ok , well i was driving around tonight , and i noticed my intake was a little higher pitched than normal. no thoughts about it. then BAM cel kicks in, i'm like wtf? so i pull over somewhere, pop the hood , and i notice on my cai the part where the metal tube connects to the airbox had slid off(the sheath or connector or whatever its called didnt cover it enough)so like, 3/4 of it was over the hole where its supposed to go , and the other 1/4 was outside the hole. i fix it, retighten all of the clamps, restart car - cel still there.

if i reset my battery do you think it will go away? or is it possible it sucked something in. i see it highly improbable for it to suck something that had to have been like 1/4 an inch wide, other than dust.

 

I imagine disconnecting the battery will help. Give it a try, it can't hurt.

 

It probably went on becasue it wasnt recognizing that you were sucking in air. Unplug the battery or have someone with a scanner clear the code. Nothing should have went into your engine. (hopefully)

 

*shudder* this reminds me of the first day i met another cobalt owner.
bout 3 days after i got mine i saw him in a parking lot with the hood up.

So i go over and he couldnt figure out why his car was running wierd.
so he starts it up to show me, and this thing is surging and pinging and making some godawful racket.

then i noticed exactly what you had. his intake had slipped off at the hose clamp.
Unfortunately for him i think he noticed it to late and may have had some damage.

Sound like you caught it quick though so hopefully all is well.

Maybe an oilchange is in order?

 

The cel should go away by itself in a couple days of normal driving.

 

lol..well i definately need an oil change too.. 10% oil life:P

 

ok the code is p0171
too lean cylinder 1 or something like that. well what does that mean? does it mean my engine is fucked up or was it just for the time the intake was off? he cleared the code and it hasnt come back yet so..

 

Your engine is fine. You stress too much.

Roll a fatty and enjoy life!

 

^agreed. Take a nap.

Your engine is fine. Relax. Reattach the intake, get the code cleared, drive on happy.

You have already had the code read I can tell since you posted it above. I assume you had it cleared at the same time and the CEL is gone now and your intake is back on and everything is fine.

You through a lean code because your engine was taking in air after the MAF sensor. So the computer wasn't adding fuel to match the amount of air. Hence, lean. You caught it, it's fine now. If you had kept driving without finding the problem, you could have burned some stuff up, but you didn't.

 

How do you find out the code?

 

Someone with a scanner scans it.

 

Oh, cause on some cars i know that they will tell you the code...

 

good thing you cought it but yea i agree with the rest just be happy and drive be glad you didnt end up like the guy that an0malous ran into...

 

see thats the thing...it was detached -before- the maf, so it wasnt getting unmetered air...only thing i can think of is that the air was so turbulent since there was no filter so that it wasnt reading right. but like i said, no code again and it feels fine