Jump to content
SAU Community

Why Does The Weather Affect The Way My Car Runs?

4drftn

By 4drftn,
in General Automotive Discussion

 Share

Recommended Posts

4drftn Experienced

4drftn

Posted
Posted

hi, iv noticed that my car runs pretty poor in general, except when its a hot day...

the car doesnt keep a steady idle, idles high (1000-1100rpm) and poops and cackles ect. (in the mornings when cooler, or of a night), but when driving on a hot day seams to keep a pretty steady idle and lowers idle down to about 500-600rpm

now, the car was bought from sydney and i am in tassie where the weather isnt always as hot as it is in the mainland. iv been told that the weather could be a factor...

does anyone else have this problem?

could the weather be a factor?

can it be fixed by a tunner?

does it have anything to do with the microtech ecu?

could it possibly be the heat range of my plugs?

anything will greatly be appreciated

cheers

VB- Veteran

VB-

Posted
Posted

doubt it would be plugs, dunno about weather, could be, but take it to your tuner and he should be able to look over your A:F ratios, fuel and ignition maps etc and tell you if its a tuning problem, and might be able to tune it out. get in contact with the previous owner and see if they had similar issues in cold weather, might not have been fully tuned in the first place, might have just had a quick tune

adam-__- Grand Master

adam-__-

Posted
Posted

A tune to suit your climate should fix everything up. The reason it runs better in the warmer weather is because warmer air has I think less oxygen particles per cubic centimeter. Cooler air will have more. If your car is tuned to Sydney weather (warmer than Hobart), the air and fuel mixtures would be different. Something along the lines of that.

4drftn Experienced

4drftn

Posted
  • Author
Posted

thanks guys thought i might have had it all in my head, about what your saying about the denceness of the air and it sounds to me it makes sence when put that way.

as far as getting in contact with previous owner im unsure as to how the car really performed as to when it was picked up in sydney. didnt really take much notice to how the car ran being new to the turbo scene.

(OO)SKYLINE(OO) Grand Master

(OO)SKYLINE(OO)

Posted
Posted
hi, iv noticed that my car runs pretty poor in general, except when its a hot day...

the car doesnt keep a steady idle, idles high (1000-1100rpm) and poops and cackles ect. (in the mornings when cooler, or of a night), but when driving on a hot day seams to keep a pretty steady idle and lowers idle down to about 500-600rpm

now, the car was bought from sydney and i am in tassie where the weather isnt always as hot as it is in the mainland. iv been told that the weather could be a factor...

does anyone else have this problem?

could the weather be a factor?

can it be fixed by a tunner?

does it have anything to do with the microtech ecu?

could it possibly be the heat range of my plugs?

anything will greatly be appreciated

cheers

The weather can affect how you car runs. Turbo car inparticular due to hot weather the cars pretty much sucking in hot air. Only thing cooling the air is the intercooler. My mechanic told me the best temp for the car is 16c - 22c degrees (the best temp for a good day of performance)

The car will idle at a higher rpm in cold mornings / startup and then should go back down to normal idle rpm... 1000rpm (well with mine) when the car is warmed up.

If living in Tassie and its colder weather should = better, (Btw my car loves the cold weather. :( )

If you got "Drift" Spark Plugs, then the car will be quite slugish on startup cuz the plugs can take up to 10mins to warm up cuz they are designed to take a lot of heat as you know with drift racing you are constantly reving the engine.

Take it to your mechanic to check the air/fuel, ECU, idle timing if ya need, doesn't hurt I guess ;)

joeyjoejoejuniorshabadoo Grand Master

joeyjoejoejuniorshabadoo

Posted
Posted

when you have badly arching out coils the cooler weather can give you problems...

happened to me a while back...

there's a thread around somewhere that goes into good detail

Abo Bob Grand Master

Abo Bob

Posted
Posted
The weather can affect how you car runs. Turbo car inparticular due to hot weather the cars pretty much sucking in hot air. Only thing cooling the air is the intercooler. My mechanic told me the best temp for the car is 16c - 22c degrees (the best temp for a good day of performance)

The car will idle at a higher rpm in cold mornings / startup and then should go back down to normal idle rpm... 1000rpm (well with mine) when the car is warmed up.

