Hi all, I'm still having a couple issues with my '89 2.8 (auto). So far it has a new ecm,reman distributor,cap,rotor,wires,plugs,battery,and coil. The mechanic who installed the distributor swears up and down he got it back in the right timing(not sure,I'm no mechanic). After lining up the crank mark to 0 with the first cyl. at top dead center and turned the dis. to line up with #1, the car will start for a couple seconds then sputter out... After that I can get it started for a second or kinda sputter about but thats it while slowly turning the distributor to see if I can find a spot where it will at least start and idle.... It's fuel injected so of course fuel would be pumping while cranking right? He says its flooding it out and now after a few hundred in ignition parts were going from a "no spark" problem to a "fuel issue"... I dont get it... Could the mechanic be wrong? Maybe a stretched timing chain? The engine has 13x,xxx(cant remember exactly). All 6 Cyl. have good compression,no codes... I put a pressure gauge on the fuel rail and am getting high 30's-low 40's psi but he said it could be my injectors or something.... I would greatly appreciate any advice cause this mechanic wants me to take it back to his shop and spend more money... I'm convinced I can fix it but at this point I'm out of idea's and things to check or replace. Thanks.

The timing on these cars can be tricky. Mine had 3 marks on the damper for timing. They were evenly spaced around the damper and all exactly the same. There is also a wire on some that needs to be disconnected to disable the advance. On the other hand with 130k+ miles on the car it could be any number of things. Injectors can go bad or even blow out tips. It could also be a failing fuel pump, low compression, timing chain stretch (or even skipped a tooth depending how bad its running), could be a small fuel leak that is releasing line pressure, also any number of sensors that wont be detected by the ecu but are used by it could be faulty. I would suggest having a mechanic other then yours check the timing. then move on from there.

thats just it.. the mechanic screwed up the timing. its sapose to be set at 10 degrees instead of 0.

Thanks guys,I'll go re check that timing thing and then I'll investigate more parts.

peace