97 ssei problems and parts list

[Kajidono]

Hey guys, I'm trying to figure out a balance between saving money on parts and not buying crappy parts that will fail. I'm looking at rockauto and they have a bunch of cheap parts I can order. I just don't want to order stuff that I'll have to replace again so any suggestions are welcome to avoid that.

First off, I have a misfire problem that several people have said is the fuel pump. So RA has this Airtex pump that looks ok at half the price Autozone is selling it for. Is it a decent unit? I know I have to get the strainer for it too.

There's also a problem with my coils. I replaced one coil with a Duralast back in September. It was throwing a misfire/coil code at the time so it was easy to figure out. Since the symptoms now match the symptoms then, I ran a test with my timing light and the new coil was firing erratically. I just replaced that with another new one under warranty. It ran fine for about two blocks to the stereo store (I also discovered a fatal factory flaw in my earthquake generator), then the misfire was back when restarted. Ran the timing light test again when I got back home, and the new coil is showing misfires at much reduced rate, but still there. That brings the master module under the coils into question, I forgot what that's called, and the timing light itself. It doesn't pick up misfires on the other coils though.

Through all this, with the plate under the EGR removed, it's not throwing any engine codes now. All clear as far as the ECM is concerned.

So I can get the pump, assuming there's no problems with that brand, and the main ignition control module, though a link to that would help. I was also wondering about the air shocks. I need to figure out exactly which ones to get, as my air ride died a long time before I got the car. I need to figure out which air shocks I need, and whether I need a manual conversion kit for them. If I can set the new shocks up to be filled through the valve that's already mounted in the trunk, that'd be fine. I don't know what I need to make that work though.

I should probably replace the upper and lower intake manifold gaskets, but I don't know which ones to get. I'd also like to up the psi on the supercharger if I can get past all these little bugs. My oil pressure is a bit wonky and RA doesn't have an oil pump replacement. They do have a couple oil pump rebuild kits and I'm not sure which oil pan gasket to get.

I might also need an M90 supercharger as mine is making a rattling noise at idle that doesn't sound healthy. It still pulls like hell when running right and makes a glorious whine but that rattle is disturbing. And a supercharger pulley puller that isn't priced like it's made of pure gold.

Ideas, suggestions, part numbers, links to other threads where this has already been covered welcomed.

[CatmanFS]

I would go with a restorative route. The misfire could be a lot of things, sounds like dirty intake manifold and some malfunctioning coil packs. I know a local mechanic that does a great vaccum clean job on the upper intake manifold and it made my car run alot better. Ask around if any local mechanics will do that for you, mine didn't cost me anything. It's really just some degreaser sprayed into the manifold pipes and vacuumed out. Don't get charged too much.

The coil packs are hit and miss. Try a bunch of different retailers and look for low prices with a guarantee. That way if it goes bad, you can always replace it for free. I tend to stay away from performance parts for these cars, luxury with attitude was the de-facto motto. The standard parts functioning properly will give you all the attitude you'll need, unless you're trying to drag race or something.

If you think the fuel pump is going bad, do the things I mentioned above and fill the tank up. Drive around for a while and see if it doesn't correct itself, a decrease in flow, mixed with fuel too low to cool the pump will cause problems obviously.

Replacing the manifold gaskets is difficult with the supercharger, so if you get another somewhere be sure to do it at the same time, this will also give you a chance to check the upper intake for that rattling noise. There are a few screen gaskets along the path of air into the SC, if something is stuck in there it could be causing your problem, but I'm not sure if it's mechanical or what.

Some of the other guys were talking about upgraded superchargers that work well with these cars, forget where, but a quick internet search should turn up something. They're a few years old too, so maybe you can get a break on the price.

There's a great description of the working parts of the supercharger. Certain parts will only function when the car is not idling, and I'm pretty sure there is a idler inside that functions as a kind of blowoff that only kicks on once the car is revved up past a certain mark. Look into the functional parts of that idler and maybe you'll be able to save a lot of time and money if you're looking to go that route.

[Kajidono]

Yeah, I've been digging on all this stuff. I ordered a new fuel pump, lower intake manifold gasket, and strainer from Rockauto and a syringe to pull the oil out of the supercharger from Jon Bond Performance. JB shipped right away, Rock Auto just shipped that last piece.

