Last Wednesday, Adam and I got the new wheels on, and got the brake bled. We tooke it around the neighborhood, however the battery was drained. So I was going from neighbor to neighbor asking to borrow a set of jumper cables. We go the juice flowing and drove her around the block. She was still running super rich and upon reaching operating temp, the emgine would stall out when in neutral. Therefore we had to keep the revs up when at a stop. Fortunately, her maiden voyage was only in the neighborhood and we pulled her back in to the garage. Checking everything over, making sure there weren't any oil leaks, water leaks, vacuum leaks, smoke coming from the engine bay, or loose grounds. There wasn't anything that caught our eye.
It was time to take her in. We decided that the next morning we would take Silvia to Keith Baldwin of JDM Power Options. So it's Thursday morning and Adam swings by at 7:20 and we're heading off ~15 miles to Keith's shop. Our plan was to take back roads as much as possible and at one point, we needed to hop on 50. I didn't want to get too close behind Adam who was leading the way in his new STI as I would stall out in neutral when at a stop. Before turning onto 50, I would try to press the gas pedal, but no response unless it was all the way down to the floor which only gave me what felt like 15% full throttle. So I was at a catch 22, needed gas to not stall out, however pushing the gas pedal has no response. This of course was perfect timing because we were now driving on 50 with contruction, traffic, lots of stop and go, and the time was 7:45- AM rush.
We final get to the shop. While waiting for Keith, Adam and I pop the hood to reveal that the throttle pulley was bent and the cable was popping off. This explained why I had no throttle response when pushing down on the gas pedal. Adam did tell me that while we were driving, there wasn't any smoke coming from the exhaust that he noticied. This is a good thing I was driving it conservatively staying out of boost. Keith showed up and we explain to him how the car was running, and some of the items that needed to be address on the car- valve cover studs stripped, wheel hub studs missing and damaged thread and other stuff..
I told Keith to take his time with the car, keep it as long as he needed, and provided him with a new wiring harness of the previous owner. I told him that if it needed to be used, do whatever was needed. I got a call from him on Saturday telling me that the MAF being used was from a SOHC so the voltage and reading to the ECU was not correct for the motor and that the new harness couldn't be used because the ECU plug was different and wouldn't fit.
I call Martin was told he was even surprised that an S14 motor would be able to run with that MAF. I also called up Wiring Specialties to ask them about the wiring harness and learned that they don't make a harness for the S14 motor. This explained why the ECU plug didn't fit.
So now, I have sent the ECU to Martin for a ROM tube for my specific modifications on the car and Keith is working on all the things that can be done without the motor running.
Keith should have the ECU back this Friday and then we can determine what else is wrong with the car now that it will be reading the correct air/feul ratio.
