Heres where I think I fried the pump. I had the car parked at a downhill parking spot, with only a couple gallons in the tank. My power window is going out and if you kill the car and then turn the ignition(to where the fuel pump primes) 20 sec later the window goes up alot more than otherwise. I had to do it a couple times to get the window up. I left and went inside, came out an hour later and the car cranked for 5 secs and wouldnt fire. I waited about 10 secs and tried again, after 3-4 secs of cranking it finally fired. I drove it home, killed it, then 20 sec later tried to start it up and fired right away. I went inside, ate dinner and then came out and the car did the hesitation thing again.

I have an MSD coil and originally thought it was crapping out(as Ive heard they do). But I thought about it in bed, and started to consider the fuel pump. Well this morning when I got in the car I primed the fuel pump 3 times. It made a weird noise at the end of the prime each time. Well the car fired up with only a little hesitation. I drove the car to school,filled the tank on the way, and let it sit for an hour.Tried to start it, and this time it cranked after about 4-5 sec of hesitation.

The car idles fine,no sputtering, and I took it up to 6K on the way to school and it pulled fine with no hesitation. Which would go against the fuel pump theory.

What do you guys think?

 

Fuel pressure test.

 

Pull the vac. line off the regulator and see if its wet. It the vac line is wet then you need to replace your FPR.

 

Thanks I didnt think of that.


I have a question if it does turn out to be the fuel pump. I can run an inline pump and it'll still be able to feed through the dead intank pump correct?

 

Yes, but that's a bandaid on a bullet wound.

 

Based on my experience, the answer is "no". You will wear out the inline pump trying to pull through the dead in-tank pump, and run the risk of dropping the pressure so low in the inline pump suction line that the fuel could flash to vapor and cause fuel delivery problems.

When you have a hard starting problem related to fuel, there are three things that could be causing the fuel system to lose pressure quickly, and make it hard to start. 1) The leaking fuel pressure regulator is mentioned above. 2)The check valve in the in-tank pump failing (requires pump replacement) and 3) leaking injectors that flood the cylinders with fuel as the pressure bleeds down.

First, do a pressure test, as noted in the post above. Turn the key on, not starting engine, and look for the pump to be able to reach 40psi quickly. The pump will shut off after a couple seconds, because the PCM knows the engine is not running. When the pump shuts off, watch how quickly the fuel pressure drops..... if it drops to 20psi in a matter of seconds or a few minutes, you have one of the 3 above problems.

 

Thanks for the help