o2 sensors

[bluegtp]

how do you tell when you need to replace them?

[SappySE107]

Scan tool is pretty easy to tell with, as you can see the counts for rich/lean moving slow (or just watch the voltage changes). If its changing slow enough that you can read the numbers, its bad. You have to have the car warmed up first to test it cause it will be slow until its hot anyway.

[bluegtp]

ok and if I don't have scan tools? (I'm just a carpenter, no mechanic)

[bud36light]

depends if its OBD 1 OBD 1.5(hope not) or OBD2. My 95 Monte Carlo is 1.5. If its not 1.5 go to somewhere like Autozone and they will normally do it free.

[Anonymous]

Just change it to be safe if you don't know, its fairly cheap and easy.

However my motor with 130k ran good with the factory one in it, but I replaced it with the headers just to be safe.

[dykz34]

I replaced mine at 126k when trying to diagnose a poor MPG issue. Turns out that the stock one was fine because I didn't notice a difference at all!

[Anonymous]

Yah I doubt mine made any difference whatsoever considerign the car ran perfect before the headers as well. But I can't tell you if there was a difference cuz I changed it with adding them. But the car did get a lot faster.....

[dykz34]

Only two-tenths faster though. j/k

The problem with my poor MPG issue turned out to be the remote starter. I only got poor MPG in the winter, and it probably had to do with the 15 minutes of running before I got into the car each morning.

[Anonymous]

I get poor mpg all the time-but I have a feeling that has something to do with my foot and the urge to bitch own mustangs.

As for the time, I'm not even going to go by altitude corrections cuz I think they are all BS. The fastest time I have run is a 14.7. Now no doubt a 15.2 is a kickass time up here, it is, but until I run it at sea level, I've decided to drop it, say that the headers work AWESOME and add a lot of power, but there is no say as to how much. And by the time I get it to California, it will most likely have the new intake on it so I won't even know the difference.

I also let my car warm up for like 10min EVERY DAY, but now I have aboloished that since there was some big deal on that being extremely hard on an engine. I dont see how, but they say it is. SO I start it, baby it till its warm, then remind everybody that grandpas lumina really can haul groceries.

[dykz34]

The 284 is a bitch to drive when it's cold...why is it bad to let a car warm up to operating temperature before driving it? I've heard the complete opposite and it makes a shitload more sense to me.

[Anonymous]

Going off what the guy that built my motor said, on the high revving motors it isn't good to let your oil pump stay at an idle speed for very long, somehting about how it can't quite keep up with our motor at idle. He said it won't cause your mtoor to blow or anything, he just said that not warming it up could keep your valvetrain lookign a little better after a lot of miles.

And yes, the 284 is a BITCH to drive when its cold. Fuck it, its a bitch to drive all the time