I have a 91 GTA that I just put heads and cam on it and we got it put back together yesterday and it idles ok but anytime you try to put it in drive it dies. (It's an auto) Not really sure what's wrong with it. It's allmost the same setup as my 87 GTA but the 87 never had that problem when I got it put together. Any thoughts on what it might be would be great.


Thanks Bill

 

I had the same problem a week ago and it was the catalytic converter, do you smell anything?

 

It's the dual cat setup and it's got two offroad pipes on. It is running pretty rich on fuel but other than that no weird smell.

 

Ahhhh, alright.

Just thought I'd chime in because your having the same problem that I had and it was the converter...they say they should last the lifetime of the car or at least 100K miles

I was pissed off about that

 

Thanks for the input. I'm lost with it. It runs fine in idle. I've got datamaster diagnostics on it and it's not showing anything as being wrong with it. It runs then when you shift out of park and in to gear it jerks and then immediatly dies. I have no idea what's going on with this car!

 

Can you put the car in gear and keep it running by pressing on the gas pedal?

 

I really can't . When you shift out of park it jerks and dies all at once. If I were to rev it a little and try to have that work it would jump back and hit the back of the garage or jump forward and hit the wall if it went into gear, so if it worked it would hit some thing so i'm not sure what to do!

 

What RPM is idle? Maybe it needs a slight bump? Someone will chime in with an answer soon!

 

Maybe he should set the idle a little higher?

 

Don't forget about the TCC solenoid in the trans, it usually stays locked after heating up when bad and stalls the car at stops. After cooling off it'll go into gear b/c the selenoid un-sticks.
If this is what you're experiencing, you'll have to remove the tranny pan, it'll have 2 -10mm headed bolts holding it into the bottom of the trans pump near the front of the trans pan. You'll have a harness that runs from the selenoid to the square plug on the side of the tranny. Remove the solenoid bolts and pull it straight out. Remove harness wires from the inside side of the square plug. Remember the wire routing and pin location on plug.
Replace the solenoid, reroute the wires.
TIP: I always wait to unplug the old one as I plug up the new one.....one wire at a time

 

I hooked up the datamaster to it and I noticed that when you put it in to gear it loses conection to the ecm and dies. I'm pretty sure that's the problem but not sure exactlly how to fix it.

 

How? Only 2 ways I know of. Reprogrammed EPROM or setting the blades so far in that the ECM cannot compensate.

I would look at the scanner and find out what the IAC counts are. If it is more than 20-30, you need to open up the blades by turning the TB adjust screw in. It could be that the ECM is adjustiing the IAC to the max it can and it also changes the timing. However, now it is under load so it doesn't know what else it can do. Sounds like that is what is happening.

 

How radical of a cam & head package did you put on it? The '87 GTA you mentioned as not having problems is a MAF car, while the '91 GTA is a speed density car. MAF based systems tend to be somewhat more forgiving of modifications than speed-density based systems. You might want to start looking at gathering data to burn a new PROM.

 

I appreciate all of y'all trying to help me out...but what about the torque converter? Im thinkin that it may be locked up. I jacked the rear up and put it in gear and it didnt die. But when the car is under load it does. Also while the car was up it dies when you push the brakes. Does anyone have any suggestions about it? Its not the TCC i checked that already. I just dont get it because the converter was a brand new TCI converter from summit and it just came locked up or what? I want to avoid having to put a lower stall back in it so if anyone has any suggestions please let me know ASAP.

thanks, Bill

 

What stall is the converter at?

What is the warm idle IAC counts?