There must be a hundred no start threads, but from what I can see none of them are similar to my situation. My car has been idle for almost three years. I installed several new parts all at the same time: idle air, throttle body, AFPR, coil, runners, intake manifold, headers, water pump, and on and on. I also had to pull the passenger side head to remove a broken bolt. The engine is turning over and runs very roughly when I give it gas, but dies quickly at idle. I have spark. I checked with the timing light. I'm getting fuel. I can hear the pump kick on. I hooked up a fuel guage and it reads about 40 psi when the engine is being started. I'm wondering if maybe I didn't adjust the idle air control correctly. I'm also hearing a humming noise (like you'd hear from a transformer) inside the engine bay. Initially I thought it was the timing, but turning the distributor didn't help one way or another. Any thoughts?

Check firing order.... 1,8,4,3,6,5,7,2 Distributor rotates clockwise.

Yeah, put the engine at TDC and the rotor was facing forward. I made that post the #1 wire. I went from there and they are all in the correct order, but it still won't start. Any more thoughts? I'm open to anything. I'm sure it's something basic that I've missed.

I had a similar issue after mine sat for three years. I would start, sputter and die almost immediately. Couldn't get it to rev at all. Wound up being the injectors. I replaced them all with a used set of Ford/Bosch injectors I got off eBay for $50. Problem solved.
Dave

I can eliminate the injectors as an issue because I just sent them away to have them tested, cleaned, and flow matched. Keep those ideas coming!

I stabbed the distributor for the forth time and no go. The engine would sputter like it wanted to start, but it wouldn't stay going. The header exhaust tubes for the 2, 4, and 5 (possibly 8, but I didn't feel it) were cold. The other exhaust tubes were hot, so I know I'm getting ignition in some cylinders. Any thoughts on the fuel? It has been sitting around for the better part of three years. Maybe the fuel is bad, but I'm not sure why only those certain cylinders would fire if that was the case. Any thoughts?

Your IAC might be stuck closed or maybe not, but to help you diagnose this, adjust your idle screw to keep your butterflies open some to allow your car to run when you start it, sounds like maybe it's just not getting enough air? keeping your butterflies open a bit might help you a good deal.

I will try that. I'm also going to drain my gas tank and put fresh gas in, replace the fuel filter, replace the spark plugs, use a pre-oiler on the engine and restab the distributor.

It was a hard lesson for me to learn, but in the future I will only change one to two parts at a time. I rebuilt or changed so many things that I don't know where to start.

So here is something I thought was funny: I pulled the spark plugs and I was expecting the cylinders (2,4, and 5) that weren't firing to have black plugs. Instead, it was exactly the opposite. The plugs belonging to the cylinders that fired were black and the plugs belonging to the cylinders that weren't firing had that nice tan color. I wonder if those cylinders that aren't firing aren't getting fuel. How could I test for that? Given that I just had all the injectors flow tested, it would probaby mean that the injector isn't even opening wouldn't it?

plug those plugs into their respective wires and crank the car while holding the plug near a ground, see if they're firing, might want to do that with all the plugs. I hate that we can't take our injectors out and test them to see the spray pattern or if they're even opening.

my 1988 gta did the same thing.....it ended up being the passenger side injector wires. it wasnt getting power from the fuse block and the fuse was good, so i took the fuse out and ran a hot wire to the injector wires that went to cpu from fuse block and tied into the cpu and put a inline fuse on it and the car started running like it was suppose to....its still running 3 1/2 years later. hope this helps

Man, you had me so excited because I thought one of the fuses might be blown. Unfortunately they were good. Given that, I should probably test for continuity between the fuse block and the problem injector harnesses.

Yeah, it'd be way easier just to pop the injector out and see if it sprays rather than trying to track down a bad wire.

87.6 ohms for all three. Given that the injectors were just serviced, maybe I'm not getting spark. I'm wondering if maybe the plug wires are bad. I cut and crimped them to length myself, so it seems possible. I think I have the original plug wires laying around so I'm going to swap those in before I do anything else.

I replaced the spark plugs and slaved in a different set of wires for cylinders 2, 4, and 5. I stabbed the distributor and verified that the wires were correctly positioned again. None of it worked.

2, 4, and 5 still wouldn't fire. I decided to double check the injector harnesses by using a test light. All three harnesses were getting power. At that point, I remembered that the injectors are grounded through the ECM. According to the wiring diagram, each bank of injectors is spliced together into one wire that plugs into the ECM. Since some of the four injectors on each bank work, the wire between the spice and the ECM must be good.

My next thought was that the problem must be with the splice, so I checked the continuity between a known good harness on each side with a suspected bad harness. There was continuity.

I pulled the driver's side valve cover to see if the rocker arms moved as I rotated the crank shaft. Both the intake and exhaust valve moved no problem.

None of this makes any sense. I've checked and double checked almost everything I can think of except for the injectors. I just had them cleaned and flow matched, so I don't see how this could be. Regardless, I have an extra set of injectors I'm swapping in to see what happens.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

Sounds like sticking injectors to me. Since all injectors within one "bank" fire at the same time, you can try switching the harness plugs on adjacent injectors to see if the problem moves to different cylinders. I think you said you changed the fuel filter, is it possible that you got some dirt in the line? It doesn't take much to plug an injector.

I was wondering if those injectors were sticking too. However, this problem showed up before I changed the fuel filter, so I'm wondering if the injectors could've been clogged by my 3 year old gas and not the filter change. I emptied the gas tank, changed the fuel filter, and installed a different set of injectors. I'll be buttoning up the rest of the engine today and probably be able to try starting it again tonight. I'll let you guys know what happens.

Man, troubleshooting is time consuming. It's a good thing this car isn't my daily driver.

I got started early today. Swapping in a different set of injectors made no difference. Somehow the cylinders that aren't firing changed from 2, 4, and 5 to 2, 3, and 4. I thought maybe I'd try swapping the number one and number three injector connectors. The problem did not follow with the swap. I'm totally lost at this point. I just don't know what else to troubleshoot.

Now I've got everything firing except for cylinder 3. I pulled the plug wires on the three cylinders that weren't firing and reseated them. Maybe that was the problem and maybe it wasn't. My alternator is humming. It is brand new. I also have a spare known good alternator that does the same thing when I install it. I've never noticed my old alternator doing that. I'm wondering if I screwed up on my trunk mounted battery install. I can get the car running, but as soon as I take my foot off the gas, it dies. Maybe the alternator isn't charging. I'm thinking that maybe I should move the battery back to the front of the car and install the original harness and see what happens. Any thoughts?

I'm wondering if maybe my MAF sensor is bad. I unplugged it from the car and now it starts and stays running. I'll have to check my trouble codes and see what I can find.