debaser51

First of all, thanks to everyone who posts not only their problems but what they have done to resolve them. Lots of people make a lot of fuss about their issues, major issues even, but then leave everyone hanging when it comes to resolution - like they forget about the forum community as soon as their problems are resolved until the next one comes along. So thanks to everyone for supporting each other.

Okay, now that I'm done squawking about that, here was my situation:

A couple months ago, I purchased a 1992 ES300 with 345K+ miles on it from two less-than-car-savvy yuppies that overheard my wife and I talking about wanting to buy a more economical commuter car (we have a 70's muscle car as a daily driver and it hurts at the gas pump). After a bit of negotiation, a quickie once over inspection at a gas station at night during the test drive, we bought the car for a whopping $700 (KBB says the car is work about $3k for its condition and mileage). Not bad. We notice a burning smell coming from the vents when the fresh air is on, and also around the car itself. Found out this was a typical problem where the rear valve cover of the 3VZFE leaks oil all over the back exhaust manifold. Annoying, but not the end of the world. Then, one day, the car just shuts off. I thought we were out of gas, so I get a gas can form the station down the street from where we stalled at and put in a gallon, which got us going, then I filled it up. Previous owners say 'Oh yeah, you cant let it get below 1/4 of a tank'. Hrm. Okay. Then we notice the engine like to surge at idle. Vroom. Start the engine up cold or warm, it would shoot up to almost 3K RPM and stay there for like 10 minutes before it would slowly start to come down. Change into reverse? Vroom. Put it into drive? Vroom. Odd, and a tad bit unsafe. Then came the stalling and sputtering. Sound familiar? Runs great, get on the freeway, drive for a while, get off and it dies at the exit. Guess what? It won’t start back up. 10 minutes of trying to stall it and it fires u, but tries to stall really really bad the whole time. Tried keeping the AC on, even turning the wheel to load the power steering pump and try to kick in the IAC to the next higher setting to raise the idle. Quite the struggle, especially since if you let it die again, you are stranded in traffic doe 10-25 minutes until it will start again. No check engine light the entire time, even after resetting and letting it die on purpose. By the very end, it would barely run, missed and shook severely and had no power at all.

I have seen lots of ideas and posts on this forum on these various issues, seems like I nearly had them all at once. Here is what I did:

Before anything, I used lots of strong fuel system cleaner for a few tanks in a row (do this before changing spark plugs as it will foul them)

Removed Mass Airflow housing and cleaned it (this year has the swinging door type, don't forget to clean the bypass passage)
Removed throttle body and IAC valve and cleaned them thoroughly (lots of scraping carbon off and using brushes with carb/throttle cleaner here)
Removed intake runner and cleaned EGR valve and passage
Removed valve covers, cleaned thoroughly, replaced not only gaskets but also spark plug tube grommets.
Replaced PCV valve
Replaced every vacuum line connecting to throttle body/EGR, also as many others that I could get to
Replaced spark plugs - it gets interesting here. There were 4 bottom rung NGK plugs, but 2 AC Delco plugs whose electrodes had deformed and 'pumpkined' if you will. They had at least 150k miles on them.
Replaced plug wires - cylinders 5 and 6 wouldn't even snap onto their plugs, one was a Delco and the other was an NGK, so go figure (as a test I checked them on Bosch Plat +2s and the old wires snapped on just fine...weird).
Replaced distributor cap and rotor - rotor was charred and carbon fouled severely.
Replaced fuel filter


Now, whatever you do, don't connect every wire harness except for the one that snaps on to the distributor (its kinda hard to see with everything on), because your car won't start and you will end up borrowing your buddy's beater Civic for a week until you figured out that the $100 ignition coil you just ordered wasn't necessary and you look like an idiot. At least they took it back.

Then (drum roll........), the car started! Idle went up momentarily as it should, then came back down and was ready to go without missing. No prolonged high throttle surge, no low idle sputtering or stalling after freeway trips or below half a tank. No trouble starting when engine is hot, no nothing. The burning smell is almost non-existent now as the remaining oil on the exhaust and engine burn away (been kinda busy/lazy to just clean it). Car runs like a top with nearly 348K on it. Next step: timing belt/water pump as preventative maintenance. I know I probably left some stuff out, so please feel free to ask me anything about what I had to do. This was trial by both fire and error, and is so very different from the American V8s & Slant 6s that my wife and I are accustomed to working on - yes my wife can turn a mean wrench, she helped with much of the work. But in the end, an internal combustion engine is basically the same no matter what bells, whistles and computers you bolt to it. You just gotta tame it.
Thanks again to everyone that has posted in the past that allowed me to have the resources to do this. I am happy to share what I know.

Mr.Pink86

This might be a little off subject but I saw that you bought your es for 700 with pretty high miles, I have a 93 es with 193,000 miles and a new low mileage motor, and I want to sell it, it also has a salvage title and a dent in the right fender and lower right bumper, I don't know how much to sell it for I was thinking 2,000 but i'm not sure.

debaser51

2K ain't a bad deal for that car. Salvage title can be a dealbreaker for some people though. Hey but the title doesn't make teh car run, right? Kelly Blue Book says that my ES in the condition its in even with those miles is worth about $3K, but the body is almost perfect minus some cosmetic stuff. A few dings here and there are to be expected for cars that age.
Good luck!