If living in Tassie and its colder weather should = better, (Btw my car loves the cold weather. :P )

If you got "Drift" Spark Plugs, then the car will be quite slugish on startup cuz the plugs can take up to 10mins to warm up cuz they are designed to take a lot of heat as you know with drift racing you are constantly reving the engine.

Take it to your mechanic to check the air/fuel, ECU, idle timing if ya need, doesn't hurt I guess :cool:

Dude everything you said sounds great except "drift spark plugs". WTF!? Haha. It is worth pulling out the plugs and checking you have the right heat range but otherwise yes the weather, temp and humidity can affect the tune so getting it retuned locally would be worthwhile. Most of our cars run worse on hot days.

(OO)SKYLINE(OO) Grand Master

(OO)SKYLINE(OO)

Posted
Posted
Dude everything you said sounds great except "drift spark plugs". WTF!? Haha. It is worth pulling out the plugs and checking you have the right heat range but otherwise yes the weather, temp and humidity can affect the tune so getting it retuned locally would be worthwhile. Most of our cars run worse on hot days.

Lol! I was suprised myself when I first heard about it. Friend of mind had a R32 GTS-T 4 door set up for drift and thats what he told me. I'm sure the range should have to be the correct range but the type of spark plugs is what counts I guess. I just use NGK Iradium / Platinum.

4drftn Experienced

4drftn

Posted
  • Author
Posted

looks like a retune for me then, unless the humidity is hot then it willl play up even if warmed up after driving for awhile. but it might pay to check my plugs and my coilpacks also, hopefully its only as minor as this otherwise a retune down here is pretty pricey...

  • 2 months later...
4drftn Experienced

4drftn

Posted
  • Author
Posted

i changed my plugs, the plugs that were in there was gapped at 1.1, the new ones were iridiums that have a 0.8 gap and got rid of the unsteady idle, it was missing like mad before but now its a very slight miss on idel.

plugs have been eliminated, but i still have the high idle problem, would the O2 sensor cause high idle?

some_cs_student Veteran

some_cs_student

Posted
Posted

Are you running a stock ECU or aftermarket?

I noticed that with my PowerFC the car usually starts at 1500RPM and settles down to 1000 pretty quickly (maybe 1/2minute?).

With the MINES ECU it used to go to about 1200 and hover between 950 and 1100 RPM pretty soon after (as in it would stay constant for a couple of mins then change for a couple mins most of the time it stayed on the same idle....).

EDIT: Most of the time I've been using the car during warm/hot weather, not really cold weather...

4drftn Experienced

4drftn

Posted
  • Author
Posted

i have a microtech LT-8 ECU fitted, are you suggesting it could be the ECU? is it possible to alter something on the ECU to change whats happening?

full house can you explain what you mean by road damage? are you saying overtime the ruff roads may have shook and shocked the ECU?

some_cs_student Veteran

some_cs_student

Posted
Posted
i have a microtech LT-8 ECU fitted, are you suggesting it could be the ECU? is it possible to alter something on the ECU to change whats happening?

I *believe* and I emphasize that I am not an expert on cars, that the ECU would be involved here, I mean the computer does control the idle :laugh:

But I'm not sure if its causing any of the other side effects, you will need some more experienced who can help there.

And a steady idle of 500-600 RPM? My car would stall before it gets that low ...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • GTSBoy
      Mistakes were made, my R34 Story

      By GTSBoy · Posted

      This. As for your options - I suggest remote mounting the Nissan sensor further away on a length of steel tube. That tube to have a loop in it to handle vibration, etc etc. You will need to either put a tee and a bleed fitting near the sensor, or crack the fitting at the sensor to bleed it full of oil when you first set it up, otherwise you won't get the line filled. But this is a small problem. Just needs enough access to get it done.
    • suko
      J50 clock date suddenly reset to January 1

