Hey guys, I am at a loss with my 91 Formula. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have a 5.0L TBI and I am having troubles with the car starting. I think it is a fuel related problem, but I am not sure. When I go to start the car, it doesn’t matter if the car is hot or cold, it acts the same way, I hear the pump make noise. I will then turn the car over and over and over. It will do this until the battery is dead. Now every once and a while it fill fire right up without a problem. If I pump the gas pedal like a mad man the car will fire. If it does fire I need to hold the pedal down for a few seconds at a high RPM or the car will die right away. Once the car starts and is running for 5 seconds it runs like a top (except for it burns a little oil) and I am getting 24-25 mpg on the freeway. At random the check engine light will go on. The light turns on once every 10 starts. The light will stay on until I shut the car off and will remain off if I restart it. The code I pulled was “54”. All I know about this code is “egr system failure or fuel pump circuit low voltage” Lastly, since I bought the car the fuel gauge has been pegged at Full since I bought the car. Please correct me if I am wrong, but if I remember correctly the gauge will stay at full if there is a bad ground. The weird thing is every 1,000 miles or so when the fuel tank gets low the needle will move down and then go back up and go down a few time in a slow creepy way before settling down near the bottom. Once I fill up the needle stays pegged at full. Any advice would be great. Thanks in advance for all your help.

 

You need to check the fuel pump relay. It's located driver side firewall, between brake booster and fender. There is a bracket there, held to firewall with two 10mm bolts. There are 2 relays on the inner side of this bracket, one is fan relay, other fuel pump relay. The fan relay will have a large black wire with red stripe.

Mark the top of the fan relay with a sharpie. Remove the fuel pump relay and look at the connector - see if there's any burnt spots on the connector - if so the connector needs replaced. If it does, either get one from dealer, or order one here: http://tpiparts.net/inc/sdetail/10962/3991

If no burnt spots, then remove fan relay & put the fan relay in the connector for the fuel pump relay. Start car & see what happens. If car starts better and runs better for a few minutes, then problem found - you need a new relay - $10 any parts store - take old one with you.

 

I found the relay and switched them. The car started right up and ran as it should. Thank you so much for helping me out. I am going to buy a new relay tonight.

Will this [relay] fix my fuel gauge problem?

 

Thanks again for your help. The car starts and runs great.

 

Sorry - relay will not fix the fuel gauge.

 

Fuel gauge sender is located in the tank. You'll need to either drop the tank or cut an access hole in your rear deck (under the carpet). Do a search for fuel pump access and there's a great post with a dimensioned photo for cutting the hole. If you can find a used one, you can check it with a DMM set to Ohms - find the two wires that lead to the sender and move the float up and down slowly. If it doesn't change ohms smoothly, it's probably bad. I found a good used one searching on Craigslist. Good luck!