I am busy with work this week, so won’t be able to test her until Saturday. I probably need a break
I’ve only pulled 2 spark plugs so far, but they were both covered with soft soot. I cleaned one off, put it back in, one day later totally covered again. Injectors have been cleaned and overhauled. I also verified injector harness is good.
A bit of history - this car has 48,000 miles, first owner 1988-2012. So that’s only 2,000 miles/year. And I know they lived on an island. Looks like they sold it after it failed smog twice (running rich). I don’t have any records on why. Second owner let the car sit for 6 years. And now I have her at 48,000 miles.
Regarding circuit to 19 on ECU, how can I further test it? I was getting the correct read out at the harness pin. Are you saying check it again? Or is there another test? Or do I need to check ECU?
I am still confused:
- Is my super low vacuum (under 10 inHg) causing the fuel mixture problems???
- Or are fuel mixture problems causing my super low vacuum?
What leads me to believe I have more of a vacuum issue and not a fuel mixture issue, idling at 10 inHg, when I rev it I can only achieve 10 inHg also. When letting go, it jumps up to 14 inHg and falls back to 10. So it all looks good, it’s just about 6-9 off. And although smoother at 1500 RPM, it still sounds like cylinders are randomly missing. To me, that’s valves/compression issues. And remember, something like gas or soot is getting into my oil. It looks like diesel oil within 1 week! But I’m no expert, can a very rich fuel mixture cause low vacuum???
So next weekend I am going to test compression and exhaust. That should answer my questions. For all I know, it’s a bit of EVERYTHING.
Oh, I assume the timing chains on these cars are pretty solid? They don’t jump chain links easily, do they? (my valve timing could be off?)
One last clue, which makes sense to running rich: Car runs bad when cold, about 7-10 inHg, but I can rev it. Once car gets to operating temp, like 180-190F, car runs terrible, can barely hold an idle, vacuum is 5-7 inHg, and I can’t rev it anymore.
First time restoring a car, and I picked a Jaguar V12 :)