ladyfirebird

My car tends to idle erradically and stall when the throttle body starts to carbon up. It started stalling and idling erradically over the past month, so I cleaned the throttle body yesterday. I did not remove the whole throttle body. I removed the IAC and the top of the TB which the IAC gets bolted to. Cleaned everything throughly with throttle body cleaner and reassembled. I re-used the gasket for the upper throttle body. I started it up and let it idle for a few minutes in the driveway and all was fine. I went inside for a little bit to take care of some things and then took the car for a test ride. Start up was a little rough. As soon as I threw it in reverse, the car started to vibrate. Oh crap, I thought. I put it in drive and it got even rougher when I gave it gas. I drove it a little while, it vibrates horribly at low end rpm's and smooths out a little bit above 2500. It didn't feel like it was running on all 6 either. I limped it home and checked to make sure everything was sealed properly. Everything appeared fine. During my drive I could smell it running rich. This car has NEVER run rich. No codes either.

While I was cleaning the TB yesterday, I also changed plugs. Just use good old AC Delco R43TSK's. Checked firing order, it is correct. I checked for bad cylindars, but it was hard to get any definitive results from that because the motor ran that rough. It ran a bit worse when I pulled the wires off of 2, 4, and 6. Made very little difference when I pulled the wirese on 1,3, and 5.

I'm a bit stuck right now. I have a hunch that the gasket I reused is leaking, but could that cause it to run the way it is? Anyone have any ideas?

Edit: I forgot about this - Frequently while driving it, the speedo goes out for a couple of minutes at a time. The SES flickers but never comes on. Throws code 51 for bad PROM. Probably not related, but could the PROM failing attribute to this?

Spazz698

Id double check the wires are on the plugs all the way. I had this issue with my car initally, #5 was a bitch to get to and I didnt realize it wasnt on all the way til I pulled all the plugs out thinking the gap was off on one of them.

ilterzo84

double check that everything is installed properly. i had that problem a couple times. first time its was just that i didnt have a wire on fully. second time i had to replace the wires, cap and rotor. hope that helps

Dale

iTrader: (12)

The 3.1's have whats called an Idle learn procedure, its possible after you cleaned the IAC and its port, your making it have to re-learn this.

Also, re-using the old gasket (I dont know of a new one to get, so we have to) its possible you have a vaccume leak now.