free mod- anyone tried it?

Jan 9th, 2003, 06:28 PM

Hey,
About six years ago my dad cut out the air fuel ratio control solenoid on his '85 by making a jumper lead. The way that I understand it is that the computer sends a signal to the solenoid which then returns to the computer through ground. He simply took the signal and jumped it back to the computer instead of running it through the solenoid first.
After doing this, It ran better than it ever had before. It was much more responsive, and it pulled all the way through each gear instead of becoming flat. It would hit 80mph before shifting to third. I was in the car with him once and it hit over 100mph.
He only had it set up like this for a couple of weeks though because he wasn't sure how the computer would take the relativally high current it was receiving.
Has anyone else tried this? It sounds like a resister from radio shack would eliminate the high current problem.

Old'67

blownb310 · Jan 9th, 2003, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Old'67

Has anyone else tried this? It sounds like a resister from radio shack would eliminate the high current problem.

Old'67

It's not really a hop up mod. It's a half ass way to fix a hopeless chokeless carb problem. We had some lame technicians at the dealership "fix" a few B11's that way, after they were unsucessful at rebuilding the carb. What you are actually doing is setting the mixture control solenoid to "full rich", and therefore covering up all of the hesitations and flat spots from the dirty clogged carb. What they did not realize [or care about], is that in this condition, the car would loose about 10 mpg, and soon enough, those cars came back with melted catalytic converters. The best solution is to simply rebuild the carb the right way, and keep your 35 mpg.

Jan 9th, 2003, 09:32 PM

Ya know, my brainless B12 is running without computer control on the carb. I'm pretty sure it's running rich, as even without choke it starts up just fine in 32f weather every morning. But it sure runs nice this way. I have checked my plugs and they don't seem to be carbon coated at all, so it can't be too terribly rich. The '83 engine I got came with a standard good old choke carb. No computer solenoid at all. So I plan to rebuild that carb and toss it on my '87 at some point (assuming it'll bolt up..). Oh, and my gas mileage has been very nice, 30+mpg with the E16, and I haven't had a chance to check it with the new E15, but I'd assume it's pretty similar.

AVERAGE · Jan 9th, 2003, 11:28 PM

well i had my carb man who will soon be rebuilding mine check it today and he told me that i was definetly running rich. im back to gassing it at lights cuz it was rather warm today and for some reason it did not want to stay running! he told me to check my vacuum lines and so i did. did not see a one out of place. ill be seeing him this weekend for a carb with a new backbone lol

Jan 9th, 2003, 11:32 PM

Probably has something to do with the idle solenoid. Make sure it's getting clean power and ground. Mine purrs like a kitten ever since I did that.

AVERAGE · Jan 9th, 2003, 11:37 PM

what does that mean clean power, this is not the first time that ive heard that?

Jan 10th, 2003, 01:47 PM

The hopless chokeless had just been rebuilt. We weren't trying to fix any problem except for the fact that it's slow as hell.
I don't think it was running rich all of the time because it passed an inspection in that condition, and we never had any trouble starting it. It still got 38 on the freeway and my father drove it to work every day. It seems like the only side effect was chirping tires leaving stop lights.

blownb310 · Jan 10th, 2003, 08:51 PM

Ok guys, we must not be talking about the same modification. And your cars are certainly not going to full rich. Maybe you have messed with the richer solenoid, which is very different from the mixture ratio solenoid [which is in the carb top]. What I thought you all were talking about, is basically a single wire "test" connector, taped up [blue tape] in the harness to the carb, on the pass side of the air cleaner. This white pull apart connector, if disconnected, will make the carb go full rich [if, and only if, the mixture ratio solenoid is working in the first place]. OK, I'm done.