My car....frustrating

[bobtodd]

Can having your 02 sensors unplugged make that big of a difference in a cars performance? My car ran so hard when I first bought it two years ago. Then a few weeks later(after buying it) it felt like I was missing some torque and power. People said I was just getting use to the car. Well, in my quest to find the missing torque I changed the TPS...it was shot. As the TPS was being switched out I also noticed the 02 sensors were unplugged so I plugged them in. I never thought anything of it until today. As of lately my car smells like it has no 02 sensors. I think I ran too much racing fuel last summer and fouled them. Anyhow, the car ripped today like it did when I first bought it. That torque up in the higher rpm's is back. This car makes me shake my head sometimes. Why is my car so inconsistent?? I dont get what is going on. It was a completely different car tonight. What gives?? :mad:

[MAT88GT]

simple answer, yes

[bobtodd]

I seriously thought my 50 shot was accidently getting triggered. I had the bottle open letting the pressure build up and thought maybe the system was getting triggered even with the nitrous switch off. I went home, closed the bottle, purged the line and went for a rip again. The car still ran awesome.
If my 02's are bad though, isnt my car running as rich as possible? I had a big cloud of white smoke behind my car. Can this be from running rich? At idle I can smell the gas.

[MAT88GT]

white smoke is water...possible blown headgasket

are you sure it wasn't blue smoke?

[bobtodd]

It could be blue smoke. I hope it's not the case though. I know the car uses oil but I really always thought it was sucking it up through the intake. The gasket between the upper and lower intake alway has oil on it. I dont need my rings going bad yet.

[bobtodd]

It was about a half quart of oil low tonight. I added some oil and beat on it some more. The car is running really good. Isnt that what they always say though?? It runs really well before it blows up? :burnout:

[upngo50]

Isnt that what they always say though?? It runs really well before it blows up? :burnout:

mmmhhh yep yep true enough

[Jamie5ltr]

I agree with Mat. The O2 sensors are your major source for fuel control in a sense. After the car warms up and is supposed to go into closed loop to use the O2 sensors to control fuel trim. With out them or them reading incorrectly your car doesn't have a clue wheter it is running rich or lean. So it just runs off a look up table for the given parameters off of the other sensors. By the sounds of it your car is just running rich. The smoke could be from condensation. That or the car maybe running rich enough that it's grey smoke or so from going way rich at wot.


The part that stumps me though is that the car is doing it at WOT. So the car is running off of look up tables because it goes into open loop at wot. You look into the MAF maybe having some issues? Timing?

I know one of the problems I found with my bronco why I was lacking on power at wot vs 3/4 throttle was the chip that was in it seemed to advance my timing enough to where it wouldn't ping but it made no power what so ever. I actually was just starting to get it to run right before I had to do a tear down on the top end for an oil consumption problem and coolant leak.