the hard start also seems to only happen when the oil is cold, if it turn the car off then right back on, it starts just fine, which again leads me to the thick oil being the problem

 

Do you have Cipher, if so that could be useful to diagnose. If not, not a bad time to look in to it.

Something else to check, when I first rebuilt the engine I was sloppy with my RTV and found that stuff everywere, including in the VTC Solenoid, pull it apart and check. Normally, the seals can take a removal or two and not leak. Once you pull it apart, it wouldn't hurt to check its voltage/resistance against the FSM.

 

I think it is the oil. I had the same and also a p0300 rough idle. I had a defect in the solenoid.

 

i will be tuning with uprev and so i already have the cipher cable. what should i log? is there an option to log variable intake angles?

i was pretty careful with the rtv around the solenoids, pretty sure there isnt any in there, in fact, i dont recall the fsm calling for any rtv around the solenoids. something i did do that i probably should not have, is reuse the gaskets for those vtc solenoids. the gaskets sure looked fine, but maybe that was not a good idea. i still have a hunch that its the oil in there though. thanks for all of the suggestions!

 

Be sure that it is installed right en the rubber O rings are in there. What oil ur using now?

 

rubber o rings? for the vtc solenoids on the front of each valve cover?
the oil is some joe gibbs break in stuff, i cant remember the weight of it. it seemed thicker when i was pouring it in though

 

Mixed something no O ring. That's in the tensoner.

 

 

yea, the fsm says to discard those gaskets, but mine looked fine so i reused. i dont see why that would cause any trouble though, there is no oil leaking around them at all

 

If you have a bad solenoid, let me know, I have one that is still good

 

i have reused the gasket.. thats no problem. I shout take it off and clean the oil out and reinstall it.. it can be dirt or what you think the break in stuff..

 

now i have a bad idle and the motor has a loud clattering at idle as well. also a p0300 code in addition to the p0021 code now. im scared, lol

 

the clattering goes away once the rpms hit a certain level, its not high, just off idle pretty much. so im guessing my oil pressure is not where it should be at idle???

 

See my post above

 

yea, thanks for that

this oil is supposed to have a ton of zinc in it to bond to internals for better lubrication. you think its possible that the zinc is sticking to my cam sensors since they are magnetic and that it is also clogging up the vtc solenoid?

 

how much you want for that solenoid?

 

after work today, im going to change oil and put it full synthetic and also switch my two vtc solenoids to see if the problem switches banks, or hopefully just goes away

 

Clean the valve out. And see what happen.

 

yea, ill clean then out some when i have them out. i am pretty sure they are the same part so they should be interchangeable

 

I don't think you can switch the solenoids around because they are side specific. More and more I think you're a tooth off on the timing. Maybe Cipher has a log parameter that can verify it.