Yesterday, I decided to clean up the motor on my 98. I was checking the filter, running seafoam through the injectors. I figured, I was low on gas, so I emptied a can of SF into what was left of the gas. I let the Vette run almost to empty and then shut it down.

After that was completed, I wanted to clean the throttle body of all the dirt, so I sprayed, and sprayed and sprayed, motor off of course. Btw, a lot of dirty fluid came out.

It was time to start the car, which started right up but sputtered and coughed, and finally started smoothing out the idle. Well, I sprayed more stuff into the TB. When it started to choke again I tried to increase the idle by pulling up on the TB butterfly and heard a couple of clicks, then the motor died. No problem, I'll start it back up. To my suprise, it would not start.

I recieved multiple error code, reduced engine power, and even column lock message on the DIC. I tried everything to get it started. I removed the TB, TAC motor or the TB, the TPS etc cleaned everything up and put it all back together... No START and I figured I would have to take it to the stealership for repair.

This morning I went out, and the same thing, no start. Looked up the codes, oh, fyi a new one came up stating low voltage. I decided to charge the battery but prior to that I reset and deleted all the codes. Disconnected the battery and let it charge for an hour or so.

I went back outside, connected everything back up and noticed, when i turned the key to on, I did not get reduced power. Figured, wow, this is great, and guess what, it started.

So what gives, how did this magically fix the issue? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Did you leave your ignition switch on while you were doing your maintenance work? It sounds like your battery was just severely discharged...it might come back with a slow trickle charge...you might need a replacement.

 

Wait...you manually opened the TB blade with your hands?

Without the MAF connected?

There is a long list of things that your PCM just thought was wrong.

One was the lack of MAF, bad idle...second is your moved the TB blades so now your getting the TPS sensor all screwed up. The commanded position and actual position must be within a few degree's of each other, you went over that limit which puts it into reduced power mode.

Key off/on might have reset the TPS and TB itself....that might be why it worked.

 

I even took the TB apart, meaning the TPS sensor was off and I removed the TAC motor off the other side. TG my infinite wisdom didn't screw anything else up. I was sure to mark all positions prior to removing anything but even still.

Also the battery was at full charge the night before.

 

My mechanic at the dealership told me one time that he has cleaned the throttle body on some cars, and it will set error codes. The car will not start until all the codes are cleared using a TECH 1. He says he has had cars that absolutely would not run. He cleared the codes and they started right up.

 

When you disconnected the battery you did what is known as a hard reset. Which just means you rebooted all the computers in your car and erased their short term memory that remembers all the codes and that will put your car in limp mode if need be.

 

EXACTLY! When you moved the Throttle Blade by hand, you set the computer to reduced power and set a C code. Some DTC's will not allow normal operation unless you clear the DTC. By removing the battery cable, you reset everything.

BC

 

I didn't realize my 98 would require the codes to be reset before trying to start it. I'm also not sure if I tried to start it immediately after reconnecting the battery, but everytime I checked the codes remained until I reset each code or the group individually. I even thought of purchasing a scan tool to reset the codes, but I decided to try and reset them manually, since the disconnect of the battery did not do it.