Pure Stock-1995 Olds Achieva

[SBDART]

Originally Posted by Tod Lane

Road trip....

He owes us one since we didn't go to Georgia after the trailer that time...

Lets go....

[Robert Swartz]

Originally Posted by Mark Yacavone

First of all you are looking at the NHRA breaks...

I mentioned CF/SA which is an IHRA class
In IHRA, it's a natural C car.

Now from now on it's a CL or SL model ..Nobody looks at what kind of seat covers you have. It it make you feel better, go to the boneyard and pop off a couple of emblems and glue them on.
That makes it a nat. D car so you go to E @ your current weight (15.90 index)
Doesn't that sound better ?
Most of the weight you remove would have to come of the front end...Not a good idea.

You need a real header and collector (call Billy),

Stocker cams and valve job,

A set of chain gears for the trans (Owen Quirrion)

Minimum 8" or 7" converter (call ME)

Some way to tune the computer (Ed Wright)

It ought to run under the index with a healthy short block.

If you're serious, there's a guy here that can help you (SS3011)

Now grab yourself a Rockstar and get to work !

Mark,

Thank you for the information. I don't know that it's about being serious. It's how deep I can dig into my pocket. I really need to sit down and digest some of the information.

[Robert Swartz]

After our test run last week, we realised the car needed looking into further. First off, two things about this car show what a headache these can be when people that know less than I do, monkey with the wiring. It has an aftermarket alarm that is junk, don't roll the windows up and shut the doors with the key in the ignition, you lock yourself out. Typically of these cars, it has a loud, modern radio. The wiring is a mess! We've found plugs unhooked, a burnt fusible link, wires that go nowhere, you name it. It's an OBD 1 car. The two codes it's thrown, an 043 - the knock sensor or electronic control sensor. An 028 - which is a code for the fan relay, this code didn't show up until we started tracing and testing wires for hot or ground.

I'm pretty sure the temperature sending unit doesn't work, it was unhooked. The fan was also unhooked. Car never overheated or puked any fluids. Leads me to wonder if it has a thermostat? For my current purposes, I may look at putting a temp gage in it. We chased the wiring and can put a toggle switch in to activate the fan.

Anyone that has hooked a tach and gauges in these newer cars. Any tips or problems (other than the ones I already have) that I need to look for.

That's how I spent my Sunday. More fixing to do before this car sees the track again.

[Robert Swartz]

Well it's time to fix the problems we've discovered. It's often interesting what a little digging and research can reveal. It appears these little Quad 4's are quite durable. This was my step son's car and he had driven it quite a bit. With the fan not working, it never overheated, threw any codes or puked any fliud? Apparently there are two temp sensors on these engines, one for the temperature and another for the fan control.

I'm going to hook up a seperate fan controler and run it thru a switch, that way the car can be driven as normal. Or we can manually run the fan in the pits.

Have a whole pile of new parts for this car. I was digging in the corner of one of my boxes that holds old unused or discarded parts. Lo and behold I discovered an old pair of never used 2" Sun gauges, both an oil pressure and a mechanical water temperature gauge. The boxes looked pretty bad. I'm not going to hook up the oil pressure gauge, not sure I want see that just yet, on this old motor anyway. I do want the temp gauge. With the nature of these engines, seems they do repond to temperature changes, as others on this board that run these small cars have informed us. Tested the temp gauge after Tod told me to boil a pot of water and see if it reacted. It ran right up. These things are probably 35 years old, guess they weren't a bad buy after all, LOL!

I'm going to put the sensor into the water stream in a hose. You can get some real nice aluminum hose adapters. After studying these for a few minutes. Most of these only have holes drilled for 1/8" npt threads. Did find one that would accept an 3/8 fitting. A trip to the hardware store and being somewhat resourceful, I made an adapter out of pipe fittings. It ain't pretty like the aluminum ones, it will get the job done. Didn't have to pay shipping to get it here.

A tach and temp gauge, a race car do not make. These little tools will give us some better undersanding of what the car is doing. Maybe help us to improve the times of the car, when we get the opportunity to take it back to the track. I purchased one of the Autometer tach adapters, I am being cheap, only got one of the Jeg's 5" tachs. If I do sell the car later this year, I can leave it in if someone wants it. Or recycle it to something else down the road. Hopefully it will be adequate for this car at this time.

[james schaechter]

I was always impressed with the quad 4s. My wife had a 1989 grand am with a 5 speed. It wasn't the HO, but I think it was 165 hp. I ran one run at cordova once and it went 14.97. It was bone stock.
She ran it in an autocross once too. The older guys running the event put her in a class with some triumph TR6s and she ate their lunch. They were pissed too. It was just for a ribbon! Sheesh, those Brit car guys don't have a sense of humour!

