I was driving on the way to pick up my girlfriends sister and the car stalled in the middle of the street and refused to start. It would crank and start up for a second, but immediately die.

This is a fresh 1400 mile 350 tpi in an 87 camaro, half a tank of gas, fuel filter changed six months ago, oil changed last week, coolant flushed last week(thanks to a leak that developed). The car has run fine otherwise, except for a rare stalling immeditaly after starting cold or on an incline and being put into gear. It is an automatic.

I pulled the plugs and they are all completely black. Fuel pressure when the pump primes after the key is turned is about 44psi and held for the thirty seconds I watched, so the injectors are not leaking and the pump is getting power and works. When it stalled it smelled like raw fuel, so I thought the car was flooded somehow. The fuel pressure regulator is adjustable and less than a year old, the fuel injectors are also relatively new. I'm in the middle of changing the plugs and checking things, what else should I look at? The computer sets no codes. The alternator and battery are less than six months old each, as is most everything but the fuel pump/computer. The distributor/cap/rotor/coil are just over a year old from msd. I removed the cap and rotor and cleaned away any deposits from the terminals a few months ago, they look new. Any help is appreciated.

 

I just thought I'd add one thing: The voltage has been reading sort of low lately, but this is at idle with the a/c and stereo/amp on, so I'm not sure if that's even a problem. After a half an hour my fuel pressure guage read 18psi, so it bled off 26psi in that time. I haven't finished changing the plugs yet, it's so damn hard to get some of the passenger side ones with these headers.

 

Okay after replacing the spark plugs and cleaning the distributor and rotor the car starts and feels fine. I'm wary of driving it in fear that it will happen again, though. I haven't been getting great gas mileage, maybe that's related? CTS, 02 sensors are new. MAF was replaced last year with the relays. All fuses are fine. The car is pretty much perfect, it's been swapped over to serpentine and everything works fine, even the a/c. The chip needs a bit more proramming, but that's all. No oil or coolant consumption. Any ideas?

 

I know you said you have a new Distributor...but I heard no mention of the ignition module..any chance it may be bad? I just did my plugs Saturday and yes they are a pain...Took 2 times as long on the pass side.
This is a tough one...I hate now it works now it doesnt problems.

 

The distributor came with the module, cap, rotor, etc.

 

Started it up and it was running a bit rough, so I redid the plugs. I started it again and it still ran a bit rough, but it idled. I revved it and it died, then it wouldn't start, and smelled like raw fuel.

 

I did another fuel pressure test. I didn't try to start it because I can see that my plugs are already starting to foul. After priming the pump the fuel pressure drops from 46psi to 30psi after only two minutes, and 25psi after three minutes. I was under the impression that the injectors were good, but I'm not 100% sure. The fuel pressure regulator seems fine. I'm going to try posting this on the tpi board also since it seems that it's a fuel problem.

 

sounds like it might be a bad injector to me. When one of mine went bad the car died in the middle of the freeway, wouldn't start again for awhile. Then would start, and if I revved it and then quickly let off the gas it would die again.

 

At least one leaky injector. I had the same problems just not to the extent as you. I had 2 leakers and 2 bad ohm'rs.

 

Thanks guys, I figured it was them yesterday, but I didn't think I'd be sold bad injectors. I guess I'm just naive.

 

did you put in a new ign. coil? I dont know which ones had the coil in cap so you may have gotten one already with the dist.

DOH... Didnt see the fp part