Then I made the mistake of ordering a PCM 1.0, sc coupler, oil, and the upper intake manifold from zzperformance since RA doesn't have them for some odd reason. The payment went through paypal right away. ZZP then claims that my payment and address was unverified, since paypal is retarded and tags that onto things, sometimes at random. So they demand that I fill out this paypal address verification form and email a copy of Class A CDL with hazmat that I had to go through DHS to get that authorises me to anything up to and including nuclear warheads to a freakin aol address. Cause from their screenshot they sent me, and I pointed out on it where their own screenshot says my payment was verified in their account, so they already had my money, all that is sent to an aol email. They do not even have a company address set up for that.

So I point out that it's been paid, note their screenshot of their disclaimer that they also sent me says only that the billing and shipping addresses have to match (nothing about paypal), send them screenshots of the invoices with the addresses matching, of my paypal account with the address matching and the payment having been made, my bank account with the payment paid, and sequential images zooming in on my house from google earth with all the streets and the house circled in red all the way down to street view which not only shows my Bonneville in my driveway, but you can even read the numbers on the mailbox. Also circled in red.

And I ask them to send me the parts that I paid for, cause I need them and all my other parts have already shipped from elsewhere with no problems.

So then I get this condescending email this morning saying, "It seems to me that you just want your money back at this point." (No, I WANT MY PARTS), and saying they'll get around to getting me money back maybe next week sometime.

So I'm pretty irritated at this point. No parts and no money to reorder them from anywhere else that actually wants to do crazy things like sell parts at a store that sells parts. Don't order from zzp and use paypal. In fact, don't use paypal at all. They ripped me off a while back anyway.

[MattStrike]

Coils - grab from a junkyard from another SSEi.

[Kajidono]

Actually, that gives me an idea. Pack 1/2 was the one that was obviously bad, throwing the code and all. The replacement I could see wasn't firing right with the timing light on it, so I warrantied it, but something is still wonky with it. What I've never done was switch the coils I have around to different positions. I should clean the terminals while I'm at it.

Oh, I also changed the fuel filter, which had pressure and brown sludge on the tank side of it, filled the tank (91 octane, no ethanol) and dropped in a can of seafoam. I'm about halfway through that tank with the fuel pump en route.

[Kajidono]

Ok, switched coil one with coil two and took it for a spin. It ran smoother, staggered a little at 0, then pulled decently to wot. But I couldn't hear the supercharger; it sounded like a regular engine. Boost gauge went to 6-7 psi and wavered. That's kinda normal as the sc is a lot quieter when it's derated. It's loud when it's running right and pulls like hell.

[tpulliam79]

rattling At idle is more than likely a coupler in the supercharger nose which can be ordered from intense racing. As far as the lower intake manifold gasket goes try to get the aluminum framed ones and get the dex cool out of your engine as soon as possible. the lower intake is known to fail and definitely cause misfiring issues and a lot of others. I would check your fuel pressure with a fuel pressure gauge While running if possible to find out if it is your fuel pump or not I had similar problems with my 96 and it turned out to be the fuel pump and a lower intake gasket. if you're going to take the time to do the lower intake gasket be sure to use the aluminum frame ones so you will not have to do it again. Good luck and if you have any questions just ask.

[Kajidono]

I ordered the VICTOR REINZ Part # MS16191 lim gasket and the AIRTEX Part # E3367 fuel pump from rockauto.com. Hopefully those will work. Have to reorder another coupler since zzp won't send me one.

[Kajidono]

Well this is interesting. I got my order from JB Performance and the fuel pump strainer from rockauto. But RA seems to have sent me these tiny gaskets I don't recognize instead of the lower intake gaskets. I'll have to figure out what happened with them, probably a warehouse error.

I had to threaten zzp with a chargeback under the Fair Credit Billing Act as they still refused to ship my order and acted like they didn't know who I was 12 hours after saying they'd give me a refund within 3-5 business days. After mentioning the FCBA last night to whoever runs that aol address, my money was back in my account first thing this morning. So I went over to Intense Racing and ordered the upper intake gasket and a coupler kit from them. They shipped it 17 minutes after placing the order, which is awesome.

