Phil R

last night my car started to stumble like crazy after driving fine for about 30 seconds. it seems like not all the cylinders are firing. when i step on the gas the car does not respond or it stalls out. it seems like the car is dumping lots of fuel but the ignition is not burning it. I checked the spark plug wires and one seems pretty loose. I can actually remove it and the problem is unchanged so i'm thinking I may not be getting a good connection. I pulled off the plug wire when the car was running and the put the spark plug connection back on but the condition did not change.

this is my first car with a distributor system and I'm not sure how to check the distributor is working properly. The distributor is new and the plug wires are aftermarket nology. I also pulled the 2 ecu controls on the passenger foot well to see if i have water and I do. messing with the ecu does nothing. what do you guys recommend I do next?

mortymower

Are you saying that there is water in the DME and KLR control units?

Phil R

no, water on the carpet on the passenger side so pulled the rack out and removed the connections to make sure the wire harness connection was dry. it seemed ok

Papamurphdog

Oh crap! Had this problem and it can be a dooozy! Deep breath...Remove the battery and look for holes first, mine had a hole where the former owner had run power for the sound syst. There is only one good hole and it is formed into the sheet metal sideways, which is the factory weep hole; do not plug that with silicone, plug everything else with silicone! On the weep hole, take a coat hanger, bend it ups a bit and shove it back and forth in the hole till is moves fairly freely and flush with air if you can. The air should blow out the exit hole under the pass. fender well directly below. Water in the foot well most likely will dry and be fine, car should start. If not a number of things could be fubar. Water damaged my alarm unit and I have since bypassed it (clarks garage) and I susspect it also shorted the DME beacuse I had to replace that as well to get it to start again. The guys on this list helped me a ton! There is a string on this list somewhere, but I am not good at retrieving them. Went 'round in circles for weeks on this. Plug battery box, jump the alarm, replace DME and it should start. I left the alarm jumped BTW; mostly useless and draws power when off. PM me if you need help.

Papamurphdog

BTW, before you do the above check to see if the refrence sensors are functioning; turn it over and if the speedo seems to be "bumping" off zero, moveing slightly as if bouncing, then the sensors are likely fine. It is possible for them to have issues, but I'm not sure it is directly rain related.

Phil R

so went out and messed with it a little and the car will run but very rough and not on all cylinders. when i hit the gas nothing really happens for about 10 seconds then the rpms will start to climb. what can I do? think the reference sensors are working because the mph gauge bounces a little. what else should I do? should I swap the DME and KLR control units with a friend? what else can I check? the engine is not making any noise so I hope all is well inside.

Papamurphdog

That one is beyond me. I just found that my speed sensor female connector is badly frayed and probably malfunctioning; probably so for a long time. See my post and you can see the -- now larger -- pictures. After a heavy rain, or an engine bay wash, the car would not start. Then, magically, it would start agian. just got off the phone with a 944 addict buddy and he confirms that my issue would not let the injectors fire. Your case sounds different; I think. Mine is more of a "won't" or "will" it never runs badly. Running badly after a good wet down can be just about anything. You have spark, fuel, but runs rough; so, I'd ask the opinion of other smart rennlist posters. You need to post info about the car...is it bone stock or what. Then you'll get some help here. good luck! I'm off to find a sfemale peed sensor connnector and specs...

Phil R

the car is not stock but nothing crazy. the PO did a couple things to the engine to hop fully improve durability but nothing wild. the car is running autothority stage 2 chip running 14psi. no mods that could really have anything to do with this problem.

so I took apart the DME and KLR control units and I do in fact have some water inside. not a ton but now, a day after the storm I'm sure most of it drained out. so yeah I suspect this could be the issue. I'm not 100% convinced because the cars behavior is so weird it doesn't really point to a fuel issue and I'm pretty sure my spark is good. I unplugged the throttle position sensor and the car ran perfect for about 10 seconds before falling on its face.

a friend is bringing over a spare DME so perhaps I'll be up and running shortly.

Rich Sandor

If you had water inside the DME/KLR, I'd be sourcing replacements ASAP. I would not want to be running DME/KLRs that had water in them in the past, as reliability is going to be questionable from now on.

Even if it appears to have dried out, who knows which subcomponents have permanent internal damage.

The other thing is to quickly find and seal the leak which caused the problem in the first place.

Phil R

so i dried out the control units, plugged them back in and the car runs perfect. nice!

Airflite40

oh phil..... tsk tsk water on the brain.....