Problem with my GTS (feels like she missing spark/fuel)

[Dom426h]

besides possibly being bad advice, What does removing the battery while the car is running have to do with anything? What would you gain from this?

When the issue occures i think my Tach goes up and down slightly with what the engine is doing. also like i said before, i can push in the clutch and rev up and the tach goes on up. I have Not noticed the voltage gauge dropping but will certainatly have my eyes glues to that gauge next time it happens.

ROCK,
yet another vote for battery...
Did you have Idle and/or Startup problems, or just intermittent running problems like me?

 

[Tom F&L GoR]

besides possibly being bad advice, What does removing the battery while the car is running have to do with anything? What would you gain from this?

When the issue occures i think my Tach goes up and down slightly with what the engine is doing. also like i said before, i can push in the clutch and rev up and the tach goes on up. I have Not noticed the voltage gauge dropping but will certainatly have my eyes glues to that gauge next time it happens.

ROCK,
yet another vote for battery...
Did you have Idle and/or Startup problems, or just intermittent running problems like me?

Removing the battery was not advice, just an example of how the battery is no longer just external energy storage to crank the engine. In newer cars is somehow part of the system - I don't know how. But it lends credence to the "advice" that the battery could have an intermittent internal problem that reveals as a driveability problem; a cause and effect that would not have appeared on "older" cars (i.e. the ones I grew up with.)

If the tach works as expected, then it seems to de-emphasize general electrical problems.

 

[Rock Morgan]

The car, for lack of better words, would just start cutting out. It would then magically heal itself for a while, then start missing again. Pretty much exactly what your car is doing. I never had a starting problem at all.

 

[Dom426h]

****UPDATE****

This week:
-Jiggled every electrical connection under the hood while running to see if i could replicate the problem. Nope.
Disconnected/Reconnected everything a few times to ensure connections.
-Pulled sparkplugs to have a look at em. Last changed 10K miles ago at the stealership where the owner that sold to me had the viper serviced. Looked Good. But the gaps were off. only 3or4 at .035, the rest at .040-.048. Replaced with a fresh set of Champs Propperly gapped.
-checked the resistance of all my AB wires and they were good
-Motul Oil Change

Drove FIVE 20min trips running Fine.
Then a 1.5hr trip to the beach and about 1hr into the trip she started acting up again. off and on for about 5 min untill i pulled over to check her out. Paid close attention to all my guages while it was happening. Everything looked Fine. Tach was accurate. Voltage didnt move a Bit.(i wish it would have...)
Whe pulled over she was still running a little rough at idle. I popped the hood and Jiggled everything i could reach and found nothing.
Shut er down for 10 min then started up fine and drove off like nothing ever happend.

 

[dave6666]

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[Dom426h]

Searching through hundreds of past threads these past couple weeks
I came across these VCA members with a similar problem.

Member / Solution

RockMorgan - Battery

FastFang - Battery

Ab - Cam/Crank Sensor

Achilles99 - Problem went away

mach4444 - Problem went away

Red Shift - Pending (might have cleared up)

DrumrBoy - Pending (still has problem)

KenH - Pending (havnt gotten a response from him yet)

99BLKRT/10 - Pending (havnt gotten a response from him yet)


After hearing from Rock and fastfang(who replaced a 1yr old battery that cranked & held charge fine to fix his problem.
I think im going to give it a shot.

 

[dave6666]

Replacing the battery is also the equivalent of resetting the PCM right?

Have you tried just doing that?

 

[Dom426h]

Nope, simply removing thew battery will not reset the viper's computer.

I reset it the right (Wizard approved) way.

 

[hemibeep]

You forgot mine.
Battery.
I bought mine at walmart. best they had. I think five year unlimited warranty.
After two years take in, they don't check, get new battery.
not an issue since.

 

[Dom426h]

Nope, didnt forget u, u Definatly had a battery problem. But a diff situation them me.

Typicaly: Low voltage, Starting and/or idle problems are tell-tail signs to replace your battery. You Had these symptoms, so it was a no-brainer.

