling is preventing my son from driving the car, so I'm hoping someone here may have experienced a similar issue and can give us some insight as to how we can get it going properly. So, to nutshell my question...where should I start to diagnose this stalling problem? Thanks in advance for any help y'all can give, and if you need any additional info, just let me know and I'll do my best to get it to ya!

 

Any vacuum leaks whatsoever will cause a lean issue which sounds like the problem. Also the exhaust leak gives a false signal to the O2 sensor(s).

 

I would start by pulling the IAC and cleaning it. I would also go threw the idle relearn procedure after this is done.

 

Thanks guys, after I get the manifold leak fixed I'll check out what you've suggested!