93 sidekick a/t 4dr 4x4. After spending a month and a half trying to figure it out on my own the first time it ended up first being a stuck injector, then took it to a shop and found out also that the computer was no good, so they sent it of to be rebuilt, got it back car ran just fine. This has been about 2 months. My wife and kid decide to go camping, and she's driving up after work and it starts acting up again. She has no choice really but to get 2 where we are camping as I had no cell service where we were camped. It was 28 miles to get to where we were, she burnt nearly half a tank of gas getting there, blue smoke and the smell of unburnt gas. Instantly i'm thinking it went into limphome mode. Performance wise its not as bad as last time, it will idle on its own, albeit roughly till 2500 rpms, and theres no unburnt gas dripping out the tail pipe like before, but plenty of blue smoke. Any ideas as to why the computer would go out again? Crappy rebuild, or something else. Not 100% sure yet its the computer, very same symptoms, I've got it at the shop now. They said if there is something taking the computer out, then thats going to be another couple hundred down the drain. I'm afraid once I get it fixed, I'm going to have to send it down the road.
well for the 23 of you that have read my post and been stumped as I was the shop just called me and said that it was just a broken wire running to the #1 cylinder. WHEW! Still maybe going down the road though. Got me another subaru in PRIMO condition. Lord knows I love the one I already have, and
225K with out any major malfunctions. My wife loves her kick, but after this last incident, and burning 3/4 of a tank in gas in 56 miles, she may want to part ways with it. Thanks all.
injector wire.?
or
spark plug wire./
?
as long as the injectors dont short inside or the injector wires them self dont short together or to 12v , the ECU will be fine.
just make sure the injector wires look perfect.
sounds like it dropped to limphome. 15mpg
on a new car , youd have wiped out the CATCONv , instantly.
MISFIRE on new cars is bad news.
your cat can melt too but it takes 10 times more to do it (ignoring 15mpg)
cheers.
even after the computer was fixed the first time, it only got 21 mpg. I'm not enough of a mechanic to figure out all the possible things that keep it from getting the roughly 30 mpg's the rest of you get, short of one by one replacing every sensor from top to bottom one at a time, i've done the basics, cap rotor, plugs, wires, fuel filter (when I replaceded the fuel pump after it broke down in the mountains 40 miles from town). JTGH your a genius at testing these various components, but quite frankly, you give me a volt meter and a wiring diagram, and you may as well be asking Helen Keller to do open heart surgery.
love that... havent heard a good Helen Keller joke in ions, love them , send more.
if feel your pain.
1: no dragging brakes,
2: no driving 85, all the time or 25 and less full time.
3: The trick is to get car into closed loop as soon as possible, and pre 96s are a real pain to do that,
4: no over sized tires and AT tranny.
5: themostat actaully works and holds 180F (82c) or better. important.
ok,
other points:
good compression
timing set right on. (IGN)
solid pulling vacuum at idle ,no wiggling of needle.
all cylinders firing.
CaTconv, not clogged.
we dont have a Scan tool for yous , so it is real hard to find out if car enters closed loop.
on the new cars , that is the first thing we check. and short/long fuel trim?
one has to scope (DSO) the O2 sensor and watch it close. a real PITA. on pre 96's.
other things.
cracked exh. manifold (pull shield and look)
missing header flange gasket. or warpped.
bad 02 sensor.
there is huge list , and sorry for that.
you are correct testing the sensors is not easy, mostly cuz most ppl dont really know what is inside them. I can help with that. some are very simple.
In the last 2 times this thing has been fixed, the tach doesn't move a bit at idle. The first time I had it in to be checked my compressions were 165 to 170across the board. Also the first time it screwed up, I did find a crack in the exhaust manifold, and thought that was my problem, however it wasn't the entire problem, it took 2 months to find one but I did. Currently it is not cracked. I guess my next step is going to be to replace the 02 sensor, because as it sits, it makes no difference in performance whether it is plugged in or not. As far as the temperature, its hard to tell, I don't have a thermal scanner, and the dash I don't trust because it barely comes up a quarter of the way, I know it works to some extent because if I'm pulling a hill when its 105 degrees it will move. Brakes were replaced in december. As for the rest I'm not sure on.
just the smallest leak makes it rail. (it is very sensitive to oxygen, on purpose)
the exhuast (burning correctly ) has little oxygen. the ECU fiddles the mix of air and fuel
about Plus and minus 2 percent, and watches , the 02 sensor.
this is called Closed loop.
the 02 sensor is not linear and acts like a switch .
Im rich, no Im lean, that is all it can say to the ecu.
so if you get a leak , the o2 says im lean forever and the eCU , can go crazy trying to figure out why it can not go closed loop.
some years , go berserk. rich as a pig.
second point it is not uncommon for there to be many broken things on these old cars.
there are many problems.
crank exh.
warped or missing collector gasket.
high fuel pressure.
low fuel pressure.
clogged injectors. stuck open dribbling injectors.
air leaks.
the list is huge, for this car. any old car.
many go ignored for years.
it is up to us to find them and get rid of them.
cheers.
PS:
bad tach is bad tach. the speedo head has a tachometer electronics module that counts ignition pulses. that is all it does. if you have good ignition and the wire from the tach makes it to the Ign. supressor unit (tacho pin) then the tach is bad.
BTW: if tach sig dies at Suppressor, the ECU throws codes. and stops the engine.
the second reason i know the actual tach is no good (including wires as always)
O2 again;
Exh leaks , are famous for destroying the O2.
it buries the sensor in a blanket of carbon and unburnt gas, and this poisons it.
the Bosch site has a great white paper all about this and how it can even get worse.
when the blanket of carbon happens, this covers the 02, now it is blind.
when blind (covered well) it thinks (wrongly) that there is no oxygen at all.
so now car goes lean. and the process of insanity repeats. (nut shell)
any shop will tell you this. this is so common, it is silly.
cracked manifolds , wreck the o2. replace manifold , 02 is no good.
no surprises.
I hope these answers, clear up some 02 issues.
too bad we dont have a scan tool for the old kicks.
I had two lovely cracks in my manifold,one on each side of the 02,figgered what th'hell and welded 'em. just sayin'
I can't weld, but did call the local place here that does welding, and they told me they couldn't weld it with out it warping it so bad that i'd never get a gasket to seal it again. LOL believe me that thought did cross my mind after the first month of not being able to find one.
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Fried Again...
the shop just called me and said that it was just a broken wire running to the #1 cylinder. WHEW! Still maybe going down the road though. Got me another subaru in PRIMO condition. Lord knows I love the one I already have, and 
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