I have a battery that reads Full voltage, checks good with a CCA tester.
My car Starts and Idles Fine. I get the problem when crusing around. similar to FastFangs if u read this thread:
http://forums.viperclub.org/rt-10-g...rible-hard-describe-symptoms-but-ill-try.html

-------------------------------------------------------------

Just finished replacing my battery and also removed and wirebrushed every connection under there, time for a test drive

 

[sdaddy]

You forgot my vote for the battery too! It is time to quit jiggling wires and replace the battery!

 

[Dom426h]

There was no vote, That was a list that i compiled of Actual viper owners that had a similar problem to me, and what they did(or didnt do) to fix it.

Besides, all yall that said battery were wrong. I replaced it and no-go, still have the problem. It is a good battery just like the one i pulled out. I even checked the voltage before startup(just after installing), while running, while the problem is happening, and after shutting down. All Good.

So forget about the freekin battery guys.

 

[Dom426h]

just to be clear for anyone that might scroll to the bottom and miss it:

IT WAS NOT THE BATTERY

 

[Dom426h]

While out on my test drive when she started acting up i stopped at autozone and picked up a Fuel Pressure Gauge. Hooked it up to the valve on the fuel rail and fired her up. Idle was at spec (55psi). Went back in and bought a roll of ducktape as recommended by ViperJohn(thanks) to Tape the gauge to my windshield so that i could see it while driving. (the autozone guys thought i was crazy...) On the road she consistently read 55psi. Then halfway home she started acting up and the pressure remained at 55psi the whole time.

So Cross fuel off the list, this problem is Electrical

 

[AZTVR]

deleted ,,,,,

 

[AZTVR]

When this happens i can push the clutch in and rev it up no problem (aka no load - no problem).

Anyone feel like they are participating in a SPEED channel rip-off of "House?"

OK. Perhaps the symptom quoted above is what should be addressed now ?

I am not experienced enough to know exactly what it would mean to be acting up under load only. What is different with engine function during load and no load? It turns the same speed, and vibrates the same? My first thought would be vacuum ? Throttle plates would be wider open under load to get same RPM ? Advance would be different ?

 

[Dom426h]

yea, i specified that hoping it would light up someones lightbulb.
Thanks for bringing it back up.

 

[AZTVR]

yea, i specified that hoping it would light up someones lightbulb.
Thanks for bringing it back up.

Sorry that I can't contribute any more than that. My light bulb is only rated at 12.5 Watts. Just enough to light up the inside of a refrigerator.

 

[RTTTTed]

You forgot that all last year I had your problems (and worse since the tune would change) and this year I found looose connections.

Also spoke to an Oregon member that had connection problem similar to ours. (Mine's still doing it occaissionally).

My loose connection seems to cause the computer to run fat on Cyl #8 & 10 causing rough running.

I vote for bad connections.

Ted

 

[tlcobra]

my 98 gts, replaced fuel pump thursday with walbro 255, still have the problem with mine. Im going to change battery this week.

 

[Dom426h]

It's not uncommon for the crank sensors/ Cam sensors to go bad on these cars. Very simple install.

AB,

I find it hard to believe the Both your CAM and CRANK sensors would go bad at the same time.
Did you hook up a scanner to check the voltages to see which one actually failed?

You said that the cam position sensor is a: "Very Simple Install"
To me, it looks like it has to be accessed from underneath and it is tough to get the notch in the cam lined up to set the depth of the gauge.
Check out what happened to a few people:
http://forums.viperclub.org/rt-10-gts-discussions/605807-how-set-cam-position-sensor-depth.html

So please explain to me how "simple" this is. I might give it a shot soon, so any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[dave6666]

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[Ratical2]

Dave, looks pretty simple to me, thanks to the clarity provided by the Mitchells on demand shop manual. Thanks for posting this information. I didn't know about Mitchells.

 

[Drummerboy]

I was experiencing the same exact issues as the OP the week earlier, only it was in my SRT-10. Turned it into my local Viper Tech this past Friday, and got it back today - apparently I had a bad Crank Position Sensor. It's riding great so far - only time will tell. Thought I'd chime in with my experience so far and will chime in again when I get some more miles on her..

- Rob

 

[Dom426h]

thanks for sharing dave&drummer. Im gonna go ahead and call chuck for the cam/crank sensors.
i'll follow up in a few days once i get em in.

