Ok, so I pull the rats nest. Looks great under the hood now(pics comming as soon as I finish the roll of film)

. I plugged all the ports on the bottom, ran a new hose for the oil neck. I am fairly sure I did everything right.

anyway, the car fired right up and had a rock solid idle like never before. So I go out for a drive. I stoped at blockbuster to grab a movie.
I come back out and the car wont start. I thought i had flooded it. I put the pedal down about half way and started cranking, after about 15 seconds it started to fire. Man, that is the worst sound I have ever heard this car make. sounded like it was running on one rotor, if that. With the gas still half way the motor rose to about 3500 and then all of a sudden it started running perfect again. perfect idle and everything.

I went home and recreated the situation (changed my diff oil while I waited) tried to start it and the same thing happened. Halfway and it started with the same one rotor sound.

what is the deal and how can I fix this.
I dont believe I removed the hot start asist. cus I only took off the vaccume stuff.

I have a 82 s if that matters

 

"I haphazardly ripped stuff out of my car because it doesn't look pretty and i don't understand it and now my car runs like crap, why?"


i'm sorry, i shouldn't be laughing, but i really do feel this way. the controls are there for a reason and not all of it is emissions.

now. i bet that you plugged off the carburetor vent. it's a horizontal tube about 5/16" / 8mm or thereabouts on the carb, near the fuel inlets. that has to be vented to the filtered side of the air cleaner. you could also just leave it just open but then you'd risk dumping gasoline out the carb in right hand corners.

or, it could be something else....


edit: made the post more pleasant

 

i had a bad vacuume leak that I could not find, I found it when I pulled it of, there was a small break in one of the metal lines. The idle kicks *** now, its just this starting problem.

Now, before you start chewing me out any more, I thouroughly looked over the emmissions scematics before I started.

is there some way to fix it,
also my spark plugs are shot and I think that is contributing.

 

A little off topic, but I'm interested in why removing all of that crap makes it idle really nice, or is it just one thing that happens to be removed along with the other stuff?

 

well, firstly, did you cap off the carb vent? that's a serious no-no.

 

i think i did, ill go check, besides starting, wouldnt that hurt idle and otherthings?

 

Not as much as you'd believe. But if the fuel heats up and tries to expand (as it would if you started it up, drove it a little, and shut it off) it wouldn't have anywhere to go except into the engine, causing it to flood.

 

Makes sense to me .

~T.J.

 

I was going to post something akin to peejay's first, but bit my tongue (okay refrained from typing but the effect is much the same)

I can understand deleting things like A/C and power steering, as they're add-ons for creature comfort, but when it comes to things like the rat's nest if it weren't required why would all those highly paid engineers put it there? And why would the manufacturer pay for the production of all those 'extra' pieces?

your car is a machine, not a sculpture that happens to move. Only modify what you understand or get people who do know what does what to help/assist/explain.

I bet if I posted that removing those heavy brake calipers saved weight and 'enhanced performance' there'd be at least one Darwin Award Winner out there who'd try it

NOTE: don't take this as a personal 'chewing out', but rather good natured advice and a warning to others to not do things to their cars that they don't fully comprehend. It was the stereo install guy 'experimenting' with my wiring harness in an effort to figure out how to hook up my power antenna that set my car's harness on fire. Another shop who knew Rexes took just 20 mins to swap out the wires and properly install the deck.

 

Im my opinion the rats nest *for those who do not live in vet test areas* is the equivalnt of a lawn mower thats says don't put your hand under here while running. Yeah, it ocasionally has its points, but its not a nessity to make it work. But i think doing a little research before ripping and tearing would be a good idea. I know this only from experience... doh.

 

i had the same exact problem,


ok see the circled line?


follow it to this valve "shutter valve"






now plug it,
cap it,

do what ever you have to do,

there is a lever mechanism on it,
push it in and your car should die,
when you have it properly plugged or capped "i cant remeber" then your car shouldnt die

here is a thread i started on it


this will help but it wont solve all your rats nest woes,
removing the rats nest is not a good idea IMO



here is my thread on rats nest woes

 

UNLESS you try putting an '81-'85 engine into a '79-'80, without the wiring harness.... or vice-versa, 'cause nothing matches up... trust me, I know from experience. I removed it all, and the car ran about 3 times better. But this is solely under these circumstances...

OR if everything's busted and not working in the first place and causing your car to not run in the first place, then why not chance having it run a little better by removing it.

But yes, I agree, in removing the rat's nest, you cause a lot of other problems. (Normally)

Jeff

 

When I had the Nikki I stripped it of everything that wasn't needed and it always ran perfectly. The only things left on the carb and intake where the throttle and OMP linkages, OMP lines, fuel lines and the PCV system. The float bowl vent was simply open to atmosphere.

IMO, once you start modifying the exhaust and intake, removing the air pump etc. you may as well toss the emissions **** out the window as you're changing the way it was meant to operate. It's likely to cause more problems then not if you leave it on there.

But, I agree that if you don't know what each part does it's better to leave it then to start ripping hoses off left, right and centre.