Anyway, it was a fun car, especially for the time. It always impressed me for a four banger. We traded it in for a Camaro and put around 70k on it with no issues. I did hear that they had head gsket trouble, but we never had any problems with it.

[chris ok]

All OBD 1 cars can benefit from a good low temp temp sending unit for the fans. I always use TS 136 Standard. My tech tip here.
OBD II cars use the computer for fancontrol.
I thought the 43 code was either rich or lean, but it has been a while since I worked on them. Brain fade..... That lil engine can take abeating too. have fun.
Chris

[Tod Lane]

Originally Posted by james schaechter

I was always impressed with the quad 4s. My wife had a 1989 grand am with a 5 speed. It wasn't the HO, but I think it was 165 hp. I ran one run at cordova once and it went 14.97. It was bone stock.
She ran it in an autocross once too. The older guys running the event put her in a class with some triumph TR6s and she ate their lunch. They were pissed too. It was just for a ribbon! Sheesh, those Brit car guys don't have a sense of humour!

Anyway, it was a fun car, especially for the time. It always impressed me for a four banger. We traded it in for a Camaro and put around 70k on it with no issues. I did hear that they had head gsket trouble, but we never had any problems with it.

I bet a woman in an American car beating them made them NUTS lol.

[art leong]

Originally Posted by Robert Swartz

Well it's time to fix the problems we've discovered. It's often interesting what a little digging and research can reveal. It appears these little Quad 4's are quite durable. This was my step son's car and he had driven it quite a bit. With the fan not working, it never overheated, threw any codes or puked any fliud? Apparently there are two temp sensors on these engines, one for the temperature and another for the fan control.

I'm going to hook up a seperate fan controler and run it thru a switch, that way the car can be driven as normal. Or we can manually run the fan in the pits.

Have a whole pile of new parts for this car. I was digging in the corner of one of my boxes that holds old unused or discarded parts. Lo and behold I discovered an old pair of never used 2" Sun gauges, both an oil pressure and a mechanical water temperature gauge. The boxes looked pretty bad. I'm not going to hook up the oil pressure gauge, not sure I want see that just yet, on this old motor anyway. I do want the temp gauge. With the nature of these engines, seems they do repond to temperature changes, as others on this board that run these small cars have informed us. Tested the temp gauge after Tod told me to boil a pot of water and see if it reacted. It ran right up. These things are probably 35 years old, guess they weren't a bad buy after all, LOL!

I'm going to put the sensor into the water stream in a hose. You can get some real nice aluminum hose adapters. After studying these for a few minutes. Most of these only have holes drilled for 1/8" npt threads. Did find one that would accept an 3/8 fitting. A trip to the hardware store and being somewhat resourceful, I made an adapter out of pipe fittings. It ain't pretty like the aluminum ones, it will get the job done. Didn't have to pay shipping to get it here.

A tach and temp gauge, a race car do not make. These little tools will give us some better undersanding of what the car is doing. Maybe help us to improve the times of the car, when we get the opportunity to take it back to the track. I purchased one of the Autometer tach adapters, I am being cheap, only got one of the Jeg's 5" tachs. If I do sell the car later this year, I can leave it in if someone wants it. Or recycle it to something else down the road. Hopefully it will be adequate for this car at this time.

The quad 4 makes a lot of power. One thing you have to realize though. Is that the factory ecu will adjust itself away from any changes you make. When you change something I.E. engine temp etc. You must fool the computer into not seeing the change.
At least this is the way the turbododges get to run.

[chris ok]

I know engine fan control in 80's on obd1 GM was controlled by a seperate fan temp switch then the ecu used. I used the above said switch TS136 on a few Camaros and Firebirds. I think the Achieva would be the same.

[Robert Swartz]

My poor little Achieva has turned into a pain. I had attempted to clean the TB. This is where I confess my ignorance of these newer FI equipped cars. Found out dumbly, you don't use carb cleaner and don't spray into the TB while the vehicle is running.

Now it's hard to start. Once it gets running, it idles terribly. It has the most awful sputter coming from the tailpipe. Checked the plugs, they have the tannish/gray color you expect to see from a running, not fouled plug. Although it did have some wetness around the bottom of the threads. Could be injectors not firing? Took it up the road, acts like it's completely retarded, timing wise. It has no power at all!

Since it's a simple change, put a new fuel filter on it in the vain hope it might just be some water or dirt in the fuel. In addition, pretty sure the filter had never been changed. No such luck. Still runs crappy. My buddy Tod, is coming up this weekend, we'll run a compression test, check the vacume lines, check for spark. Try to eliminate what is not the problem.

I have a scanner that does OBD1, the only codes it's thrown are 028-fan relay, we've solved that. It has thrown an 043-ESC, knock sensor. That wasn't even plugged in?

Anyone have any suggestions? I'm a stumped on this car.