[Kajidono]

Oh, I had another question. I went up to autozone to grab a door panel tool to see if I could figure out why my speakers don't work and tighten up my driver's side mirror, and decided to ask about sway bar bushings to try and track down whatever is causing the popping in the front end. I already replaced the end links, so that wasn't it. Problem is they have four different sizes for my car; 28mm, 30mm, 32mm, and 34mm. We couldn't figure out what to order. Any idea what size my sway bar should be?

[SSEBonne4evr]

Coils - grab from a junkyard from another SSEi.

^^ This ^^

And you want the GM metal lower gaskets, new from the store.

[Kajidono]

Hmm, I can't tell what the ones I ordered are made of until they get here, and they had to reship them after sending those others. About how long will the regular cheapies last? At this point I don't have the cash left to pay another $100 for a set of gaskets but new cheap ones would be better than the old ones. I'm probably going to be tearing this thing down repeatedly every time I have cash to spare, so about twice a year at least. I really don't mind doing it.

[Kajidono]

Welp, so far I've managed to snap off the bolts in both rear exhaust hangers and break the silly little metal tab on one of the fuel tank strap bolts. Sure wish they made a kind of metal that doesn't corrode so this wouldn't happen every time.

...

Yup, this is impossible. The air chisel hardly made a mark even with a new blade. I'll have to leave the rest of this to a shop, unfortunately.

[Kajidono]

Short update: I borrowed a fuel pressure gauge from the mechanic at work and drove around for a few days with it clipped under my windshield wiper. Fuel pressure is dead steady at over 50psi on the high side, two stage pump apparently, no matter how much it misses. So it's not the pump. I retested the ignition module and it's fine. It was actually running kinda right, I could hear the supercharger again, and throwing no codes, so I decided to degrease the engine in prep for installing the manifold gaskets and the sc coupler I got from Intense.

I Gunked it twice and left it to dry overnight. Got most of the sludge off, but when I started it in the morning the misfire was back and the engine light started flashing. So codes read again and it's a steady misfire on #4. I hook up the timing light to find all coils firing perfectly. So I switch the coils around. It still has the codes and a very obvious misfire. Coils are firing, cylinder isn't. Starting to wonder if it's worth it to keep pouring funds into this, or if I should dump it and invest in a Grand National.

[tpulliam79]

have you checked your spark plugs? And wires?

[Kajidono]

Guess I'll have to. I replaced plugs and wires in September and put about 2000 miles on it since.

[tpulliam79]

and no matter where you swap the coils its always on cylinder 4?

[Kajidono]

Till now I couldn't tell where it was. It wasn't throwing a misfire code until I gunked it. It had a random intermittent stuttering hesitation, now it's a steady misfire. I switched the coils around after I got the codes read to see if it would help, cause that seemed to work the second time I tried. Made no difference this time.

The weird thing is I can hook the timing light to each wire just to watch it flash, and every wire is steady now. Before I could see a miss every once in a while.

[tpulliam79]

I had some of the same issues where it would run well then miss but a duel tester showed a bad Pump...but if your fuel pressure is good I'd check plugs and wires next...

[Kajidono]

Coils - grab from a junkyard from another SSEi.

Done, and grabbed another ignition module while I was there. So now I have 6 coils and two modules. Two of the coils are new, one bought and one found at the yard (lucky), and four old ones. The car also had two brand new idler pulleys and a new radiator hose which I pounced on. Well, it had 3 but one was the one behind the motor mount that's impossible to get to, and I already have that one new in the box anyway.

The engine misfire code cleared on its own a few days ago but it was still stuttering intermittently. I swapped the coils around and switched modules. When I left the city it was still doing it but it smoothed out on the highway. Now it's back to pulling reasonably hard with no hesitation but the supercharger is silent. So I guess I'll have a look inside when I pull the intake off to replace the gaskets.

Another thing I need to figure out is which module controls the interior lights, alarm, etc. I pulled the one I thought it was, a gray box under the passenger dash, but when I switched it out and put the fuse back in, the lights were still stuck on.