I took my car to a car wash today and about 20 minutes after I got out while I was driving, the car started backfiring and stumbling while I was going around 55mph (after I just passed someone at around 70). I proceeded to slow down and pull over, and it continued to stumble and rpm jump as I stopped and as I was backing up. Even while I was sitting still, the idle was jumping up and down about 200rpm or so.

I was on the edge of the road, so I decided to try to move it up a little bit into a parking lot. As I moved it up, it was backfiring every couple seconds or so and stumbling as I accelerated... I got about 300 yards and it turned off. Now it starts but the idle is crazy and pretty violent, then it turns off after about 10 or so seconds.

I've had problems with water in my optispark on my old '93, but when that happened it wouldn't start for a day or so. Does this sound like my opti could've gotten water into it... or is it maybe a problem with the timing chain?

Probably hard to diagnose over the internet, but just curious if anyone else had a similar problem...

 

Sounds like a wet opti to me.

 

The same thing happened to me when i washed my car,took me a while to find out that somehow, i dont even know how i got water in one of my spark plugs and the wire too,my guess is that the wire plug was'nt all the way in and water just got in. I took the spark plug wire off the plug and i'd just let it dry for a few hours and after that my car run just fine.

 

Tried to start it tonight around 10pm. Didn't die as fast, and it starts like it wants to run right. Maybe it just takes a little while longer to dry out.