Hey guys I was driving my 94 TA to my friends house today. When I got a block from his house it just shut off. I was in town doing 25mph. I stopped put it in park and tried to start it back up it will crank but it wont fire. I pulled it home and have been messing with it ever since here is what I found so far.

All the fuses are good.

40-45 psi of fuel at all times.

I have spark at the coil wire.

I have spark at the spark plugs.

I can smell gas so I know the injectors are firing.

It will pop on a few cylinders for a couple of seconds then die. I pulled the #1 cylinder plug just now and it's a little fuel soaked from me cranking it over so much.

I have a Laptop with freescan on it. Freescan communicates with the pcm fine. It doesn't throw any codes when craking it over or leaving it in the run position.

I disconnected the MAF no change.

I disconnected the battery for 30 min. no change.

I never had a problem like this before with the car. Every once in a great while when i would try to start it in the morning it would fire then die. If i let it sit for 30 seconds and then tried it again it would fire right up.

The previous owner put new plugs and wires in the car right before I bought it last year. I put 10k miles on it since then.

Any Ideas????

Thanks!

I also did many seaches even on other forums and I couldn't find any usefull info.

 

My friend had a similar problem; it turned out to be a bad coil. We got spark at the plugs wires but it wasn't a hot spark. Parts stores sell a spark tester; it has an adjustable gap so you can see if the spark is "hot".

 

Well I took the coild and module out today. It was all coroded where the coil attaches to the coil wire that goes to the opti. I cleaned it off with a dremel and put it all back toegether. Still no change. The spark that I see at the plugs is bright white in color. I might have to run to town and get one of those spark testers.

 

Well took the car apart today to look at the opti. I pulled it out. The bearing seems to be fine. In fact the whole unit looks pretty new. It seems like there is a newer vented cover on the older base. Any more ideas?

My cousin works at wells so I'm having him get me some prices on some parts. I was going to replace the coil and the ignition module.

I guess I'm going to pull the rest of the AIR system off when I'm down there, and put on my underdrive pulley I got from a friend. I also have a nice lump on my head where the harmonic balancer flew off and broke its fall on me.

 

How old are the wires and plugs...might be time for a change.

 

They only a little over a year old. Plugs looked really clean when I pulled them. I always thought my car burned a little oil. It must have leaked more than I thought. I am going to replace the plugs though. Bosh Platinums are in there now and I know they don't like gm engines.

 

Good call. It turned out to be the coil. My friend is a mechanic at saturn and he came over and we started looking at stuff. I asked him if he knew how to test a coil he said yeah it's easy. I pulled out the old voltmeter and put some new batts in. Handed it over and he didn't know what to do. So I got out my manual and figured it out. Primary came out good. Secondary came out good according to him... I spent 20 minutes explaining the reading to him then went out to another car and showed him what it was supposed to look like. Mine had infinate resistance. I wish I would have took some time to read over that section earlier. Guess my physics labs paid off for something. (voltmeter reading). Kind of funny he went to school for this stuff and I've tought him more than he could have ever learned there. I'm an idiot for ignoring my KISS rule Keep It Simple Stupid.

This gives me a good oportunity to pull my air stuff off and modify my opti into a vented style. I also need to fix the previous owners spark plug wire "holders" he just electrical taped them all together. His toolbox must have only had two things electrical tape and wire ties. They are all over the car

Thanks guys!!

 

Glad I could help. I tried a set of Bosch platinums when my car was near stock, ran like crap; changed them the next day to a set of AC Delco platinums...ran great!