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Well, my car had troubles starting for the last year and a half. It would turn over and sputter once and kill, then once turned over again, it would fire and start up. It really had a problem after I parked it overnight and went to start it in the morning. Sometimes even after a few hours. Well this summer when I got back from school, it would barely start after many tries. The car started running real bad while driving. Well it was pretty obvious it was a fuel problem. So the main things to look for were:
1) Maybe a leak in the system (bleeding), so here isn't fuel in the line when trying to start it. this could result from:
a. leaking injectors
b. a broken fuel pressure regulator
c. a bad anti-syphon valve in the pump.
The easiest way to check, would be to hook up a fuel pressure gauge and start the car, or even just turn the key to ON, but not start. Then turn the car off or the key and watch the fuel pressure. If it leaks and loses pressure relatively quickly, then these could all be possible problems.
If the regulator was bad, you could tell by pulling off the vacuum line and checking for fuel while idling. If it is sputtering gas, it would be a likely source. This could also cause a strange fuel psi.
If the injectors were leaking it would be hard to pinpoint exactly which one or all of them, unless you knew your FPR (fuel pressure regulator) was good and your anti-syphon.
The anti-syphon is likely, because it happens pretty often. This does require taking the fuel tank down and repairing.
2) Not enough pressure is getting to the engine at start and while driving. This could occur by:
a. having a bad fuel pump
b. having a real clogged fuel filter
The way to check this would be to repeat the same step from above with a fuel pressure gauge, if the system holds pressure, but the pressure is low, then this is most likely the problem.
If this happens, change the fuel filter first, because it is about $14 and an easy fix, whereas the pump is not. The fuel filter also is rarely changed and can get clogged easily.
If that does not fix the problem, then most likely you have a fuel pump problem.
With me, I started to feel a hole in acceleration, where the car would go lean and not have the power throughout the RPM range (it was quite noticable). My pressure only managed to get right about 29psi at idle and only about 18psi with the key on. We changed the fuel filter and nothing changed. So the pump it was, we assumed.
We dropped the axle and took off the exhaust and springs, shocks, swaybar, panhard bar, braces, heat shields, etc. and pulled the tank down. We used a Walbro 255 and it fit almost perfectly back into the bucket that the original fuel pump sits in. The bucket is glued together and needs to be reglued (we didn't have glue or the time to let dry, so we rigged up 3 L-brackets and bolted up the bucket back together).
After everything was done, my pressure was 48psi at idle, and around 40psi at key on. The acceleration is now smooth and clean.
-Sidenote, the bad pump and hard starting caused my started to go bad and I needed to replace that while I was at it too. So try fixing the problem before too much goes wrong. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Any questions, feel free to ask,
Scott
[ June 08, 2005, 11:30 PM: Message edited by: 95DGcamaro ]
1) Maybe a leak in the system (bleeding), so here isn't fuel in the line when trying to start it. this could result from:
a. leaking injectors
b. a broken fuel pressure regulator
c. a bad anti-syphon valve in the pump.
The easiest way to check, would be to hook up a fuel pressure gauge and start the car, or even just turn the key to ON, but not start. Then turn the car off or the key and watch the fuel pressure. If it leaks and loses pressure relatively quickly, then these could all be possible problems.
If the regulator was bad, you could tell by pulling off the vacuum line and checking for fuel while idling. If it is sputtering gas, it would be a likely source. This could also cause a strange fuel psi.
If the injectors were leaking it would be hard to pinpoint exactly which one or all of them, unless you knew your FPR (fuel pressure regulator) was good and your anti-syphon.
The anti-syphon is likely, because it happens pretty often. This does require taking the fuel tank down and repairing.
2) Not enough pressure is getting to the engine at start and while driving. This could occur by:
a. having a bad fuel pump
b. having a real clogged fuel filter
The way to check this would be to repeat the same step from above with a fuel pressure gauge, if the system holds pressure, but the pressure is low, then this is most likely the problem.
If this happens, change the fuel filter first, because it is about $14 and an easy fix, whereas the pump is not. The fuel filter also is rarely changed and can get clogged easily.
If that does not fix the problem, then most likely you have a fuel pump problem.
With me, I started to feel a hole in acceleration, where the car would go lean and not have the power throughout the RPM range (it was quite noticable). My pressure only managed to get right about 29psi at idle and only about 18psi with the key on. We changed the fuel filter and nothing changed. So the pump it was, we assumed.
We dropped the axle and took off the exhaust and springs, shocks, swaybar, panhard bar, braces, heat shields, etc. and pulled the tank down. We used a Walbro 255 and it fit almost perfectly back into the bucket that the original fuel pump sits in. The bucket is glued together and needs to be reglued (we didn't have glue or the time to let dry, so we rigged up 3 L-brackets and bolted up the bucket back together).
After everything was done, my pressure was 48psi at idle, and around 40psi at key on. The acceleration is now smooth and clean.
-Sidenote, the bad pump and hard starting caused my started to go bad and I needed to replace that while I was at it too. So try fixing the problem before too much goes wrong. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Any questions, feel free to ask,
Scott
[ June 08, 2005, 11:30 PM: Message edited by: 95DGcamaro ]
