I was driving to my moms house tonight to store my car there for the winter, but after about 30 mins of driving my car started to back fire and die. It finally turned off and wouldn't start up after that. About a minute later I started my car and it ran fine . So I drove for another 10 miles and my car did the same thing; backfiring, stumbling, and the tach was jumping around. So I pulled off and restarted my car and it seemed to run fine, but this time died about a mile down the freeway. So I had to have AAA tow my car the rest of the way to my moms house. What do you guys think is the problem? My car is a 94 Ta that has a year old opti(less than 5,000 miles), new plugs and wires, new fuel filter. I thought the problem could be the fuel pump or the coil. If it was the fuel pump it wouldn't run like **** and die, but then start up like nothing happened. Let me know what you guys think!!

Jon

 

Could be fuel pump or it could be spark. Either way it sounds like something breaking down once it's hot. Easiest thing to start with is the fuel pump by monitoring fuel pressure when the problem starts to occur. If you ran it really low on fuel recently, the pump is a great place to start.

If that's ok, then test individual components one at a time to rule them in or out. With the car completely cold, start it up for a couple of seconds to be sure all is well. Shut it down quick so you don't warm anything up. Now get out your hair dryer. Pick a component like the ICM and warm only it to the point where you just can't touch it comfortably. Now try starting the car and again, only let it run for a second to not warm it up too much. If it doesn't start after warming that device up, let it cool and restart the car. Then warm it up again and try to restart the car. If it doesn't restart after the second time, you found the problem. If it did restart after warming it the first time, move on to the next part like the coil. Follow the same procedure until you get to the questionable device.

Dave

 

It is an ingnition problem. The Tac jumping around is a dead give away. Could be a bad coil or module (Hope for your sake it is) but could also be ab ad Opti,

 

I'm going to start tinkering with it today. I'll let you guys know what I find today. Keep posted.

 

mine did same thing when my ICM was bad.