Charchee

I'm sure not a fan of the cork gaskets. I good Felpro gasket is cheap and makes things much easier. If you can put your hands on one before you go back together with it, I would sure do it. I've got the one that came with my injectors. Not a very good gasket at all.

foppert

Noted, ill swap for a felpro, should i rtv it though? I've seen some intake gaskets that want it and some that don't. (Watch the gasket come with directions...)

Charchee

No need for RTV if surfaces are clean. That goes for most gaskets on this engine.

foppert

I got the injectors and fuel filter changed and reassembled, i just tested the tps before installing the intake and it failed miserably... as it wont spring back to zero. Unless anyone has any tips on cleaning these out i will be ordering one and i have to put this off another couple days. Glad i am going through with this, just hope i don't have any leaks.

foppert

Back pleading for help again, started it last weekend and before i could do much diagnostics it smelled of gas and sounded like it was on 5 cylinders so i shut it down and didn't come back to it for a week. Now that im back i jumped the fuel pump and held it for a minute and didn't smell any gas so i decided im not going to blow up and went to start it.... and now it wont start. It cranks over okay except it locks up sometimes and i have to walk away and come back. I don't have an assistant to pull spark plug wires to see if there is spark. So i guess i'm in a mode to diagnose a no spark condition? It is starting to seem like too many variables have been changed and now im pretty far from where i started in the wrong direction...

Charchee

Elaborate on "locks up sometimes."

foppert

It turns over until it stops, then the starter will just click and try and turn but not succeed. If i walk away from it or wait a moment it will return. You can hear a "hard" spot in the engines rotation, my guess is the starter is tired and i have only 11.5 volts because the car hasn't been run in a while.

As for the no start condition i found my rotor contact disintegrated in my hand, the cap is pretty worn too so time to add that to the replace list. I was fooling around checking the distributor pickups, and if im right and my harbor freight multi meter is to be trusted the g1 and g2 contacts read about 350 ohms each... a bit more than the 200 suggested from the forums. So i will start with the simple stuff (cap and rotor) but the distributor and igniter are suspect. I think the coil check out ok

Charchee

Charge that battery and replace those distributor parts before you do anything else. No use fooling with it when you know of two issues that won't let it run. Report back after that.

foppert

Changed cap and rotor, and got an assistant to help. Pulled coil wire and it has a nice strong spark... So there goes that plan. I put a battery booster on and tried starting it with the fuel pump jumped and still no firing. It smells like gas though, so it seems like fuel is getting though when the pump is running and i turn it over.



This started after i was jumping the fp and b+ terminals... is there a fuse i could have blown or something i could have damaged? i can hear the pump kick on when i jump it.

Charchee

EFI fuse. Fuel pump should still run when jumped if the EFI fuse is blown. That will kill your injectors, of course. Which end smells like gas? Exhaust or under the hood? You may need to check your timing, especially if you smell gas coming from the air intake. If I were in your shoes, I think I'd pull the plugs after trying to start it and see what they look like. This would be a good time to do a compression test while you are at it. Not imperative but that would be a good opportunity to record that data since pulling the plugs is kind of a chore on that engine.

foppert

Is there more than the 15amp efi fuse under the driver kick panel? That one checks out.

foppert

Got it to fire after some fiddling, it smoke a ton and still ran like ass, but it fired. I was able to fiddle the timing, turns out it was way off from where it should have been at 10 degrees at low rpm. Could the smoke result from two lines being crossed or just cranking a bunch without firing right...?

Kolton5543

foppert

Finally got it to run long enough to be able to pull more than one wire, seems like cylinders 2 and 4 aren't firing (pulled spark wires at the distributor with no change). Id wager at this point its a fuel problem in those cylinders so im going to pull the whole intake again and see if i can track it down. Is there a way to test injectors when the manifold is off? Also it still bellows blue (white?) smoke. My theory is that if two injectors aren't firing the o2 sensor is pumping the others rich and washing oil... maybe i'm crazy but it is just a guess, as it was not smoking at all after the rebuild. I took a video of it this round just for fun and to see if it can help anyone shed any light (too much wind to really hear it anything but what the hey). Man i am hating the 3vze more and more.


I should do a compression test next you are right, but i will start with just trying to get it to respond when all cylinders have their plugs pulled.

Charchee

If your harness was really brittle, you may have a broken wire to those two injectors that are side by side. I know mine was in really bad shape. I have acquired one since but not going to install it until I have an issue with it.

I'm leaning toward two bad injectors, plug wires, plugs or your distributor. You're on the right track. Troubleshoot why only two cylinders are dead.

foppert

Tested the continuity between the connections on injectors 2 and 6 (the ones that are reachable) and they checked out. I messed around with the spark plug wires and i probably had 2 and 4 crossed (IDIOT!) So now i'm back to where i started before the no start condition, it starts easily but doesn't sound happy and bellows blue smoke. I found new dark oil/exhaust in the throttle body that was not there when i had the plenum pulled off... I'm thinking that i have some hoses crossed (even though i keep checking them), or something has gone super wrong and i'm getting crazy blowby out the pcv....

The engine oil is still very clean, and not the same color as the goop in the intake tubes now.

It wasn't bellowing smoke at all when got it back from the rebuilder so i really dont think it is blowby and something i did to mess it up i just havent found it yet, unless somehow something i did messed it up the internals that bad... or that little piece of plastic from the injector tip has reared its ugly head.

Would a stuck or damaged pcv cause an engine to smoke like crazy? and if so would it be the passenger or driver side?
EGR?

Charchee

No way your fuel return line got routed into your plenum? You wouldn't believe how often this happens. It's easy to get the lines under the plenum mixed up. Double check it just to be sure.

foppert

For posterity: After many woes found that one of the flamethrower injectors was pumping fuel as fast as it would flow. Hopefully was caught before it cause permanent damage to the engine (only ran for a total of around 15 min.) Swapped back to the old injectors and changed the now gas contaminated oil. Upon further inspection i think my cat is clogged to boot so i am working on that now (pulled the o2 sensor and noticed it ran much stronger.)<br /><br />After all that my gas gauge and fuel light seem to be malfunctioning so time for a new thread.<br /><br />Thanks to everybody that helped me through this mess.

tommy854runner

Anxious to see what comes of this here. Having a similar problem with my 88 with a "new" engine.

foppert

I put a new cat in, it gave a dramatic increase in power.