Here's the deal. We bought it from a friend of ours that had a viper 1000 system in it. I took the alarm system out because it was dragging the battery down to the extreme. Also they had the original passkey wired in under stearing wheel. That came out too. Car started and ran fine for months. Security light that I remember... from what I remember I think has stayed on. Ok. now... We changed the ignition out and left it unplugged. Car started and ran fine a few weeks. Every now and then it would shut down a few minutes and then all of a sudden BAM! It quit and won't start up. Just pops when you turn it over. Is that the VATS more than likely or distributor? It fires off the coil, and with it popping it's firing in the cylinders too, right? Any insight would be awesome.

 

To check the spark to each cylinder unplug the spark plug wire to the spark plug. Then put a fresh plug on the wire and ground the plug to the car. Disable the fuel
. Have a friend crank the car over and look for spark.

Try scanning the car for codes.

Check the wiring of the vats system that was modified for bad connection.

Clean your key with pass key chip and clean your lock cylinder. Might be a bad/ dirty connection.

What year is your car?

 

Red94... Thats the thing. The lock cylinder has been unplugged along with the original passkey taken out from where the owners before had it wired in under the stearing wheel. Cars been running fine for months then we changed the lock cylinder again... and within a couple of weeks car started shutting down on us. The one kicker is I thought the VATS was supposed to shut down the starter too and it never has.

 

Doesn't sound like VATS. VATS does not kill the engine once it is running.

 

I was going to offer advice on the Optispark distributor and the codes that it will set. But you did not include basic info on your car, like the year.

You need to add a "Signature" with basic info - year, model, engine, trans and any major mods. That way the people who want to help you can be a bit more specific.