I'm going to be honest:
I hardly know a thing about cars. But after all this i've learned quite a bit!
I'll do the best i can to explain, but really any help is very much appreciated.


Alright, this is a long, long story. and i'm going to start from the beginning.

I had an oil change in april of this year at walmart. Right as i was pulling out of the parking lot my car does this "chug" kind of thing. it would stall and not go completely a few times, and then be fine once i got going. It didn't do this all the time. Just once or twice. Also, when starting my car, a weird "hnnn" sound would happen right after.

I drove out of town 1 1/2 hours. it did fine.
A month later, i drove it to New Mexico. four hours away. It was fine then, too.

a couple of weeks after my end of may nm trip, my gas gage goes nuts and stops working for a couple of days. I put in enough gas so that i knew i could go a little over 100 miles. ON THE WAY to the gas station, just around the block... i run out of gas. This is where my trouble really started.

We could not get my car going after putting gas in and pouring it into the front as well. I sat in a parking lot for three hours and finally the tow truck was called and my poor car was taken home where it sat for a week.

My fuel pump had apparently gotten burned up.

Had a new filter and pump installed, it was once again fine. Drove it to NM for 4th of july. did wonderfully the whole time there, and the whole way back. I was there about four days.

two weeks after i get back it does the chug thing again, but this time my car died on me. i could not get it started at all, and i was in the middle of traffic. some really nice guy helped me push it into a parking lot, and a friends dad brought me some gas. It started right up, and i thought i'd just been stupid again. But i knew i'd had gas in it! things started getting really weird.

my car would get bogged down. I've read all about this on here and other sites, but nothing quite matches mine. It will rev itself almost, go up to 30rpms and back to 10 again, up and down. When i drive off, it won't pick up speed immediately. I have to pump the gas peddle, and even then it will chug and not pick up speed, or switch gears it seems without me having to help it along. When i start it, i also have to rev it, for fear that it will just die after revving itself a couple of times.

I had it looked at by the same guy who did my fuel pump. I didn't really like him, but he was a friend of my dad's who my dad really trusted. He said it was the fuel pump AGAIN! and was planning on getting me to have him do it all over again. paying full price. again. yeah, thats just not cool.

he also said something about my mass air flow.

Well, I got a second opinion.

the next guy came to look at it, brushed off some wires, told us it needed a tune up. My dad even drove it and told me i was crazy, there was hardly anything wrong with it. But really, things just kept getting worse. I stopped driving it, there wasn't a point when i could hardly go over 20 mph. and it was dying at every stop.

I got a tune up.
New cap, wires, plugs, etc etc.

It didn't help it much but it sounded a little better.

Turns out that my older friend's boyfriend had been a mechanic in a shop and had owned six camaros he'd restored and sold. He really helped me out.

He got it driveable. My catalytic converter was clogged and he'd taken it off. I also had my idle control sensor replaced, that helped out significantly as well.

He told me that i probably got some cheap gas somewhere and it gunked stuff up really bad. My injectors were also replaced.

Now, i can drive my car. It does a mild form of its chug which usually will go away after i get warmed up a little... But its still not running right. I can't run into a store and expect my car to start up again if it's not cooled off.

And i occasionally have to keep pumping my gas if i'm trying to start it up too soon after turning it off.

I really love my car, and i want her to be fixed and happy again.
If anyone has had these same problems, please let me know what you think!!

 

mine did the same thing when my icm, (ignition control module) died. its in the cap under the rotor

 

Sounds like an old sad story Kitty.

What you need time, a bit of money and lots of patience. Simple enough? But its a start.

1) Verify that you do not have set codes. This requires a bent paper clip shorting Pin A & B of the ALDL connector. There is a sticky that goes into greater detail. If all is well and ECM does not see any faults you should only see 3x code 12. Post your findings.

2) I would start first by checking fuel pressure - this requires access to a fuel pressure gauge and TBI specific test adapter. Most auto parts loan fuel pressure gauge test sets, but few have TBI test adapter. Do a search first. The reason is that your car, as you have mentioned, may have had a tank of bad gas. TBI relies on fuel circulating between tank through TB and back. Verify that your fuel filter is not full of crud.

3) This hot chugging might be secondary syndrome. When it gets that hot and starts chugging it may indicate lean condition. To verify this simply disconnect CTS connector plug (CTS is located next to thermostat housing). CTS plug typically has a blue weather protection sleeve and should have yellow and black wire. The following will (should) happen - ECM will see open CTS which is the equivalent condition when engine is very cold (-40C). Cold engine needs more fuel, ECM will add more fuel. After two minutes of run time ECM will set Code 15 (it expects for engine coolant to start warming up and for CTS to register this) which you will have to clear at the end of this experiment. If engine performance improves than it looks like you have fuel restriction somewhere - this could be a weak fuel pump, pinched line, or clogged fuel sock or even incorrect injectors (too small). When finished shut off engine disconnect negative terminal from the battery for about 1 minute to clear stored ECM codes.

4) All other ignition related things - base timing, all ignition components: rotor, cap, spark-plug wires, spark-plugs, coil, etc need to be looked at one by one.

//RF