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My car started sputtering please help

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Old 01-14-2011, 05:53 PM
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My car started sputtering please help

My car just started doing this a few days ago but I was low on gas so I thought I was just low on gas. But before I go into the description I'll let you guys know what I'm working with. I have a 1999 5 speed max, with a vq35 swap. The car sputters and hiccups when I accelerate. The check engine light does not flash and there is no misfire codes. I did get pull a code of P0120 which is a TPS sensor circuit malfunction. Before I got changing that I wanted to get some input. Also the car idles at about 1200 rpms, and when in gear both moving and not it shoots up to about 1700 rpms. I am not driving it now because I don't want it to get worse or have some kind of trickle effect where it causes something else to go wrong. Let me know if there's anything I should should try before replacing the sensor, and if I do have to replace it can someone point me in the right direction of a how to because I know the TPS sensor has to be at a certain position as its position sends the ECU a certain voltage or something like that. Thanks in advance guys.
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Old 01-23-2011, 11:13 PM
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can anyone help me?
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Old 01-24-2011, 12:04 AM
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I would replace the TPS. Or at least troubleshoot that first.
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Old 01-24-2011, 05:52 AM
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A malfunction TPS will cause sputtering. U can try cleaning it along with TB and MAF and see if that helps. Use the FSM to try to troubleshoot TPS.
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Old 01-24-2011, 05:55 AM
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or search
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Old 01-26-2011, 11:31 AM
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I had something that sounds a lot like this a few years ago. My car would randomly sputter and bog down, especially bad when trying to turn left at an intersection with oncoming traffic. Made the car a real pain to enjoy driving.

Anyway, after a while of troubleshooting, I replaced the Mass Air Flow sensor, immediately fixed the problem and it hasn't come back since.
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Old 01-26-2011, 11:17 PM
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While probably not the most common fix... I had a leaking upper intake that caused all kinds of sputtering/rough running symptoms that everyone told me was this sensor or that sensor... wouldn't hurt to put a torque wrench on the upper intake manifold bolts.

From page EM-11 of the service manual.
Intake manifold collector

Tighten bolts and nuts to 18 to 22 Nm (1.8 to 2.2 kg-m, 13 to 16 ft-lb) in numerical order shown in the figure.
(Left to right - 4,1,2,3)

Hope this helps. (couldn't get the bolt pattern image (figure) to show up... sorry, I'm kinda new at this)

dersh.

Last edited by dersh.z; 01-26-2011 at 11:20 PM.
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Old 01-27-2011, 10:59 PM
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look up pmohr's sig ^^^
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