anyone who can help with ideas or opinions is greatly and truly appreciated...with that said

I decided to stay n/t and put a set of stainless steel headers on my car. When removing the bolts from the stock manifold, two of the heads busted and I was stuck with two bolts left in my block. No problem, had my buddy drill into the two bolts and took them out of the block. then bored new holes. Bolted up manifold and downpipe, car ran perfect. After about 5 minutes of driving, my check engine light comes on.

I get to work and my girlfriend of all people notices something hanging down from my car. The 02 sensor from the manifold became disconnected from the plastic connector and broke. So i replaced the 02 sensor and respliced the wires on the side opposite the 02 sensor, so the wires i spliced were red, black, green, white. The 02 sensor wire is the normal length because i was sure that they operate based on resistance then relay the info to the ecu.

I went to start my car the next day and the battery was dead. So i jumped it and the car wouldn't hold an idle at all. If i let off the throttle, it would die. On top of that, the car when running for 3-4 minutes, has a rotten egg smell coming out of the exhaust. I noticed when i started doing all this, the battery wouldn't hold a charge. I removed the negative side of the battery and the car still ran, which means the alternator is fine. So I started thinking it could be the ignition, I replaced the spark plugs and wires. Car still runs bad. Checked the splicing of the wires and the 02 sensor, connection is perfect. So i tried to get the check engine light code, and nothing will appear at all. When the car is running, the battery and check engine light come on. Their is also a rotten egg smell out of the exhaust and a very light white/milk color smoke along with what smells like gas that isn't being burned, not a lot of gas, but enough to get a swarm of mosquitos to hang out around it. Checked the manifold bolts that were drilled to make sure the water jacket wasn't hit and no water at all, holes look perfect. Checked the cat converter to see if it was clogged, looks fine, doesn't turn red hot or any color at all when running.

The only thing left that i can think of is the ECU. I was gonna have one of my buddies bring it to his shop unless someone could help me out here. Anyone with any knowledge or opinions is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time -Scott

come on guys help me out...basically white smoke & rotten egg smell out of exhaust, and extremely crappy running engine w/ no idle...anyone?????

the wires that u spliced in did u use the exact same size wire
but it sounds like a real bad front O2 sensor to me

the wires i used to splice were the original wires to the connector. my cars orignal wires spliced into the same exact wires from a 97 eclipse. the 02 sensor is from a 99 eclipse, it ran but was at a junkyard. It has the same part number on it as mine did. The car runs like crap whether or not the 02 sensor is hooked up or not.

hmmm, well to put one side of the issue aside your rotten egg smell means a bad cat. just replace it

the rough idle, and dying of the car at idle is something else. you replaced the plugs/wires, but how is the condition of the coil? next step would be to look at fuel - injectors fowled up or clogged fuel filter. hmmm next the 2 relays on the drivers side of the brake fluid resevoir. I can't help but wonder that the 02 sensor wasn't done correctly but it may be fine


white smoke out of the exhaust - by "white" you mean like coolant? or more bluish like oil? you should be able to smell if it's coolant or oil in the exhaust. I don't want to say leaky HG but more info needed...

Yeah the smell of sulfer (rotten eggs) is a good sign your cat is bad, time for a high flow :-)

Since this all began with the damaging of an O2 sensor, I'd start my remedy there, get a new O2 sensor, not junkyard (just because it came off a 99 doesn't means it's good).

From there you can start looking into other problems. If you had no problems before look at what problem you know was there. Yeah if something shorted out when the O2 sensor was messed up, ECU could have seen avoltage surge or something, but start with the easy fix.



15.9 @ 86.7mph

Injen CAI, 55mm TB, P&P Intake, Crower Cams, Hooker Header, ERT/Catco Cat, GS-T Muffler, AFX UDP, Crane Ign Amp, S-AFC

just curious about the wires u spliced into the 02 sensor...did the color of the 02 wires change after a certain year or something, cause the o2 sensor wires on my 95 are white, black and 2 greys...

Yeah my gut tells me that that front O2 is still the problem. Get a new one and see what happens. If it runs the same with it or without it that tells me it's messed up. Because if you remove the front O2 sensor, the car will run like crap because the front O2 sensor is what ithe ECU uses to adjust it's fueling. I but you it's that O2 which is leading to strange A/F mixtures, hence the smoke that smells like gas. The white smoke is not good, but I doubt it's the HG. After you get the O2 problem fixed, if it's still white then I would start looking at that HG.

the wires i spliced are before the plastic connector, not after it. The wire to the 02 sensor is normal length. The 95-96 has a different connector on it than the 97-99. I looked at my buddies 95 and his connector is about 3 inches longer than mine.

The cat converter is the next thing i'm gonna check.

The smoke that comes out the exhaust isn't blue and has no water in it. It is a milky white and smells like there is unburned gas coming out of it. The car ran fine after the headers were on it for 5 minutes then the check engine light came on. The car still ran fine with the check engine light on.
I later replaced the 02 sensor after the car started running bad, but the car still runs crappy. it will still die unless i give it a lot of throttle. The 02 sensor came out of a running vehicle so i'm pretty sure it's o.k.
After all the ez fixes, i think i'm gonna rip the guts out and get down to the head gasket. My car has 45K on it and hasn't been run very hard(for the most part). I figure the HG would at least be o.k. this far along.

thanks michael,ryan,kirby, and ez.....i appreciate the help a whole lot. -Scott

Soundsvery rich, white smoke could be coolant... but you may just be getting a cloud of unburned fuel (maybe).

I still am suspicious of that O2 sensor. If you hav a chilton's or factory manual there is a test you can do on the O2 sensor to see if it's good or not. Also if you have an air-fuel ratio gauge, are the number consistant with what the car used to run at?



15.9 @ 86.7mph

Injen CAI, 55mm TB, P&P Intake, Crower Cams, Hooker Header, ERT/Catco Cat, GS-T Muffler, AFX UDP, Crane Ign Amp, S-AFC

well i broke down and took it to a shop to have it diagnosed. Turns out the 02 sensor i hooked up is running normal, but my air intake temperature sensor and my coolant temperature sensor were fried because of the wack reading the car was getting from the busted 02 sensor. I'm gonna replace both the sensors from satan (134 retail, but i get them for 67 :) ) My buddy hooked it up and only charged me $50 for the diagnose machine when it took almost 2 hours to figure the shit out. I will know on wednesday wether or not that was all that was wrong. keep yall posted and thanks for the help and tips.

i replaced the 02 sensor, coolant temperature sensor, air intake temperature sensor, but the car still runs like shit.

I have no clue why the sensors are reading -44* when my car is RUNNING. I reset the cpu and everything after replacing the sensors.

Are there any other sensors i could have possibly fried that are directly in line with the 3 i already replaced?

Any other suggestions at all? car will run, but no idle and very very lumpy. help me out here peeps. -Scott

How good was your splice job?

Did you actually solder the connections or did you do something else?

i did hte splice job myself with butt connectors and heat shrink tubing on top of that so it is good if i say so myself.

Hooked it up to the diagnostic machine and found out my sensors i replaced were good, but the ecu is all fucked up. The wires grounded themselves out into the ecu and now the ecu is reading 10*F when my car is running. A little cold for an engine don't you think? I'm gonna replace the ecu and get rid of her and onto another project. I don't wanna be there when more electrical problems happen. -Scott

well it turned out to be the damn ecu. my buddy hooked me up with one for $100 and i turned in the core and got $85 for it so not a bad deal. car runs great with new ecu. thanks for the help guys. -Scott