Running stupid rich 325e

[alanhigh]

Cracked intake tube? It's happened on pretty much every older bmw I've seen and it will make your car randomly run shitty. This probably wont solve all of your problems but it may be part of it...

I've checked that, the intake boot is perfectly fine. Before it wasn't put on all of the way and was letting unmetered air in, but is fine now.

[eek142]

Hmm, my car was running very rich too but a new CTS seems to have fixed it for now...

[hotballs]

Seems to be the way most 84 325e's run. Mine does the same thing. VERY intermittent. My fuel pump whines like crazy and I suspect this is the culprit. When my fuel pumps have failed on other cars they would run like this until one day I couldn't start it at all. I found a used working one for $50, but haven't installed it yet.

One thing that seemed to help quite a bit for me is removing the charcoal canister. I'm sure that you're supposed to clean them and replace a filter or something and check that the lines aren't leaking, but I just removed mine and plugged up the holes. Made the problems go away for now.

Did you change the two CPS?

[alanhigh]

I replaced the coolant temp sensor as the first thing that I did.

I have not replaced the crank position sensors.

[BTP325ic]

Seems to be the way most 84 325e's run. Mine does the same thing. VERY intermittent. My fuel pump whines like crazy and I suspect this is the culprit. When my fuel pumps have failed on other cars they would run like this until one day I couldn't start it at all. I found a used working one for $50, but haven't installed it yet.

One thing that seemed to help quite a bit for me is removing the charcoal canister. I'm sure that you're supposed to clean them and replace a filter or something and check that the lines aren't leaking, but I just removed mine and plugged up the holes. Made the problems go away for now.

Did you change the two CPS?

Wtf is a charcoal canister and what does it do is that located next to the fuel filter because while changing the fuel filter on my 84 325e and i a saw something that looked weird and wondered what it was for ?

[hotballs]

Wtf is a charcoal canister and what does it do is that located next to the fuel filter because while changing the fuel filter on my 84 325e and i a saw something that looked weird and wondered what it was for ?

Yes, it's next to the fuel filter in the engine bay. It takes vented fumes from the gas tank and exhausts them into the charcoal canister. Then the fumes are vented into your intake at "appropriate" times. If the unit is faulty it can cause unwanted extra gas to go in your intake and run rich.

It is part of an emission regulation enforced after the 70s basically.

[alanhigh]

I think it's coming down to the ICV again. It was running shitty, but idling mostly okay. I unplugged the ICV, it revved crazily, and then I plugged it back in and it has run great since.