Recently bought my 1990 Firebird Formula (305 TBI) and it had been sitting for a while but I still drove it home. Well after a lot of headache and trial and error with it stalling at idle and missing and generally running like crap, we got it running pretty good. The one thing it's still doing and makes me worry about driving it more than around town is that I'll drive it to the next town fifteen minutes away, and it'll be fine, and then it'll sit about an hour and I'll drive it home, and right before I get home (again, about 15 minutes) it will start sputtering intermittently and it'll try to stall, and even if I floor it, it just surges around 2,000 rpm like it's not getting any air. Anyone have any ideas as to what's wrong with it?

 

Thinking maybe a coil?

 

Hook up a fitting and check fuel pressure when it's trying to stall. Ohm injectors and check nozzle spray patterns. Change out fuel filter and check timing. Check for vacuum leaks. May have to refurbish TBI with new filters,o-rings, and diaphragm. May be old sediment in gas tank clogging fuel pump. And, welcome to the forum, see this is your first post.

 

ECM might have gone bad. My car did the same thing for a while and i couldnt figure it out. one day when it was acting up i turned the ignition all the way forward (without starting it) and i heard a weird clicking noise under the hood and my injectors were firing and the car wasnt even running. new ECM fixed it right up. just a thought.

 

Well, we're able to hook it up to the laptop so the ECM is good. O2 is reading a little high (6.5ish) and the IACV is reading 1 and I heard it's supposed to be reading somewhere in the 30s but could that be the cause of the surging and stalling?