Hopefully someone has an idea and this is a simple thing to address.

I just went out to move my car into a bit of shade like I've been doing at lunch lately. The car cranks but no fire. Tried it a couple times, oil pressure comes up but no fire. Pulled everything out of the back and checked fuel pump and battery leads at the terminals. All is good. Opened the hood to poke around an nothing seemed amiss. The car is low on fuel, but no fuel light this morning. Planning on getting some after class.

It's been hot lately and other than running the car this morning to work flawlessly, it hasn't been driven since Friday. I'm wondering if the heat with the small amount of remaining fuel in the tank could be an issue?

 

Model year?

 

Forgot to mention that it started after I opened the hood to check. Just like nothing happened.

I also forgot my sig doesn't show when I post from my phone. It's a US '86 5-speed.

 

This makes me wonder if you are having an alarm imobilizer system issue.

 

Hi Jon, before you do any more try removing the vacuum line from the damper on the left rear fuel rail see if you smell gas .
You should have replaced the front damper and the RRfuel rail unit is a new FPR that was replaced with the Porken chips you might check these as well for fuel. just to be sure.
if still no good try cranking the engine with your foot to the floor,
there are a lot of new parts in the FI system but the one of dampers may be suspect. Please rep[ort your findings.
Also to note the fuel being low might also contribute to a vapor lock situation as the fuel will heat up faster if there isnt much fuel in the tank, so a full tank will take a longer time to heat up VS a low tank
The unused fuel is sent back to the tank and it is hotter than the fuel in the tank

 

Way back when I was in college, I always had those same plans.

Do you have spark? You said the car did not fire, but didn't elaborate. If you have no spark, the problem could well be the Crank position sensor. For some reason, they seem to be particularly prone to just not working all of a sudden.

 

FYI this car has most of its top end parts replaced including the
Temp 2,
CPS,
TPS,
ISV,
FPR,
front fuel damper,
FI harness,,
new rebuilt fuel injectors,
new fuel pump and filter,
a bunch of new relays,
fresh MAF rebuild

 

Stan,
That would seem to narrow it down a lot. If the CPS is new, then that failure is unlikely(though possible)

Relay, relay, relay (as long as you have sufficient fuel)

 

Check/replace the fuel pump fuse. Yes, fuse.

 

I would start by checking the fuse as Randy suggests, then check every connection that was touched.

 

Fuse is OK, the relay for some reason seems "spongy" when seeing if it's seated. You can push it and it'll spring back a little bit.

Checked it after sitting and it's not wanting to start again. I don't have a tool to pull the relay, but I've got a couple 53's laying around.

 

As per Stan's tip, I checked the dampers and couldn't smell fuel from the rears, but I caught a faint smell up front. Not sure if it's because I could just get that much closer or not though.

Car will start with foot to floor. Sounds like new relays are in order...

 

The 85 and 86 occasionally go down flooded. We've seen a dozen or so do it. Its happened to mine.

Start with foot to floor, huge cloud of gas smoke (white), then no issues.

Is that what happened to yours?


Its almost like there is a random 500:1 stop or start sequence that might trigger injectors to dump a mother load of fuel.

 

Well, this would have to be a random occurrence twice in the same day. It did start with foot to the floor which tells me that the car may have been flooded. I find it hard to believe that it would be from the damper I replaced not too long ago (few months), but I suppose stranger things have happened.

 

Tried it again after sitting from the foot to floor start, and it fired up normally. I let it sit and idle to see if it would die or idle funny, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Then got to work resetting the damn radio which lost it's memory while had the battery disconnected.

Anyway, I'll see how it feels tomorrow and report back. Thanks for all the ideas guys.