Hello everybody long time reader first time poster. I was hoping someone could help me out. by reading posts on here for years I know that there are a lot of intelligent mechanics here. My camaro without warning starting riding rough. It runs fine when when cold but after 5 or 10 mins of idling, I start driving and it begins to "putt putt" and hesitate. It also likes to stall when approaching a stop light. I have replaced the IAC and was recently told by my mechanic that the coolant temperature sensor was scanned and was read to be -32 degrees. Is there something else that could be causing this? I also pushed on the black three prong plug (not sure what it is called after an hour of research) that sticks in the plate on the top the throttle body behind and to the left of the throttle cable. What is the plug called? Upon doing this, the engine light came on and I could smell gas. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

You messed with the TPS when you pushed on the 3-wire TB sensor. Yes, the CTS can be causing this problem, as it's reading about 90* too cold, which pushes more fuel into the cylinders. Also, check the TPS connection and make sure there are no broken or shorting wires and that the TPS is tightened to the TB.

 

just heard back from the mechanic. he said that my fuel injectors would need to be replaced. If my fuel injectors were bad, wouldn't my car run horribly all the time no matter if it was hot or cold? he said that it runs fine cold because once the car gets warm carbons starts floating around and clogs up the injectors. he also said that the coolant sensor is reading wrong because the injectors are bad. what do you guys think?

 

I'm just a backyard mechanic, but i'm pretty sure that the injectors will not cause the coolant temp sensor to read incorrectly. I would replace the CTS and then see how it runs. Your looking at about $18 at AutoZone. It's near the thermostat housing. About a 10 min job. It's not to say you couldn't have a bad injector, but i'm cheap. Do the CTS first. Do you have access to a multi-meter? You may need it to check the TPS. I'm sure Maverick can chime in. He knows more about this than I do. He has helped me more than once.

 

I'd say you need to tell that guy he desperately needs to go to school and learn something... There is no way the fuel injectors have any say in what the CTS says. There is a slight variation in engine temperature between rich and lean, but we're talking about like 90* here or something, which is probably the CTS gone bad. There may be junk in the fuel lines, but carbon isn't part of it. Rust, maybe. Water, just as maybe. But no carbon. It's possible that a plug wire is out of resistance spec and the same for a fuel injector or 2. But he couldn't possibly tell that the injectors are bad just by looking at the outside of them.

Test the fuel injectors and the plug wires with a DMM. Any injector that has a resistance of less than 11.8 ohms is crap. Any plug wire with a resistance of more than 20K ohms (10K ohms per foot, for the coil to dizzy cap, I believe the max is only 10K) is crap. And do a resistance test on the CTS when the engine hasn't yet been run for the day. Then tell us the results.

 

What should a good CTS read in resistance?

 

Depends on what the air and engine temperatures are...