 

Yeah That carb vent on mine did the same thing, made it harder than hell to start, so I just left it open, and pointing down, I never had any problem with fuel running out, of course I dont auto x or drive like a maniac in the city LOL

 

HEY WHY IS MY GIRLFRIENDS NUMBER UNDER YOUR NAME MIKE P


j/k

 

Revhead-i have a exhaust and have removed the airpump. so I figured removing the rats nest.

Right now the car is running better than it did, I had that carb vent blocked and that was ******* everthing up.

All I removed was the vacumme ****, none of the mechanical **** on the carb.
Now that the car is running really good, I'll remove peice by peice, and if something goes wrong ill just put it back on. I dont plan on striping the carb down (just cause Im not thats knoledgable of the carb) but I would like to clean up some of the stuff that doesnt function after removing the nest.

 

I did the exact same thing when I removed my rat's nest.

If you would have taken off your air cleaner and watched your carb, you would have seen it gradually filling up with fuel the longer you leave it sitting. That's why it is so hard to start after it's left a while, but it'll crank right up if you only shut it off for a second.

Ditto.

Here's what I think:

I've run a Nikki without any of that crap, and it ran very well. That stuff is *not needed* for proper running. However, better to understand what every little thing you're taking off does. That way, you'll avoid mistakes like capping the carb air vent, plugging the wrong inlet on the shutter valve, capping the distributor vacuum ports, disabling the PCV system, etc.

I don't agree with everything that Peejay and Manntis think, because I've had direct personal experience that contradicts their opinions, and I've seen the same on others' cars. However, I do agree with their attitude of caution, in that you shouldn't go pulling things off if you haven't done your research on what it is that they do. That said, doing your research is as simple as buying a Haynes manual. There's no mystery to any of this stuff, it's all described in there and it's fairly simple to understand.

 

My 'opinion' is simply that you shouldn't modify stuff on your car if you don't know why it's there in the first place. So on the one hand you're saying you disagree with me, then in the next sentence you restate my opinion and agree with it. D'you write Crétien's speeches, perchance?

 

Im a teenager of the 80's David,. you wouldnt recognize the song I dont think, you were too young.. LOL

 

Lol... I was really referring more to Peejay's post, and to your first point about why would the stuff be there if it isn't needed. In actuality, it's needed for emissions control, PCV control, vacuum advance control, air conditioning, anti-afterburn or whatever they call it, and whatever else. But for us pure performance guys, who don't care about that stuff, the engine will run excellent without any of it. That was my main point.

Then I was saying that I agreed with your second point, about not messing with things you haven't taken the time to understand.

Guess I didn't read your post carefully enough, sorry buddy.

 

Mike, I'm only in my 20's yet remember that song 867-5309

 

lol, and im 18

~T.J.

PS - Tommy Tutone is right before Tony Basil (Mickey for those who dont know ) on my WinAmp playlist, lol

 

That's the only reason I deleted all of that stuff. '81-85 engines are incompatible with '79-80 as far as emissions goes. The engines themselves are different and it would be a ton of work if not impossible to modify the ENGINE BLOCK to work with the '79-80 emissions scheme.

I also found that the '80 computer did not like having everything unplugged. With everything unplugged and removed (scraped-bare carb as well as no solenoid rack) the coils would continue to recieve power even with the ignition shut off, until the engine finally quit (no fuel) and them power would cease. My guess is some of the drive transistors for the solenoids would leak power to the coils. Putting the '80 carb back on and plugging all of its solenoids in (still no main solenoid rack) solved this problem.

 

On the whole, you're right. However, newer cars do things differently than they used to. For instance the carb float bowl vent is no longer simply vented to the inside of the air cleaner like in the Good Ole' Days, they have it plumbed in to the fuel tank's evap control system, to cut down on evaporative emissions. (Think of this - a car from the 60's/70's emits more pollution just sitting still and not running than a modern car emits driving down the road!) Can we work around that? Yes, but simply ripping and plugging can lead to Bad Things.

Also, the carb IS to some extent computer-controlled. A couple of the solenoids on it actually do alter the fuel curve over certain RPM ranges. I haven't seen anyone do any objective testing as to how exactly it affects the fuel curve (something I do plan on doing though ) but I think of it this way - generally speaking any emissions control that alters the fuel curve also improves engine running because better combustion (aside from wacky thermal reactor "afterburner" schemes) also means increased performance. Would they have engineered that solution if it didn't do demonstrable good?

Again, that hasn't been answered in any text that I've seen and I do plan on doing some tests for myself. And since it does alter mixture, of course this enters the possibility of fangling it to a hot rodder's purposes

Many bad things are done good-naturedly. I was at a car show and I saw a MINT '79 roll up. Looked BRAND NEW. Bunch of other RX-7 guys start talking to him and one of them said "yeah, best thing to do is put a Purolator regulator here" and I'm just shaking my head, thinking that that would be the WORST possible thing to do.

 

Maybe he meant what I would have said:

*points to passenger seat*

"Best thing to do is put a UPS girl here"