Hello all,

I am new to this site, because yesterday I bought my first Camaro. I am not new to the mechanics world, but i'm not ASE certified either. I have a problem that if somebody gives me the right fix, I'll send a money order of $50 to you for your awesome help. Ok so here's the story.


I bought a 2000 Camaro with a L36 3.8L V6 motor and a M49 5 speed tranny. Pretty basic. When started it seems to run a little rough. As the rpm's go up it get's worst. It has a CEL on so I went to autozone to pull the codes. They are:

P1153 Heated Oxygen Sensor - Bank 2 Sensor 1
P1133 Heated Oxygen Sensor - Bank 1 Sensor 1
(h02s21) insufficent switching.

Before buying it the guy said he had the clutch replaced, the bell housing replaced (i asked why and he said the dealership said it needed to be replaced, he knew nothing about it or cars for that matter) and a motor mount replaced.

It sounds like somebody was mistreating this poor car, but the motor does run and pulls hard under heavy acceleration. Going down the road @ 65 mph it's pretty smooth and not rough at all.

I plan on replacing the plugs and pulling the battery to reset the codes when I do that. Is there something else i'm missing?
The only other things I can think it would be, would be the timing, coil packs, or loose/damaged mount of some sort. If it was anything in the motor or coil packs, i would expect some different codes, but maybe this is too old of a car for those sensors??

 

o2 sensors tell the comp how much gas to pump into the motor if there mot working right (especially the upstreams) your going to run rich which will cause sloppy starts and bad idling replace the o2s and see if it get better for ya

thatll be 50 bucks please... lol

 

^ That could explain why it's running rougher after the engine warms up and goes into closed loop mode (reading off the oxy sensors). But it doesn't explain why it runs rough in open loop mode (cold engine), because the oxy sensors aren't giving any input yet. The engine runs off factory presets.

 

It seems to be pretty consistant in the "roughness" of how it runs (hot or cold). I expect it to be rich if the o2 sensors are bad, but not as much as it is. The last time I had a o2 sensor error, it was because one of the spark plug wires was grounding out and cause a slight misfire. Different vehicle and a different problem.

 

Leaking injectors can cause that too and can throw o2 codes

 

AMAZING what a battery reset will do. I'm probably going to jinx myself, but I pulled the battery to clear the codes, just to make sure it wasn't a really old code, and so far, 25 mi and no codes. (Crossing my fingers). Seems to be running better but still a vibration. I think im going to check the motor and tranny mounts tonight and see if those look ok, after all the clutch was replaced less than 500 mi ago.

 

sounds like a good plan, check the spark plug/wire situation out tho... a good tune up definitely wouldn't hurt...

 

already bought the plugs when i was test running it.

Leaking injectors can cause that too and can throw o2 codes
If that was true then wouldn't i smell the un-burnt gas, as the plug/s would foul fast?

 

Is the vibration present at all times, or only when going down the highway? If it only does it while driving, then I would suspect driveline u-joints.

 

There is a slight vibration while at idle, but when the rpms go up it gets worst. Cursing down the road it gets better unless I put my foot into it.