Hey all. so i just fixed my 98 plymouth expresso dohc. bought it with a blown head gasket, got the head resurfaced, replaced gaskets, etc. put it all back together and it turned over and ran pretty smooth. only issue was the exhaust manifold was cracked so i replaced it with an aftermarket one before realizing that the aftermarket did not fit directly up to the stock cat pipe. so i took it down to the exhaust shop and they put a high flow magnaflow cat on, and i went and got some 92 octane "v-power" gas from shell, and put a fuel additive (basically sea-foam) in just to help clean out the engine since the motor has 155k miles on it. everything ran fine, no issues, ZERO engine noises.. no ticks, nothing. well in the morning i go to start it and it wont turn over. as if the battery did not have enough juice to turn it over. so i bought a new battery and it still had issues starting, but i noticed that 90% of the time it will not start unless im giving it a little bit of gas while turning the key.. sometimes im having to put the pedal to the ground while turning it over to get it to start.. if it starts without me giving it any gas, it will idle VERY rough at about 400rpm and act like it is about to die, until i give it some gas, then it evens out at about 1100 rpm. Also, now it is having a ticking sound.. it does not sound like it is coming from the top of the engine, but sounds a lot like a ticking lifter. not sure why it would have that noise now, when it didnt the day before..
I also noticed, not sure if this is the same issue or not, but when i go to shift the car (its a manual), it will hold the idle for a couple seconds, so when i press in on the clutch, it sounds like im still giving it gas, until i finish shifting, then it goes back to normal. also, when i go to a stop, the idle will drop down to 1100, then jumps up to 2100, holds at 2100 for 3-5 seconds, then drops back down to 1100 and holds... i thought maybe a vacuum leak, but as far as i can check with spraying soapy water on the lines, i cant find any air leaks, i could be wrong though.
The only aftermarket parts on it are a short air intake, and magnaflow high flow cat converter. I just replaced the throttle body gasket because i thought that might be the vacuum leak (if there is one), and that did not change anything.. Only codes that it has been throwing lately is 52 (Rich Gas), which i figured might of been from the high octane fuel + additive (i drove the car till it was below a quarter tank and re-filled with unleaded just so i would get all the high octane out of the system, but it still has not changed anything...
ill continue looking for possible solutions, but with always worrying that im going to kill the battery before getting the car to turn over in the morning made me want to post something on here before i give up and take it to a shop so they can charge me $120/hr just to tell me something is wrong... lol. well thanks in advance for any tips
