Ok, this is vague and long, but bear with me because I really need help. Last Friday, I was driving as I always do all over town (daughter to ballet, blah blah blah), and my car ran great. However, on the way home, my temp gauge shot up past the red and pegged to the right. I knew something was up, because the car was running great and I wasn't getting the usual knocks and pings of an overheated engine. Anyway, I was correct. It was not overheating, but I got home, turned it off, raised the hood for it to cool so I could look at the motor without getting burned, and went into the house. Four hours later, I come out of the house and start the car to leave again, and it just ran like crap. It idles a little rough, but it gets worse through the RPM range and at WOT. Next morning, I look at the connector on the temp sending unit and it's almost gone. I can re-connect it, and have the gauge work, but it stops working almost immediately. Now, I know this isn't much info, but it's really the only thing different. The only other thing I can think of is the O2 sensor. I had to cut the wire and extend it to reach the bung on my headers which were installed just a couple of weeks ago. Could that cause a problem? Could the headers have caused a bad wire? There is no arcing or burnt areas and the wires are not touching the headers. For the record, I changed the cap, rotor, ignition module, coil, and the coil wire today and it didn't change. I have new plug wires to install this weekend. I also changed the temp sending unit when I installed the headers. I know this is a long post, but thanks for reading and thanks for your help. I can't even drive it until I fix it because I get so pissed off. What can I do?

 

If the gauge in your car stops working and registeres the engine as still being cold, that also means that the ecm sees teh engine as still being cold and it wont switch into closed loop mode, hence, the engine runs a little rough... If the connector is almost missing, replacing it would help restore the connection (the coolant sensor is actually a thermo-resister and a poor connection will cause erroneous temp readings).