Tuned up the Sunbird - Second Generation Forum

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Tuned up the Sunbird
Sunday, December 24, 2006 12:59 PM
Just spent the last few hours getting the car ready for tomorrow. Went to advance this morning and picked up new plugs, fuel filter, timing belt, mobil 1 and a manual. Plug wires look brand new so i figured why change them. Going to need a new top because the white top looks like ASS. Also going to pull the turbo badges off because they look gaudy. Gonna go fill her up with some premium and see how she feels. GF is going to LOVE this car.

Re: Tuned up the Sunbird
Wednesday, December 27, 2006 9:06 PM
I've only seen a couple of cars with white tops that look good.

Turbo badges don't seem to get noticed too much. Maybe it's too unbelievable? I dunno... mine are still there.

Watch the instructions for setting up the timing belt and adjusting the distributor. People end up with timing 10 deg retarded because they don't RTFM.

Mobil 1? What's that? Fleet of handicap vans and school buses, my cars, all seem to make 200k or more on Dino Juice. Takes a whole lotta extra miles without oil changes to make up for plain ole Valvoline. Exxon/Mobil posted record profits this year, so I guess Mobil 1 is good for something.

Premium may not do much. Many of the stock 'bird calibrations don't have the premium fuel spark tables enabled.

While looking at engine look for signs of water sneaking past fake vents in hood and dripping on distributor. It's a common problem with these cars.

Have fun and don't break anything.

-->Slow
Re: Tuned up the Sunbird
Thursday, December 28, 2006 2:11 PM
slowolej wrote:I've only seen a couple of cars with white tops that look good.

Turbo badges don't seem to get noticed too much. Maybe it's too unbelievable? I dunno... mine are still there.

Watch the instructions for setting up the timing belt and adjusting the distributor. People end up with timing 10 deg retarded because they don't RTFM.

Mobil 1? What's that? Fleet of handicap vans and school buses, my cars, all seem to make 200k or more on Dino Juice. Takes a whole lotta extra miles without oil changes to make up for plain ole Valvoline. Exxon/Mobil posted record profits this year, so I guess Mobil 1 is good for something.

Premium may not do much. Many of the stock 'bird calibrations don't have the premium fuel spark tables enabled.

While looking at engine look for signs of water sneaking past fake vents in hood and dripping on distributor. It's a common problem with these cars.

Have fun and don't break anything.

-->Slow


just curious how you end up with the timing 10 deg out, my 91 sunbird runs like crap when its cold until it warms up, i had it all apart when i changed the headgasket and lined the notch up on the cam carrier and had the motor at #1 TDC and had the crank all lined up as well
Re: Tuned up the Sunbird
Friday, December 29, 2006 4:06 AM

Most timing covers have a large mark at TDC. The Sunbird cover has a large mark at 10 deg BTDC. If you line up the balancer to the large mark then you're ok. But if you actually look at the numbers and line the balancer up with the mark at TDC, you end up with timing at -10 deg.

Does your car smell too rich during cold idle? That's common with the TBI cars. Mine is the same way. I think I saw that Tunercat sells a definition file for these cars now.

-->Slow
Re: Tuned up the Sunbird
Friday, December 29, 2006 8:46 AM
yea it smells a bit rich at cold idle and has a lot of exhast smoke and its constantly flumeing out hte back of the car, its not coolant cause the car hasnt lost anything significant except when i noticed the puddle on the driveway so i figured its running rich which could be why its missing, it seems to have a miss thruout the revs up to about 3k rpm i changed all sorts of stuff on it and im not sure whats wrong with it
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