Hi Guys,

big problem. My 3.1 V6 has had a starting problem for a while. It sometimes would barely start, stumbling and missing and running rough and would either die as soon as I started off, or would stumble and run rough for several minutes, or die as soon as I went to slow down. It was a real struggle to keep lit. Sometimes I would wait a few minutes and it would start right up. Like I said, very intermitent to say the least. I had my mechanic take a look at it last time and it came up 'no fault found'. But now, it is doing it all the time to the point where it will barely run(as if it is running on only 1 or 2 cylinders and I can smell unburned fuel) if it runs at all.

My regular mechanic can not diagnose the problem. He says he needs a 'breakout box'- whatever that is- to diagnose the problem, but doesn't have one and is telling me to take it to the dealer.

Any of you V6/3.1/electronic geniuses know what to do here? I do not want to tow it to the dealer and get charged up the wazoo for something simple.

I don't know electrics- PROMs, pins etc are giberish to me, so if you do have an answer, PLEASE type slowly!!

 

Well if the car is running that bad im going to go ahead and guess you probably have some sort of check engine light? A good place to start would be to check what trouble codes are stored. Unfortunately this is where we have to start talking some giberish lol. If you do a google search on how to pull obd1 trouble codes there are probably many better examples of how to do it than I could describe. However if you still cant find out how, a while back I made a short video on how to pull trouble codes with a paperclip. If you wanted to PM me your email address I can see if I can find it and send it to you.

 

did he do a compression check?

 

u smell unburnt fuel huh.. this is gunna sound cheesey.. but check your plugs... i had the same issue with the fuel n i pulled the plugs out n saw tht 1 was completely shut n soaked in fuel.. i regapped em and sprayed them with starting fluid. lit em on fire to burn the fuel off cleaned em threw em in n it started right up

 

If walkthelin3's possible problem wasn't it, take it back to your mechanic and ask him to test the fuel injectors. I have a 91 Formula 5.0 and just last week it died. It started up after that but would die when I would slow down (it always died at red lights). It turns out one of the intectors were bad and thats what completely killed the engine. We replace that ONE injector and then all the other injectors started working again. She fired right up and now she's as smooth as a Corvette. If yours is TPI then check that out. What year is your car?

 

judging from his motor. it sounds like an early 90's.. unless he did a motor swap

 

If it's the 3.1L V6, it's a 90-92 motor, unless like you said before, he has swapped the motor. But, it isn't a TPI car.

 

Same principles affect both V6 and TPIs. Ohming out the injectors would point out the bad one(s). Another common one is the IGN module

 

bad injectors ecm or fuel pump?

 

Oh ok. Yeah. I forgot. I never had a 90's V6 but I still should have known because aside from my '91 Formula, I also have an '86 that's a V6 and it's a 2.8. But anyways he should check his injectors. When my car did the same thing, we replaced the ECM and distributor first. But nothing worked until that injector was replaced. So I guess the ECM and/or distributor COULD have been a part of the problem but the injector went out and that's what caused the engine failure.