New guy here.
94 Z28 LT1, recent acquisition, 179K on body, new engine at 40K so the owner said.
Turns over but won't fire. Water in oil. Previous owner suggested it might be the intake gasket or manifold cracked somewhere. Aside from water getting in, I think it might have a bad ICM - starts and runs ok then heats up quick and won't start. I know on my 89 beretta gtu the coil pack is mounted in a horrible place and it has acted like this.
Read on another thread about getting a block tester kit from Napa, so I'll prolly do that, but in the meantime anybody got any suggestions? Not to familiar with these engines but also read that no coolant passes through the intake on these??? Is this right or is it some mod that bypasses???

 

shoebox has an amazing site that is a must for new f-body owners to peruse.

shbox.com

Might look at the howtos on checking ignition components (opti, coil, etc...)

 

It sounds like a blown head gasket.Its either that or a cracked block.It could cause a no start if bad enough,or the ignition module is bad.I wouldnt run it like that, pull the heads and have them checked.

 

Water can't leak from the intake manifold or the gasket.... LT1 intake is "dry", unlike the earlier SBC's.

There are coolant lines that pass through the throttle body, not the intake. Those are, in theory, used to prevent throttle body icing. In fact, they do nothing but heat up the throttle body and the intake manifold, so its common to pull the cooling lines off, connect them together and bypass the throttle body.

Scan it for codes. There are several ignition related codes, including problems with the optical cam position signal from the Optispark distributor, and shorts and opens in the ignition control system.

 

thanks for the link, very helpful site indeed. I hope it's not a cracked block - if anything just in the head(s). Hope a bad thermostat didn't do all this but I bought it off some wacked out coon rodder who prolly beat the crap out of this car and couldn't have cared less. Say a prayer for me as I start to dig in today. I'll keep you posted. Seems like a pretty active board btw. Great place.

 

in pulling out the intake, I found water all inside the intake boots and around the throttle plates

 

Then you had a leak from the coolant plate on the bottom of the throttle body.

 

somebody bypassed the TB a long time ago
from what i can tell

also, I jumped the AB terminals and no codes -
whatever it is that's acting up must not
be controlled by the comp.

icm/coil/opti?

 

On your 94, you can't jump the ALDL pins to flash the codes on the SES light. Last year that worked on the LT1 is 1993. You need an OBD-I scanner or scan software, like TTS DataMaster or FreeScan.

Are you sure this isn't a flood recovery car? There is no way engine coolant can get into the intake manifold on an LT1 with no coolant on the throttle body.

 

darn it! guess I'll need to get
me a scanner then. Have a
laptop and wouldn't mind going
that direction too.

Nehoo, manifold's off, gasket's were fine,
milky crap all over the top
of the block but the stuff in the boots
was crystal clear water and lots of it
like it was poured in somehow.
Got pics, just havn't downloaded
from cam.

Havn't pulled plugs yet, but starting
to think the internals are ok
as the seller was of the shady
type. Said he bought the car
for the engine only to throw
in a chevelle