Guys,

Last two points races are tomorrow and Sunday for the season championship. The car has been at the dealers for a month. They cannot find the problem. They cannot make the problem happen.

Last night I found a bad coil wire going int the connector. The casing is split right at the connector and there is some rust going on. Hope***lly that can do this but I am not a mechanic and am looking for opinions...

I also checked the wiring harness from the PCM and wiggled the connectors and did the same on all other items I could fins that were accessible from the top.

Here is my original post in LT1 Tech a few days ago. I apologize if it is not "advanced" but I am looking at my season going up in smoke and any help you could provide would be appreciated. Of course if one of you guru's could beam on over through the fax it would be even better. J/K.

Original post:

I came home from my last event four weeks ago on a hook. Car just sputtered and died...

The shop said they found a loose ground wire and also that the exhaust was vibrating against the driveshaft loop. They drove it quite a bit and could not find any more wrong.

I went over Sunday and got the car and drove a couple of miles to the parts store to get some bug and tar cleaner. When I left the store the car just died. I pulled over and it had a hard time starting. I had to put the gas pedal to the floor to get it to start and a cloud of black smoke came out. I went another 1/2 mile or so and the same thing happened again. It happened twice more on my way back to my office and one of those times the car exhibited one extremely loud backfire as it was stalling out.

My un educated guess is fuel starvation and then it "loads up"...

Opti is new, coil is new, ICM is new, connections have all been checked.

I did notice the tach seemed to "bounce" up and down a bit during a couple of the stall outs.

I need a direction to look as this weekend is the last two points races of the season and I am less than one round of racing out of first place.

Otherwise the car feels strong, and has been running 12.0's at 110. Gas mileage has improved significantly since the lifters were adjusted a couple of months ago. I'm at a complete loss as to what to do.

Another issue which is unrelated, is the B&M Pro-Ratchet seems to not work correctly with the TCI 700R4 which was just rebuilt and new poly mounts for both tranny and motor installed. It doesn't catch between 1st and second gear. Currently it is configured to have only three gears but this is not acceptable long terms as the track is 97 miles from my home.

 

My wife is picking up a new coil, new ICM, and new pigtail for the coil. If this does not work I need a direction...

 

My rule of thumb... has to be:

-mechanical OR
-fuel OR
-electrical

Here are my theories:

mechanical - broken valve springs, loading up, bad idle, diminished power
fuel - too rich or too lean, but it's it too lean it will just shut off, black clouds are indicative of a rich condition. If it shuts off and then backfires, it's from unburnt fuel hitting hot exhaust. Lean pops are thru the intake not the exhaust.
electrical - ignition, are you getting spark to all cylinders, and both sides of the engine? cars can run on 4 cylinders, will run very poorly and rich

 

When the car runs, it runs well. It appears to have gobs of power. It was running 12 flat at 110 at the track but stalled three times on the way to the track and four times on the way home. On one pass it stumbled badly and ran 12.5 at 107....

 

tnthub,
I can't help you find the problem, but I can offer a suggestion to save your season. If your track is like most, the points go to the driver, not the car. It does not matter what car you drive. I can only assume that since you drive your car to and from the track that you are racing in Street class. If all of the above is true, use your wife's car, your daily driver, a friends car, or a rental. Whatever works. Good Luck!

 

Thank you for the suggestion. Actually I have competed so far in our 1990 Lincoln, 1999 Sebring, my Mom 2000 Bonneville, and several rental cars. I did not have my Camaro until about the eigth week of the season due to mechanical issues and then the lifters were not properly adjusted and was running 13.5's at 101 for a few weeks, then the transmission and torque converter came undone and I lost all gears and had to do a rebuild. The car has only been "right" for one week this season. The last three events when it has been running well have been marred by stalling out problems.

I have replace coil, coil pigtail. and ICM. Now I need to drive it and see if the problem comes back. The problem is that sometimes the problem can take hours to surface and sometimes minutes...

Thank you for the advice.

 

New information: tach "bounces up and down like crazy when it dies. Even after it stops, key has been turned off, then turn key to "on" position without cranking, tach will "bounce". Car will not start when tach is bouncing. However after a few minutes of sitting car will turn over and start and run for maybe 1-3 minutes before it happens again...

 

WHat about your voltage what does it read?

 

I do not know. I have a meter somewhere but would not know what to tap into...

 

with the key on, go to the battery and just go to the terminals, then start the car and read at the battery terminlas, it should be 11.5 to 14 at the battery. It could be drawing the voltage dwn when running and causing it to do random electrical problems.
I'd think the dealership would have tried that though

 

Now that is a DIE HARD racer!!!

 

Pulled the opti cable that goes to the wiring harness. It was green on the end. The dealer put a new endf on it and I took it out to try it and about a mile down the road it just quit. It stumbes on restart due to the rich condition but when it quits everything just goes quiet.

 

Just for the heck of it I have cleaned all connections for ground and power beteen batter and the front of the car.

 

Oh yea... I got a rental too because it just died again...

My suspicion is since the opti harness cable was green probably the opti is bad too at this point. I will have the wife order another opti tomorrow. This will be the fourth one since May... At least they have a warranty...

 

Does it run OK when cold? If it runs OK cold and runs OK at WOT then it would lead me to believe you have an O2 sensor problem on Closed loop. Did the garage have it on the scanner? Is it throwing any codes?

Steve