OK this is also bad news on my part.... I installed the hotshot header in my car yesterday. i did the install my self and have checked everything out a million times. This is what happened to me. when i first took it for a test drive it was ok. no problmes at all but i noticed the engine vibrating a bit more durring idle...nothing to really worry about. So i come back home, take a shower and head out. While on the highway my engine starts to shake wildy in short spurts of time so i pull to the right lane and start going slower. All of a sudden my car starts running like shit. so when i get to my destination i start to get this weird sound that sounds like popcorn in the micrcwave. WTF i make it to my destination and park my car. funny thing i left all my tools at home. so i go and do what i had to do. Come back and my engine wont turn. Great. so i give it a jump and it starts. i shut it off and borrow the friends car and go get a new battery since mine had been running low for some time. While im at it i buy new spark plugs to seen if it changes anything. (Me thinking maybe i have a fouled plug). I also notice that the plugs were black. I crank it up still vibrating like crazy.
So i call a few people and theyre all completely baffeled. I then drive my car home and it drive like a pig. My gas was being sucked like i had a vacuum on it. After talking with a few more people i get somebody to hook up the computer to it. It shot a code code read : P0174...............LEAN ON BANK 2. The guy who helped me was talking to me and we were discussion what it could be so i asked him if relocating the bottom O2 sensors to the back would help any and he said yes because since theres no pre-cat its reading real lean. so what he does is erase the code and asks me to disconnect all 4 yes all 4 of my sensors. I do what he saids and he starts the car. PROBLEM SOLVED. He asked me to take the car for a drive and when i did the problem had gone away. That narrows it down to my O2 sensors. I called someone i know and will be relocating them first thing Monday morning. I hope this helps. Sorry for the long post guys. Ill let you know how it goes.
K guys im back as i promissed. After having the biggest problems with the header i finally figured the damned thing out. Last time i told youi guys that i was gonna get my sensors relocated and so i did. Since we have 2 rear O2 sensors, we NEED to place them both behind the cat. now we dont have much room between the back of the cat and our pre-muffler so what we did was drill 2 holes for the sensors but 1 on each side of the pipe. Also keep in mind that since we didnt want the two sensors to be in the exact locations on just on diffrent sides of the pipe we placed one sensor a bit forward than the other. After welding the new bungs in place, extending, wrapping, and running the connectors back under the hood, we lowered the car and hooked up all the connectors (4 each). Oh BTW we also unpluged the battery as the first step to reset the ECU. so after the sensors were connected, we put plugs on the two rear bungs on the header down pipe. we lower the car and start it up. The check engine light was wasnt on but the car was still acting up at idle a bit. I took it for a test spin and it behaved pretty well but not at its best so i was ikinda upset to go through all this and still have another problem. according to the FSM im also supposed to check my Fuel injectors but they were all working. On the way home on the highway , my engine started to buckle down as before so i took it easy and got it home. I had no clue as to what to do I go back out top the car, pop the hood and what i did was try to swap the connectors for the 2 rear sensors but the way that the plugs are shaped wont allow any swapping. Next i tried swapping to two top connectors and after i did that i let the car cool a bit. Afetr about 15 minutes, I turned it on and the car idled like a champ. So i took it for a spin and it performed like it should. Now after about 3 days of ahaving the car this way I can proudly say that the problem is gone. Ive never heard of anything like this going on untill another member contacted me with the same problem Turns out he had a 1.8 also. Ive never heard of any other engines acting in this way (buckiling real hard). I guess that tells us that our ECU's are really really sensative to any inputs to it. I hope this clarrifies all the fact and rumors about having the sensors relocated. Some of you stated that Keith S. does not have the sensors relocated. I spoke to him and he did tell me that they were not realocated BUT he did also mention that he thinks that John (the owner of Hotshot) change the design in the header after his prototype was made. Could be possible.
Now someone posted the link to Hotshots page stating about the ) 2 sensor relocation. Good job by Hotshot but what i think is messed up is how they even put the 2 lower bungs on the downpipe at all. They should just leave the downpipe alone and send you 2 bungs with the header so u can have those bungs installed after that cat. Makes any sense to you guys?
Well i hoped this helped you, and please spread the word about how to fix this header problem. We 1.8 guys are diffrent from the other and we need to help each other out a bit more than just waste time arguing with each other.
a buddy @ work w/ an 02 trans am has the same probs. what u can do is get whats called O2 sims that trick the computer into thinking they are there and nobody will ever know. the prolem with the light coming one is the computer then turns on its memory and stores tons of info. the only way to turn the light off im told is to go to the dealer, where they scan the memory, check it out, find out u changed stuff, and can void you warranty. thats what ive picked up from him.
If you actually correct the problem and disconnect your battery for a while then the light shouldnt come on. Sometimes you wouldnt even need to disconnect the battery. If the car is Equiped with OBDII then the light (the code), can be erased with the proper equipment like the pocket logger for example. Now I too have heard about the computer "storing" info on those codes. But ive also heard that it will only store the codes if they are left there for a certain period of time witout correction. Im not really sure. The way i see it, If you dont have a light or a code, why shouldnt the dealer want to work on it. Like i said thats what i think.
The same thing is happening to me right now... not too nice
For the lower o2 sensors I have one sensor at the seconday pipe and the other after the cat. So you think by switching the sensor from the seconday to after the cat would solve this problem for me?
No what Khemicol did was mix the top two sensors, he had them in the wrong place, or the connector wrong, what was happening was that the top two were reading bad so the sonsor would allow more fuel to be dumped to try and compensate, the lower O2 senors can be removed and you will still have the problem, your problem if it is the same, is with the top two senors that are in the header, dont worry about your bottom two right now, like chimmike said he didnt even have them in for a few months, Its something to do with the top two senors. Swith them and make sure the are hooked up with the right connectors. Also check where the header bolts up to the secondary mine came loose and started to kill my gas milage, that isnt your problem but its somethig to think about.
Yea, I finally realized the problem I had was with one of the sensor's relocation (with the help from Khem, Chimmike and You). I had to relocate the sensor I originally had on the secondary pipe to after the Cat. This did work and made the car like normal!
Thanks for the advice!
enyce
Linear Mode
