MAIN VEHICLE SENSORS Intake Air Temperature Sensor (IAT Sensor): This small 2-wire sensor is found in your

intake pipe between the air filter/box and the throttle body, it measures the temperature of the incoming air going into the engine. The ECM reads this value and plays with things such as fuel timing, idle speed, transmission line pressure, etc. Mass Air Flow Sensor (MAF Sensor): Also found in your intake pipe between the airbox and throttle body. This measures the amount of air coming through from the air filter. The ECM reads this and varies the amount of fuel to push through the injectors depending how much air is there too feed the cylinders. These sensors are VERY sensitive, the smallest amount of dirt on them can screw them up. When they screw up it'll make the engine run very rough, sometimes hardly at all. Throttle Position Sensor (TPS): This is connected to your throttle plate on the opposite side the cable hooks to the throttle body. It reads how much the throttle plate in % and volts. They run on a 5V reference to the ECM, 0V = 0% throttle angle, 5V = 100% throttle angle. This also is an input to the ECM for fuel tailoring, it is also used by the transmission as well. Idle Air Control Valve (IAC Valve/Motor): This is a stepper motor found in your throttle body. When you have you foot off the gas the throttle plate is closed, the engine still needs air to run, this is the IAC's job. It is a small pintle that's in a bore in the throttle body. Depending how much load is on the engine, more or less air has to be metered through by the IAC. It stretches out and pulls in to let so much air through the port around the throttle body into the intake manifold. Sometimes these go, electrically or mechanically. I just had a Cavalier today that was shorted internally. Sometimes it wouldn't idle at all, sometimes it'd rev WAY up. Sometimes you'll get a no idle condition with just a really dirty IAC port, take the valve out, clean it all out with brake clean and you're good to go again. Manifold Absolute Pressure Sensor (MAP Sensor): This is a 3 wire sensor found in the intake manifold. It also runs off a 5V reference. It measures how much vacuum is in the intake manifold, with the engine off it reads stoichiometric which is right around 100kPa (14.7psi). The most vacuum found on an engine is at idle, the reading gets down to 30kPa or so, at wide open throttle there's no vacuum, so it goes back up to 100kPa. Only way it goes over that is with a turbocharger or supercharger on the engine. Turbo/Supercharged engines can use this sensor to tell how much boost pressure is in the intake, for example at 10psi boost the MAP sensor would read 24.7psi or 165kPa. Or they could have another sensor in the charge air pipe which is between the intercooler and the throttle body to do the same thing, or use for a boost gauge in the dash. Our factory turbocharged vehicles like the Cobalt SS and HHR SS have both sensors. Oxygen Sensors/Heated Oxygen Sensors (O2S/HO2S sensors): These sensors are one of the most important inputs to an ECM/PCM. They are located in your exhaust, they calculate the exhaust mixture to see what the oxygen content is, this has the greatest effect on your fuel system. Most vehicles have multiple oxygen sensors, for example a V8 Chevy truck has 4, 2 on each bank of cylinders, 1 before and 1 after each catalytic converter. The ones before are the most important ones, tell the ECM/PCM what the mixture is and the module adds or takes away injector pulse rates to keep the air/fuel ratio perfect. The

ones after the cats just monitor the efficiency of the cats. The readings are in mV (millivolts) 450mV is stoichiometric. <450mV is lean, which means the PCM will add more fuel, >450mV means rich, and the PCM takes away fuel. I've seen many GM trucks have a pre-cat sensor fail and read 0mV which means the PCM cranks the fuel to the one bank so much all 4 cylinders misfire, and black soot and nearly raw fuel comes out the tailpipe. Sometimes this will kill a converter if the customer doesn't bring it in to be fixed quickly. Heated oxygen sensors simply have a heater in them to warm them up quickly to get the fuel system in closed loop as quickly as possible, to better fuel economy. Open loop is how the vehicle runs on a cold start, it ignores the O2 sensor readings since they are not accurate until they get hot. You'll hear the term "Bank 1 Sensor 1, Bank 1 Sensor 2, Bank 2 Sensor 1, Bank 2 Sensor 2.", this just identifies sensor location. Bank 1 is always the bank where #1 cylinder is which on any GM V8 is on the drivers side. Bank 2 is passenger side bank. Sensor 1 is pre-cat, Sensor 2 is post-cat. Crankshaft/Camshaft Position Sensors (CKP/CMP sensors): These sensors are located close to the crankshaft and camshaft. There's a reluctor wheel on each with a tooth pattern, these tell the ECM their positions which in turn tells the coils to spark and injectors to pulse. They also detect misfires, and can even tell you which cylinder is misfiring specifically. Engine Coolant Temperature Sensor (ECT Sensor): This sensor is located in a coolant jacket, usually screwed into the cylinder head. It detects what the temperature of the coolant is. It's used a bit for fuel timing, but also is used to tell the PCM when to turn the electric cooling fans on.