      By suko · Posted

      The time is always correct. Only the date is wrong. It currently thinks it is January 19. Tomorrow it will say it is January 20. The date and time are ( should be ! ) retrieved from the GPS navigation system.
    • MBS206
      Mistakes were made, my R34 Story

      By MBS206 · Posted

      Buy yourself a set of easy outs. See if they will get a good bite in and unthread it.   Very very lucky the whole sender didn't let go while on the track and cost you a motor!
    • Kinkstaah
      Mistakes were made, my R34 Story

      By Kinkstaah · Posted

      Well GTSBoy, prepare yourself further. I did a track day with 1/2 a day prep on Friday, inpromptu. The good news is that I got home, and didn't drive the car into a wall. Everything seemed mostly okay. The car was even a little faster than it was last time. I also got to get some good datalog data too. I also noticed a tiny bit of knock which was (luckily?) recorded. All I know is the knock sensors got recalibrated.... and are notorious for false knock. So I don't know if they are too sensitive, not sensitive enough... or some other third option. But I reduced timing anyway. It wasn't every pull through the session either. Think along the lines of -1 degree of timing for say, three instances while at the top of 4th in a 20 minute all-hot-lap session. Unfortunately at the end of session 2... I noticed a little oil. I borrowed some jack stands and a jack and took a look under there, but as is often the case, messing around with it kinda half cleaned it up, it was not conclusive where it was coming from. I decided to give it another go and see how it was. The amount of oil was maybe one/two small drops. I did another 20 minute session and car went well, and I was just starting to get into it and not be terrified of driving on track. I pulled over and checked in the pits and saw this: This is where I called it, packed up and went home as I live ~20 min from the track with a VERY VERY CLOSE EYE on Oil Pressure on the way home. The volume wasn't much but you never know. I checked it today when I had my own space/tools/time to find out what was going on, wanted to clean it up, run the car and see if any of the fittings from around the oil filter were causing it. I have like.. 5 fittings there, so I suspected one was (hopefully?) the culprit. It became immediately apparent as soon as I looked around more closely. 795d266d-a034-4b8c-89c9-d83860f5d00a.mp4       This is the R34 GTT oil sender connected via an adapter to an oil cooler block I have installed which runs AN lines to my cooler (and back). There's also an oil temp sensor on top.  Just after that video, I attempted to unthread the sensor to see if it's loose/worn and it disintegrated in my hand. So yes. I am glad I noticed that oil because it would appear that complete and utter catastrophic engine failure was about 1 second of engine runtime away. I did try to drill the fitting out, and only succeeded in drilling the middle hole much larger and now there's a... smooth hole in there with what looks like a damn sleeve still incredibly tight in there. Not really sure how to proceed from here. My options: 1) Find someone who can remove the stuck fitting, and use a steel adapter so it won't fatigue? (Female BSPT for the R34 sender to 1/8NPT male - HARD to find). IF it isn't possible to remove - Buy a new block ($320) and have someone tap a new 1/8NPT in the top of it ($????) and hope the steel adapter works better. 2) Buy a new block and give up on the OEM pressure sender for the dash entirely, and use the supplied 1/8 NPT for the oil temp sender. Having the oil pressure read 0 in the dash with the warning lamp will give me a lot of anxiety driving around. I do have the actual GM sensor/sender working, but it needs OBD2 as a gauge. If I'm datalogging I don't actually have a readout of what the gauge is currently displaying. 3) Other? Find a new location for the OEM sender? Though I don't know of anywhere that will work. I also don't know if a steel adapter is actually functionally smart here. It's clearly leveraged itself through vibration of the motor and snapped in half. This doesn't seem like a setup a smart person would replicate given the weight of the OEM sender. Still pretty happy being lucky for once and seeing this at the absolute last moment before bye bye motor in a big way, even if an adapter is apparently 6 weeks+ delivery and I have no way to free the current stuck/potentially destroyed threads in the current oil block.
    • Kinkstaah
      Jacks that fit under GTR lips that can reach the subframe?

      By Kinkstaah · Posted

      Whoops!
×
×
  • Create New...