Fuel issue 95 2.3L

[Hughaki]

Heres what its doing,
Idles fine...mid to upper rpm range in each gear engine misses very bad.
Black sooty big time, 10 mpg. All plugs showed signs of over rich condition.
Changed TPS and have a new ecm on the way (port to get codes inop)
The check eng light came on a few times so far but soon went out.

Any ideas? Im leaning towards the fuel reg but I have never seen on stick full rich....taking off the vac line and manually blow/suck no change in eng operaton.
This all started after a really heavy rain (somthing got wet)

TIA

[skibum1111]

Sounds like either your air filter is clogged, or your 02 sensor is bad.

[xeroinfinity]

Welcome Hughaki. Hav you checked the fuel filter? Are the spark plugs gaped right? The fuel reg. can be checked by measuring the fuel pressure with a gauge. AS skiibum said your O2 sensors may be shot, causeing it to run rich.

The ignition coils could also be weak or faulty. You could hav a vacumm leak somewhere too. Hope this helps narrow down ur trouble.

[Hughaki]

I will dig deeper today....this thing is sooo rich the back end of my car is black lool!
Wheres the best place to take the pressure from, seeing how there is no fittings on the line to do that.

I did also R&R the coolant sensor...it did run better for a time but back to way rich, Its hard to think thats its ign... idles fine (upper mid is crappy) but full throttle seems ok.

[xeroinfinity]

My bad I forgot the 2.3 has no valve check. a special hose is required to check the fuel pressure.
Could be the IAC valve, but i would say the rich engine sounds like the O2s bad.

[Hughaki]

Well thx for the tips...
It did turn out to be the O2 sensor. Hell I have never seen one go bad, firsts for everything.
I suppose after 102k a major tune up was in order.

Thanks again!

[xeroinfinity]

It was around 100k miles when I'd replaced my O2 sensors. I think short trips, allow moisture to build up in the exhaust, and faul them out or burn up. just my hypothosis.