Hey all, I'm new to the site. Was on the DodgeDakotas.com site for a long time...kind of useless...hoping to have better luck here.
Well, here's the issue. I have a 94 dakota V8 4X4 with 131K on it. It starts fine and runs fine when cold. The problem occurs when the truck is warming up and it's even worse when the weather is hot.
The problem is is runs real rough, and surges real bad, from 150 Rpm to 1000. Sometimes it will stall out and it used to not start for a while after...but it usually starts right back up now.
I cleaned the IAC, kinda ran out of cleaner in the middle of doing it, but it seems like it works fine.
Replaced:
Plugs, wires, cap and rotor, and coil.
The only code it's throwing is 1-2 which means no code really..i think?
It also seems like the exhaust is pretty rich while it idles poorly.
Any help would be awesome, thanks,
Sam

 

try the coolant temp sensor, that will make it run rich if it is wacked out, mt escort would not run right when mine went bad. also the air intake temp senser too.

 

Could also be an intake air leak, vaccuum leak, a fuel pump starting to go south, bad fuel filter, incorrect idle speed, etc. start small and go from there

 

Could be a stuck open EGR valve, mine went south and did kinda wut you described

 

I forgot to mention that I pulled the egr and cleaned it, it seems to work fine as far as the pindle drop and coming back up...plus I blocked the vacuum lines and it still happened. Wouldn't the coolant sensor through a code? And remember this only happens when the engine heats up and it's hot outside, so I don't think it's the fuel pump or the idle speed. It might be a vacumm leak, but I doubt it, it would have to be a pretty big leak to cause this kind of idle and I dount hear any hissing...don't see any cracks...this sucks...thanks for your help though.

 

Could also be the cat going south, or the vaccuum advance.

 

Yeah, it could be the cat...is there any way to test it like looking at it at night and seeing if it gets red....or do I need to take it to the shop and have them look at it. Also, can I run it without the cat or will that cause more problems?

 

Ya you could remove the cat illegal in most states thats why you gut it. but a way to check is simply take a hammer down there and bang on it and listen for any rattling if you hear it cat needs to be replaced, another more way is a backpressure test which invloves removing the O2 sensor and back presurre should be no more than 1.25psi

 

It wouldn't be a problem for me to remove the cat, I'm emissions exempt...I was just wondering if the truck would run even worse without it. I don't want to spend much money on a new cat, but I'm rather spend even less and not even put one in. It's the original cat, so 14 years old and 135 thousand hard miles on it....probably the cat.

 

no problems are involved when you remove the cat ur mpg and HP actully will go up due to less backpressure so if I were u id take it off.