Morning Troubles! plz help!

[Calais3800]

Hey guys got a few questions 4 u all. my calais starts up easy in the morning and will idle fine, but as soon as i rev it to warm her up a bit she dies! i have to wait for ages for her to warm up in the morning and if i pull out into traffic without a lenthy warmup and sprint to keep up with the traffic where i pull onto main road she gos ok (lacking power) but as soon as a take my foot of the accelerator she dies aswell! dangerous.... any ideas what this could be?


Also when shes cold she clunks into second badly! for ages aswell. my first thought it needed a simple band adjustment but after a while of driving it comes fine, so maybe it has a shift kit? coz when i floor her she snanps into second quite well. any sugestions ppl??

BASIC INFO:
bought car 6 mnts ago
done 212,000 klms
Stock calais
v6

[mouce]

Yep...first up, clean your throttle body and the idle air control valve. That's going to be a really good place to start. Don't forget to reset your ECU when you're done with that bit. It may not make it perfect, but I'll bet it helps.

As for the auto, do a fluid change, and adjust the kickdown cable, if that doesn't work then I'd suggest that it's time to get it serviced professionally.

[Calais3800]

MAD! how quick waz that. Hey thanks mouse, i have vn service manual so cleaning the TB and IAC should be simple. and resting ECU is disconecting battery terminals for 30 seconds or something? is this correct?

Fluid change sounds good, spose i should do the filter and o'ring as well. If i find metal swaft in the bottom of oil pan is this indication of a needed rebuild?

Thanks Mouce

[mouce]

People can never agree on how to reset the ECU, some people don't even do it.

The way I do it, and encourage others to do it

Start the engine, let it warm up for a little bit
Stop the engine, pull out the 'engine' fuse, OR just pull off the negative battery terminal
Leave it disconnected for a minute,
Reconnect, start the engine and rev to 3000rpm for 10 seconds.

The only reason that I suggest warming the engine up first is that I don't like the idea of sitting there with a stone cold engine at 3000rpm.

If you can be bothered do the filter and the o-ring, I guess it's probably good practice to do it, the reason I say change the fluid is that it does start to degrade over time. New fluid might make all the difference. As for finding stuff in the bottom of the pan, I'd think that finding metal in there would be a bad thing, yeah. Hopefully there won't be any in there.

It could also be that your car is preggers and it's just got a bit of morning sickness Maybe in a few months time you'll be the proud owner of an Astra

[Calais3800]

And lets hope it doesnt have her mothers bad habits. haw haw. And beyond now comtemplating wether baby Astra will need engine oil or baby oil, i now have the idea of simply swaping the v6 TB for a v8 TB, anyone know if this is bolt on or will i need to do other things before putting in a V8 TB. i wanna do this calais up coz i developed a soft spot for her interior and lightweght acceleration. the VS i used to have had alot more power ,147kw. but the light weight of the vn is calling to me. hehe.

Also with the ECU reset, does it have to be exaclty 3000rpm? does going over or under a little affect the reset?

Thanks again Mouce

[mouce]

Straight bolt up job. Not tough at all. For all that the VS might have had more power, the VN has a lot more usable power. Plus the torque curve in the VN is a lot nicer to drive with than the VS (in my opinion).

The ECU reset, just needs to be over 2000rpm...allowing for how stuffed the tacho is in most VN's, it's generally accepted that you aim for 3000rpm. So long as it's over 2000rpm you're sweet. Make it 3000rpm and you know you're safe.

[xcop5l]

Fluid change sounds good, spose i should do the filter and o'ring as well. If i find metal swaft in the bottom of oil pan is this indication of a needed rebuild?

also if you find glod swarf in the pan it would indicate that your auto cooler in the radiator is rotting away and you may need a new raidator or to bipass the cooler and run an after market cooler

[Emackulation]

Yeh, I also beleive to stop it from dieing after acceleration clean the TB with some spray on TB cleaner and a rag and old toothbrush, make sure you take out the pintle of the IAC valve and give it ALL a good clean.

[mouce]

Carby cleaner works a treat. You should be able to get the inside of the t/b to be all nice and shiny

[Calais3800]

unreal, plenty of advice here! thanks everyone for you input. Also quick question, wat about degreaser for the TB and IAC or is this to strong?

And i found an aftermarket hi performance TB for v6 vn, gives extra 5 kw, costs $220. does anyone know how much a second hand v8 TB goes for and wat power increase we'd get? weighting up my options....and does anyone sell aftermarket IAC or is this not warrented? thanks ppl......

[mouce]

You 'could' use degreaser on the t/b and IACV but that means that you've gotta spray it on then hose it off...and even when it's off the car, the less water I spray on bits like that the better

Pop down to your local Repco/Autobarn/Supercheap and pick up the cheapest can of carby cleaner you can ($2 should be about right).

As for the claimed power increase from a t/b change...I'm not so sure on that. A stock V6 motor doesn't suck enough air to max out the flowrate on the standard t/b...the only real benefit from fitting a larger diameter t/b to a stock V6 is that you'll have a slightly more 'agressive' throttle response at low throttle percentages. And the standard IACV is fine.

