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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? :cool:)

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.
IMG_20120321_133205.jpg


(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.
 
battery is good, engine was definitlyflooded a few times, but either way, it was starting with starter fluid, but wont stay running once i stopped spraying it. im just really stuck on this car.. im gonna check injector pulse, and the plugs again today. but ive flooded cars b4, and they start right after. this thing has sat for 2 days and still wouldn't start...
 
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.
 
im gonna thoroughly test the injector pulses, o-rings, and make sure there seated properly. and test the spark again. the compression all being over 150 would have rulled out timing or bent valve, correct? and ive tried the maf trick to no avail.
 
when i was stripping the engine, i accidentally bridged the positive stud of the alternator to the ground of the block with a screw driver, and it made some nice sparks. is there any chance that this might of damaged any of the computers? already checked all fuses and relays to make sure.
 
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.
 
it didint run long.. like split seconds at a time. from what i heard, the crank, and the small amounts of it running sounded just like my buds 3.8. so there is no strange sounds that shouldn't be there. how can i test the icm/ecm? ive heard cars run with bad timing, and i certainly dont here any slapping, or scrapping or anything. the crank sounds like there is absolutely nothing wrong, except it back fires in small amounts while cranking.
 


and i was way too thorough with the heads, lim and uim. it would have to be something else that got damaged. the car hasn't started in a good 5 months ever since the p.o. kept trying to start it while it was hydro-locked. i cant help but think that6s its gotta have something to do with that.
 
scottydoggs said:
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/spar...5-4-2012-pg-38-mock-tease-photo-41-40321.html
Click to expand...

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.
 
okay, i got the car to start.. but there was a "incident" ... i was using starter fluid, clearly too much.. and the car backfired and the intake caught on fire. i had a fire extuingisher, and the flame was put out b4 any real damage or danger occurred believe it or not, the only dameg done was the Maf was fried. even the intake rubber intake is still usable. i honestlyt see this as a step forward. the car was sustaining itself for a good 5-10 seconds, untill my friend shut it off cause the fire. no starter fluid was used while it was running. what does this mean? after im done with the clean upo, is it likely to start again on its own? and trust me, i learned my lesson with ether....
 
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.
 


BillBoost37 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
i learned my lesson on starting fluid, and should have listened lol. im letting it sit for two days with the spark plugs out, and hopefully that should clear out the gas and such. im just glad this isnt my dd.
 
Okay, I'm going to replace all plugs to rule out fouling, but is it possible that this could be something to do with a tdc issue? I'm not to sure about tdc, but I'd try anything at this point..
 
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.
 
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