-Later

 

[RTTTTed]

I hear the same. Dodge Viper Parts Larry gave me sensors to test mine. Cranksensor took about 5 minutes to change once the car was up on jacks. No difference. Cam sensor still in box because I found the loose connections. Once you instal a new crank/cam sensor you have a box for your "spare" sensors for the next time.

Ted

 

[Drummerboy]

Negative on the Crank Sensor - took it out today and she's still breaking up. Very intermittent, and super annoying.

Originally I was experiencing the stumbling/breaking up issues, it then progressed into random rough idling to the point where the car died on me twice (Had to tow it to the dealer) I'll give the Viper Tech this much, it at least runs for now, and hasn't died on me again - Yet. So I'm not sure if replacing the CPS helped with part of a multifaceted issue, or what.

I'm going to resort to troubleshooting the issue the best I can on my own for now (and I'm not the most mechanically savvy person on earth) since sending it to the tech didn't work out to well. Guess I'm going to try out all of the suggestions made in this thread - going to buy a new battery, going to check wires in my PCM, install new cam sensor, checking/jiggling random wires, double check fuel pressure (I would have assumed the tech did this as I told him I suspected this was a fuel issue), etc.

On the same note, I'm ignorant and have a question regarding service. I bring in my vehicle with an issue. I was told the issue was fixed, and shelled out a couple of hundred bucks for the service. Still experiencing issue now. Question is, did I get hosed out of a couple of hundred bucks, or will the dealer take the car back and fix the issue? Is there some kind of warranty when it comes to service?

- Rob

thanks for sharing dave&drummer. Im gonna go ahead and call chuck for the cam/crank sensors.
i'll follow up in a few days once i get em in.

-Later

 

[dave6666]

On the same note, I'm ignorant and have a question regarding service. I bring in my vehicle with an issue. I was told the issue was fixed, and shelled out a couple of hundred bucks for the service. Still experiencing issue now. Question is, did I get hosed out of a couple of hundred bucks, or will the dealer take the car back and fix the issue? Is there some kind of warranty when it comes to service?

- Rob

Very unlikely they'll "warranty" the labor that you were charged for. They'll either try something else, find something else, or find nothing, of only which the latter would be free. The other two are, heck, new things! New charges!

At least that is based on experiences that I have had. I know there are respectable service shops that cater to this forum and they could well be more upstanding.

 

[ViperTony]

FWIW, I had an issue with my '01 whereby on WOT pulls the engine would hesitate and the tach would flutter around 4K RPM for a second or two. It didn't happen consistently but it would happen on track and it sucked. No CEL's, no other issues. The only thing I found was that both my MAP sensor and the Vec3 internal MAP sensor were showing the same pattern when this anomaly would occur. So I figured it was something in the valvetrain, maybe valve float. BTW, I had this happen with a "stock" Vec3 tune and my custom Vec3 tune. But this started happening when I installed the Vec3. I recently installed a Modifry shift beeper. Interestingly, on the track when this hesitation occurred the beeper would blast interference noise on the speaker, instead of beeping. I removed my Vec3 two weeks ago. Problem is gone. No more hesitation or 'miss' and no more interference on the shift beeper. I think I may have had a grounding issue with the Vec3. Not sure if this is related but I thought I'd share my experience here.

Maybe get your hands on OBDII diagnostic software like PCMSCAN and log through it, play it back and see if you can pinpoint the problem. Hope this helps.

 

[RTTTTed]

I took mine down to a shop with a reputation of being 'gifted'. After 4 hours when I proved several of his theories incorrect, switched the ingectors around to show a TUNE problem, not an 'bad injector' problem (as I said) we came to the conclusion that the problem was electric and a tuning issue that kept electrical power to 2 injectors way too long (<90%) and that's all we accomplished in 4 hours. I did all of the mechanical work on my car. Figured out which wires were the bad connections on the drive home.

I was charged for 2 hours of dyno time (no other cars waiting) and paid $340. A Dealership probably would have charged me 4 hours. New way of doing business. GM did awheel alignment on my Viper (only shop that was capable). First wheel alignment cost me $350 for labor. Drove 200miles home. Took daughter for ride and showed her how well my Roeracing front brake kit works and alignment slipped! Called GM and got another appointment. Front wheel alignment (only) cost me $145. this time. Alignment lasted a couple weeks and I decided to take my car to a Firestone as I heard they guarantee their work.

Ted