[PaRaDoX]

i used carby cleaner and my god that stuff will eat through anything

its actually called

"carby and throttle clearner"
costs round $8 from repco

works a treat.. mine used to idle low as till i fixed it with my chip.. then cleaned the tb and the chip idled too high so i reset it to normal and no issues.. i think a simple IAC valve clean is in order

MAKE SURE TO WIPE THE TB DOWN AFTER USING CARBY CLEANER.. that stuff is highly corrosive and will eat through metal if left un attended (ate through a pushrod i was soaking to test)

[Calais3800]

Alright ppl ive taken the TB and manifold adapter off the engine for cleaning. waz simple operation except that last bolt on da bak of the adapter. you cant get a spanner or racthcet in there to get it off! that bit took a lot of inprovisation. and that vacum hose at rear of adapter waz a B*****D of a job.

But now that its all off the inside off the TB and adapter are caked in about 0.5mm deep in black crap. im gonna clean em up tommrow but i looked inside the intake manifold itself. To my horror its even worse in there! looks like 1mm of oil and muck built up inside it. how on earth do i clean that out???

Looks like an even longer job to take that off and clean inside. is there anything else i can do? wat bout if i just clean the TB, IAC and adapter then fill here up with optimax for a few months? will this clean the intake manifold??

Anyone got any ideas? also i got a new air filter from supacheap. the old one waz black!!! even had motor oil in it?? WTF?? ive only had this car5 months how does oil get into the air filter???

Does anybody know???

[Calais3800]

So nobody knows??

[immortality]

there shouldn't be any oil in the air filter....ever. did you get a compression test done when you bought the mighty VN. even if there was a problem with the rings and your getting lots of oil outa the breather it would go straight into the TB and nowhere near the airfilter. i'd get a compression test done and pull the plugs to see what they look like. if the rings check out i'd pull the intake and heads off and get it all cleaned etc, lap the valves in cause if there is that much gunk in the intake i'd hate to imagine what the valves look like. it'll run a lot better if you wanna go that far

[Emackulation]

Actully, I do beleive that the K&N pannel filters are oiled (not sure on pods), and you can buy a service kit for the K&N air filters that includes oil for re-oiling it.

[Calais3800]

nah this wasnt no mild filter oil, this waz thick black engine gunk or sumfin. even had solidified chucks stickin to the F**KER. lol. yeah the first thought of terror i had was that sumfin internal had worn like a valve seat or guide phrehaps the seals or retainers??? Ahhhhhh! the oil might be blowing up throught the manifold into the air ducts maybe?? only thing is the oil was on the outside of the filter as though it had been sucked in? but how would oil get into the pod for such a thing to happen??any other ideas? thanks guys.

But i still wonder if running heaps of injector cleaner or shell optimax might clean the manifold and heads without having to take em of??? can anyone confirm or deniy this?

[immortality]

just run the engine and pull the breather pipe of the TB and see how much air/oil is coming out of it, this is a basic test to check the condition of your rings and how much blow-by your getting. the only way i can figure your getting oil in the airfilter etc is if, 1. someone has deliberatly put oil in there or 2. there is some sort of oil leak somewhere around the oil pump/filter on the high pressure side which is squirting oil in the direction of the airfilter box??? i consider the 2nd option to be most unlikely myself. just running optimax/injector cleaner won't get rid of the oil buidup especially if more oils is getting in there. holden designed the breather this way so that any combustion gasses that get by the rings (and there always will be some, no rings will seal 100%) are recirculated through the intake and through the combustion process again there for reducing polution etc, however overtime, like, lets ay 16 years you are going to get some build up. this is one of the reasons in every second thread in this section someone is recommending to clean the TB and AIC valve first. in the older style engines, lets say the humble 202 the breater went into the side of the air cleaner and over time if you removed the filter you would find some oil in that part of the airfilter. if the conditon of your rings where bad the oil would quickly clog your filter causing al sorts of problems, thats why i thing holden put the breater straight to the TB to stop stuffing peoples air filters...... no design is perfect however and that is the reason on most race cars you see the breathers going to some sort of catch can thats ventilated straight to atmosphere

[Calais3800]

wow,fantastic! thanks immortality. exactly what i wanted to know, u legend! will go take off my Tb breather right now and test er up....................ALso i found a little oil pool on the right hand rocker cover near the intake manifold. i wonder if the rocker cover gaskets are on the way out and oil is drawn into the intake manifol thought the manifold gasket? hhhmmmmm


only 1 qustion left ppl...i removed the Tb and adapter, sprayed it,cleaned it,air blasted it,lubed the butterfly,service and reset the IAC to 28mm, blasted out the hoses and restet the ecu. it runs unreal now, smoother,quiter,more power. BUT,lol i also did the 100% throttle open mod and rest the kickdown and throttle cabels and now the accelarator pedel wont go all the way back. i have to pull it back wif my foot the get the idle back down.

How do i adjust the pedal so its will idle proplerly? i took the panal off but cant see any pedal ajustment device? i looked underneath and the pedal has a spring mechansim there, can this be adjusted?