I have a 1994 Firebird Formula. Last night ,while I was driving it, the car just shut off completely. I had just kicked down on it and then it just shut off. I tried to crank it, but it will only turn over and not start. I can hear the fuel pump come on, it makes a buzzing sound and also a funky noise coming around the fuel lines near the engine. My car has 164,000 miles on it and the optispark was replaced at 90,000 miles. I have put new original wires, plugs, power steering pump, Egr valve, Egr solenoid, new catalytic converter, and waterpump on it a year ago. I still have the original coil, wire, and sensors on the engine, including the O2 sensors. I have noticed the past few months that when the car is warmed up it is kind of hard to start sometimes. It never had problems starting when the engine was cold. My question is, could this be a possible optispark problem or what could it be? I will be taking it to the mechanic shop tommorrow. Thank you , please reply everybody if have any suggestions.

 

Do you have an aftermarket ignition system (MSD, Crane)? They're famous for crapping out...if so bypass it. Sounds spark related since it died suddenly, usually fuel will sputter first and then die. Optis also give you some warning before they died (although it could just die). I'm going to guess it's the coil; your mechanic will hunt it down for you. If you're still running the original O2 sensors, your on borrowed time. That's not your problem, but you should change them. Your car runs rich as the O2 sensors age and it's probably robbing your fuel mielage.

 

I do not have an aftermarket ignition system on my car. My car is stock except for the throttle body coolant bypass, hooker aerochamber muffler, carsound high flow cat, and SLP cold air induction. Thanks for your reply

 

I had a similar problem that turned out I simply needed to put a new belt on. Apparently they didn't change it at the lot I bought it from. However this was with my Fire Control ignition which is very sensitive to the amount of charge in the battery. Switched to stock ignition and it would work so I don't know if this might help or not. Good luck!

 

you need to see if you can get it to read any codes, I bet it will. that would be very helpfull, mine did the same thing and it was the ignition control module..

 

Mine did the same thing one day. Just driving down the road and it died. The dealer spent 8 hrs trying to figure it out and they couldnt. They finally just started part swapping. It ended up being the ignition control module. I had them go ahead and put a new coil on to because it was still the stock one with 90k miles on it. Hope you have good luck finding the problem.

 

My car did that when the opti went, around 80 k miles. Yours is at 74k. It may be time for another one.

 

could be the 'hot' wire to the starter (dont rem the name of it) see if it is burnt

 

Sounds like it could be the coil...

Had the exact same symptoms on my '88 (not sure how similar the 3rd & 4th Gen ignition systems are though...)

Hope you track down the problem,

 

Hey my car cut off goin down the road the other day.


My battery cable was loose, lol.

 

Mine did the same exact thing, turned out to be bad gas that I picked up less then 5min. earlier.

Aaron

 

ya i agree, has to be spark....fuel u would know.....first bet=coil and ignition control module.....check wires and plugs