Octane boost is a waste of time. It only raises the rating a few tenth's of a point.

You shouldn't need anything but if you're insistent on adding something, go to Home Depot and buy a gallon of Toluene. It has a rating of 118 octane and will boost you right up....

 

Gasoline is only good for about 10 months so yes if the fuel is bad, that would be the first thing I would check.

 

Well in typical fashion I didn't get this done last night.

Instead I spent 2 hours trying to siphon the gas tank, got it all but about 2.5 gallons. Then I spent another 1.5 hours installing water pump housing, electric water pump, wiring for it, fans, had to then trim the housing on the fan to fit, oil change, coolant fill, all electrical connectors cleaned and installed, cleanup, etc.

Going to put some fresh gas in today around 5pm and see what happens. God I hope she runs good. PLEASSSEEEE let her run good!!!

...and yeah I'm gonna skip octane booster and just put in some 93 octane with a little seafoam mixed in to help clean anything. After she smooths out (assuming she does) I'll change the new fuel filter out again in a week or two.

 

I should note that the gas I siphoned out was almost orange/pink in color and didn't have very strong fumes coming off it. I managed to get about 2.5 gallons out but couldn't get the last 2 gallons or so.

 

With fresh gas in it, she fired up and ran for about 10 minutes with SES light on, then died as if someone turned the key off.

Troubleshoot, nothing evident...

turn engine over and it's running VERY rough and backfiring a lot... let run 2 or 3 minutes like that, SES light goes OUT. WTF?!

Turn engine off. Try to restart.... nothing but cranking.

Swap ICM's, clean and apply new dielectric grease to ICM mount - engine just cranks, stumbled a time or two but no fire.

Take both ICM's the Advance Auto Parts where they checked them and deemed them both bad.

Okay, hopefully the old Opti made the ICM's **** the bed, because tomorrow morning I'm on the hunt for a new ICM and I hope that solves all my issues. My coil is showing 5900 resistance, shbox's website said anything less than 8500 is acceptable... so I'm good there.

Fuel is 40psi w/ key-on, was 37psi while running. It ran SUPER smooth at first for the initial 10 minute warm up so I don't suspect plugs/wires.

This thing is driving me nuts!!

 

Check for codes?

 

This is so long winded... where to even begin... here goes....

Got up early and went to the junkyard in search of ICM's. No luck, called a friend he said some website was showing Astro vans as having the same part # for ICM's so I figure what the hell, I'll go look. Sure enough, Chevy Astro vans w/ the 4.3L Vortec have a coil/ICM mount just like the LT1 camaro/firebirds and the ICM's are the same so I grab every one of them I could find, totalling 6. First, on the way home I take them all to Advance Auto where they all test out BAD... WTF you gotta be kidding me.

Come home, install one anyway, car cranks a while but eventually fires up. Runs 15 minutes at idle, I rev it a few times for old times sake. Everything seems fine. Shut car off, go to restart and it's idling all over the place and backfiring like crazy. Shut car off, go to restart... just cranks. Same symptons as before.

So I get under the car and I'm checking o2's and notice my passenger side o2 has at some point been replaced with one of those cheap splice in style units. The electrical tape holding the solder connections together is oil soaked and could've quite possibly been so soaked to allow for the electrical connections to short against each other.

I take it all off and clean it, retape everything and sure as hell, for now anyway... I've heat cycled the car 6 or 7 times doing hot laps around the neighborhood. Come home, shut the car off, let it sit a minute or two, and she starts back up running great each time. I'm going against my better judgement here and just assuming the o2 signals were messed up because of all that goop inside the electrical tape.

I'm calling this one good for now. I'll update with any changes. FYI - running the Meziere EWP on a stock cheapy AutoZone water pump housing and no leaks. I wired the EWP directly into the A/C relay location for 12v w/ key in on position. My A/C doesn't work anyway. Everything seems okay w/ this setup, temps stay nice and cold.

I'm HYPED to be driving my car again after a year!!!

If she gives me issues I'm replacing both o2's next. Note - I wouldn't take any ICM's to Advance Auto for testing in the future... they "tested" 8 for me and said all 8 were bad. Some BS if you ask me, obviously they weren't all bad.

 

Couldn't check for codes as I don't have a code reader on hand and car wouldn't run to get it to a dealer.

I plan to check for codes now though that the car is driving.

FYI - I'm running a Delphi Optispark and I did not loctite the rotor screws.... should I have??? I figured since it was OEM I was okay....?

 

Not unknown for virtually any brand Opti to shed the rotor when the screws back out.

 

that worries me a lot..... at this point with the car seemingly all better, is it worth it to take it all back apart or should i not worry about it?

when/if the screws back out would a cap & rotor kit fix it?