Pheonix

1) Pull & check all the EVAP crap on the engine & tank
2) Pull the fuel pump out (Remove the back seat & look inside the floor of the trunk, no smoking, unbolt the fuel pump housing & check it & the tank.)

For 2k I bet Sean would be intrested in it being a parts car if u came down abit & he wasn't moving into a new house in a few weeks.

draikonz

The Vacuum lines that you replaced, did you replace them with the OEM Stock vacuum hoses? Or some of those that you can get at Pep Boys or something like that? Any pictures?

debaser51

I replaced them with hoses from Auto Zone. My wife was working there at the time and I gave her a piece of the old line and she just matched up the inside diameter. The outside diameter ended up being a bit larger than the OEM hoses, hopefully that will help give a bit more resistance to cracking later on since the walls are thicker. One thing to watch out for - there is a vacuum rail along the front valve cover and it is made out of plastic instead of metal like the fittings on the throttle body. If you have a lot of miles on the engine it is likely that the nipples coming off the rail can be very brittle and snap off when you try to pull the vacuum lines off of it. I was carefully trying to remove mine, but from years of heating up and cooling down over and over again, the lines got stuck to the nip really good. I ended up snapping one off myself but I managed to glue it back on. I may just try to find a replacement for it because it looks like a weak point that may cause more issues in the future. Sorry I didn't take any pictures, it was such an involved and sometimes aggravating process that a camera was the last thing on my mind, but now looking back I wish I had. I know there are fancy silicone lines that you can get from the 'tuner' section of parts stores, they may be less susceptible to cracking from heat over time. I also hear that if you use bright yellow ones, it makes the car go fast.

Pheonix

debaser51 provided the ACIS & FPR VSV's are not damaged, you're fine with cracking things.
Ya high-temp silicon DOES make the cars go faster!!! LoL! It's cheaper & more flexiable. Good for vacuum lines & most coolant lines (Provided they don't see very high pressure). Unsutable for lines with petrolium products tho.
I got about 25-35' of silicon hose of various lengths on ebay for say $15 a long time ago. Just enough to replace every normal hose on the old car.

debaser51

The car has been running fine, but with a couple of exceptions. 95%, when the car is started, the revs go up - just for a split sec - and then comes right back down like normal. Once in a while though, the RPMs go up to like 2800 and stay there for a few seconds, then slowly, slowly start to fall. Takes forever to get down to a normal idle. This only seems to happen when the car has been driven once and parked for a bit, never happens from a cold start. Whenever this startup behavior happens, and only when this happens, the car will try to stall at a stoplight the first two times or so that I have to stop, but then after that, it works perfectly fine again. Also, once in a great while, the idle will come down to about 500 RPM, but the moment it hits that line, the IAC kicks in and bumps the idle back up to 750 where it normally likes to sit. I am wondering if its not just the IAC motor that is either being lazy or intermittent? Its just odd that most of the time you can hear the IAC kicking in doing its thing, keeping the engine running at an optimal RPM, but then sometimes it seems to struggle to keep the idle up, but after a bit it works just fine again. This is pretty random, doesn't seem to correspond with the classic 'stalling after freeway speed' issue. I just may have a bum IAC, but I figured that bench testing it would be inconclusive since the problem is not consistent.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Pheonix

Sounds like you've got a vacuum leak.

skotter

My 96 ES300 does the same high idle deal when starting cold. Is this normal? It seems to be a very high idle. What is the fix?

MangoMan

Mine does to I think its normal.

92ES5sp

My ES 300 and my Solara will hold 2,000 RPM for 1-2 minutes every cold start up, and my ES has always done this since it was new. So its normal Your 96 has the same engine as my V6 Solara

Parker Gen

My ES seems to like to idle at around 500rpm sometimes. It's a very smooth idle, and mostly when the car is at cooler temperatures. I never thought my car was so quiet, but I got out to check, and you can't hear a sound coming from it. Yes, it's still running :P , but it's not struggling at the 500rpm, nor trying to stall, so I'm going to assume that it's quite normal? Very smooth, seems it may be just slightly above the minimum acceptable rpm when in park.

Lexucan

A bit off topic: have you had your ES since it was new, or did you get it from a relative or something?
BTW, the RPMs in mine go up to and stay at 2000 RPMs when it's first started up cold. Then gradually drops to ~700 rpm after a minute or so, so it's normal.

92ES5sp

I got it used from an old lady who never drove it. She had 58,070 miles on it and was in absolute pristine condition too. I said new but i mean when i bought it. My ES behaves similar to yours as far as idling goes. BTW Lexucan sorry i didnt get back to you yet but after the ECT swap shes been behaving herself so im happy about that. Sorry for the confusion but 58 thousand miles for an ES 300 IS new. The OP had 300,000 on his.