My ZX hates me

[Gollum]

Ok, long story. It wouldn't have been such a long story if I had come here alot sooner for help 8)

 

So my car was overheating bad lately. Turns out i'm loosing water... from my water pump. Yay. So I go to autozone (i'm starting to hate them) and find out that a new water pump that comes with a gasket isn't very expensive and has a lifetime warrenty. Cool, so I spring for it. The gasket that came with it sucked major *** but I used it anyways but checking tension on all the bolts after I got it on I snapped a bolt, :woops:. Dang it. So I pull it off and drill it then use an easy out thingamajig to pull it out. Cool, gasket is destroyed now so I go back to autozone to get a new one. There's another couple of bucks gone. BUT this new gasket is actually nice and thick and looks like it will last a decent amount of time.

 

Ok, so I get it all back together and it's not starting... Turns out my belt is too tight. So I loosten it and it starts. But it's running really rough. And my exhast leak has gotten WAY worse for some reason. Odd eh? I didn't touch the exhast but it's gotten worse. One the car warms up it's still overheating and it seems to be missing bad. Like every could of strokes one of the cylinders misses and the whole car shakes.

 

Ok, so I figure maybe it's the AFM. I clean it out. No change. Maybe the TPS? So I took that apart today and it seems fine. I had trouble starting it but you can kinda adjust where it sits nutral when you tighten down the screws that hold it on, so adjusting that I got it to start easily enough.

 

So while it's running i'm messing with the flapper door on the afm and I'm able to get it to idle ALOT smoother and get it to run great. But adjusting the bolt on the AFM doesn't seem to be changing anything. Upon closer inspection of the AFM again I notice THERE'S NO AIR TEMPERATURE SENSOR! BAH! It's just gone, MIA, missing.

 

So, will not having the air temp sensor lead to slow overheating, missfiring, ect? I'm sure I need it but i'm not sure it's the root of all my problems.

 

Any help would be appreciated. I've also put injector cleaning in my tank before all this work thinking maybe it's a sticking injector.