1992 firebird with 3.1l v6.
Recent issue is she will crank but not start, shuts off (instantly not sputtering), no spark at ignition coil, sputters during hard acceleration.
coil, plugs, wires, dist cap, dist rotor, starter, battery, fuel filter all new. fuel pump is at 47psi on start and holds at 42psi (spec is 40-47)

upon putting in the key all dash lights work fine, starter turns engine over with ease, no start can occur with/without vehicle at operating temp. Earlier test the car behaved fine until hard accel with engine rpms at 4.5k then rpms tanked and sputtered before the car shut off but was capable of being restarted then sputtering leveled out and returned to idle rpm. Wiggle test performed with no success...connectors on the ignition coil do not have broken wires.

First question: I know vats stops you from cranking the car entirely but can it cause these symptoms?
second question: the symptoms seem to be more inline with a bad starter relay I've seen conflicting information about location....so where is the damn starter relay? under the dash near the steering column or in the engine bay on the driver side firewall?

Thank you for any information....electrical issues are a nightmare specially intermittent ones....

 

First answer; No, it's not VATS, which kills the starter and injector pulse only. If you have "no spark at ignition coil" that is your problem needing troubleshooting.

Second answer; No, of course it ain't your starter relay, since you say the starter cranks the engine.

First hypothesis; In your list of replaced parts, I see no ICM mentioned, if your pickup coil measures the correct ohm reading, and if you have +12V on the big pink wire at the coil with the key on, your ICM would be the next item to check......

 

Pretty sure that ICM is fairly new (new within reason. it looks new and im some what confident that i replaced it about 2yrs ago when i got the car but im going to check the voltage later)