Thread: car wont start

Let's take a moment to think about this, I've been following and relatively agreeing (enough that I didn't post, like that Chuck? )

Spark color may not be blue in his eyes versus ours. If you pull a wire off the coil and you see a decent spark jump 1/4 to full inch, you have enough spark to light off fuel vapor.

You said the plugs were soaked at one point. That would lead us to a couple ideas
1. You turned the key off and on a lot w/o starting it.
2. You aren't getting spark. (hence why you've gone down that road)

The bolt/ground you were talking about belongs right here on the smaller stud of the coil pack bracket mount, right near the water pump.


(Chuck..nearly any pic you might ever want to show someone is in my pb photobucket with password Boost or Boosted, I forget at the moment. Direct link Login to a private Photobucket.com album )

So let's go over a few things.
1. Is the battery fully charged? If not, please charge it on a 2amp charge for 24 hours.
2. Are the plugs wet, If yes, please remove them and crank the motor over for a full 15 seconds w/o letting your hand off the ignition key. Then leave the plugs out while the battery is charging. Put them in only when the battery is fully charged. (remember each time you turn the key from off to on, the fuel injectors prime the cylinders with fuel to start, too much fuel and you are flooded.)
3. If 1 or 2 was performed then after the 24 hours, turn the key to on and then start. Do not touch the throttle at all. If the motor does not start up and run right, turn the key off. Unplug the maf sensor, this time use some throttle when you try to start the car and keep the motor running via the throttle if it does start. Keep it running for about a minute. Then slowly let your foot off the throttle. It likely will stay running at that point. If this makes it start, you have a bad maf sensor.

Thanks Bill. Yea, this makes perfect sense.

When he said he unplugged some sensors I assumed that he tried the MAF trick. With the plug wires on wrong I guess he tried and tried until the motor was completely flooded.?.?..Then wouldn't start after wires were right due to the flood.

My remedy for a flood is to either stomp it to the floor and crank or remove the fuel pump relay and crank.

Our pcm's are programmed to turn off the injectors while cranking if the throttle percent is 100%. It has been programmed to clear a flood.

A little off topic here Bill but have you ever seen a catalytic converter blow up from excess fuel like in this situation. I toasted a muffler one time and the sound was earth shaking.

I guess this does kinda pertain to this situation.

If the only way to get it running is starter fluid and it dies when you stop spraying, then it would seem like you now have a fuel issue or your fuel is bad.

If the engine is being over-fueled it will run with the ether spray. You might want to try what Bill said with the MAF unplugged trick. Unplug it and spray some ether in the TB and see if it stays running.

I still wouldn't rule out the weak yellow spark though.

I would say it is definitely not an injector problem as over-fueling would have to be all six of them doing the same bad thing. If one injector was bad then it would run but you would just have a misfire on one cylinder.

Make sure you haven't damaged the TPS or the IAC and the ICM wiring.

Yea, 150 psi is good compression...would rule out bent valve. Compression would be good with bad cam timing unless it was off by three or four teeth. I would rule out cam timing just for the fact that it would be popping and sputtering like a SOB. When you had it running with the ether spray did it sound like it was missing or hitting at TDC?

I would take the ICM off and go to Advance or Autozone and have it tested. If it's good recheck everything that you had apart while doing the heads and intake. Most of the time when there is a new problem after repairs - it's your fault. Ask me how I know.

i willing to bet your gas tank has bad fuel in it. you may want to drain it and start fresh.

bill tells how to do it the easy way in this thread, post 803.


http://www.grandprixforums.net/spart...-41-40321.html

Originally Posted by scottydoggs

i willing to bet your gas tank has bad fuel in it. you may want to drain it and start fresh.

bill tells how to do it the easy way in this thread, post 803.


http://www.grandprixforums.net/spart...-41-40321.html

Where was the car stored while down for 5 months? Is there any chance any water or rain got in the engine bay?

Remove the ICM connector and make sure it's not corroded. Remove your coils and then pull the ICM off the plate and see if there's any corrosion or water on the bottom.

Easy way to test bad fuel is put a very small amount on concrete and light it. If it just burns it's bad - if it flashes it's good enough to run the car.
It'll have a stale smell as well when bad. Although it takes a very long time for fuel to get bad enough to prevent the car from running.

It tells me that likely your maf was bad.

Since you didn't follow my suggestions to the letter... I'm still thinking the same things.

Some of the regulars like Scotty have a saying about my advice. I laugh everytime I read it.

Originally Posted by BillBoost37

It tells me that likely your maf was bad.

Since you didn't follow my suggestions to the letter... I'm still thinking the same things.

Some of the regulars like Scotty have a saying about my advice. I laugh everytime I read it.

I agree, this thing sounds like it's suffering from a massive flooding issue. Follow Bill's advice and start back from square one. Stop using starting fluid and make a prime bottle from an empty ketchup or mustard bottle if you need too. Starting fluid is bad stuff, it strips all the oil from the cylinder walls.

if you never took off the timing chain, top dead center of cly 1 is what im guess you mean by tdc that should not be a issue at all.