My camaro is posessed. I swear it!

I finaly get it to start and idle. The distributor worked its way loose, and I was going to tighten it up and fine-tune the timing today. But, I go to crank it, it just cranks and cranks, fires up mabey on 3 cylinders and dies. Try again, same thing. I try a 3rd time, and she backfires LOUD, nearly blowing out my muffler (it sure kicked up a bunch of leaves!). The timing is way screwed up. But, I can't even get it to crank, retarding or advancing a bit at a time and cranking. It will hit 1 cylinder, like it's trying to, but no vroom vroom. Uggg.. This is why I like my cuda... I can change the plugs in 5 minutes, and you have to get a carb waaaaayy out of wack to not even start
Damn EFI... its a 89 TPI system.

I end up getting it to crank a bit, but the starter will start to grind/let go due to the batt being drained.

Any ideas, except for some gasoline and a match?

 

The Basics.


are you getting fuel ?
pressure test at the Fuel Rail.

are you getting spark ?

Is the dist 180 Flipped ?

If it is, the car will backfire and chug and bitch, but not start.

Sunds 180 flipped to me.


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60 Ranchero - Project ( Money Hole )
85 Sport Coupe LG4 - Daily Driver

Just another Hot Rod kid, or thats what they all tell me.
Livin' the Stereotype

 

I had the same problem. Found out that my pickup coil wires to my Module fell off and was arching. resulting in backfiering out the intake and out the muffler. it was messed up

 

I had somewhat of the same problem with my car after the cam swap. Turned out the distributor was 180* off.

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1987 Chevy Camaro IROC-Z
L98 TPI 350 (5.7L)
TH 700R-4 Transmission
Borg Warner 7.75" 9 Bolt Rear End

Current Mods: LT4 Hot Cam, Comp Cams 1.52:1 Roller Rocker Arms, Edelbrock TES 1 5/8" Headers, Hooker 3" Aerochamber Cat-Back System, Performance Resource Chip, Accel Ignition Coil, Cap, Rotor, 8.8mm Wires, K&N Filters, JET TPI Air Foil, All Free Mods, Falken ZIEX Z-Rated Tires.

Best ET (w/o LT4 cam): 14.32 @ 97.7mph
(corrected for elevation)

7.5" 10 Bolt with 3.42s soon to come!

 

The distributor was never removed. I've never seen one jump time 180deg w/o eating the timing chain in the process.
Now the car started and ran the day before, no signs of major trouble.

Now, i'm cranking and the damn starter is like its not leting go of the flywheel when the car tries to start. I am going to do a fuel check, spark check, and general electrical check (if it doesn't storm like hell here today..).

BBT

 

Ok.. we're getting somewhere.
Fuel pressure checked showed good. ECM is working. Getting blue spark now that I got the distributor where it wants to be.

The problem is, the plugs are being drowned in fuel! I pull one off, and it just reeks of fuel, dripps off, dribbles out of the plug hole. I've pulled 3 off, they are all like that. Why is she running do damn rich? This car doesn't have a MAF, so I'm still guessing it uses coolant sensor, MAP and O2's to adjust the mix? I can't talk to the computer (no ALDL...don't ask me why) so i'm just trying to figure things out as I go.

Any other ideas? Any good way to lean it out heavily? I mean... its just dumping fuel in there bigtime. Reminds me of my old car when I took the blower off and didn't change the computer

BBT

 

Sounds like you have a spark problem, first things that usually go are the modules on the back of the distributor underneath the distributor cap. Start from the plugs and work your way back to the distributor coil to diagnose where you don't have spark. This will pin point where the fault is. You may not be getting enough spark to the plugs, it may be too weak. You can disable the injectors by pulling the fuses for them if you feel that it is getting drowned on fuel. There are two sets of fuses for the injectors, one for the left side and one for the right side injectors. The fuses are located and labeled on the fuse panel.

 

of the 3 easily-accessable plugs that I pulled, all 3 had good blue spark. Thats not to say something itsn't fireing right, but there is fire in'da wires

Now, Just for grins, I pulled out a plug on the passenger side of the block. These plugs are VERY new, and only had the car started a few times since I put them in (solved the no-start condition before, but they were very fould from running so rich). I put in a brand new plug, and that cylinder fires (header gets hot for that plug). I guess since it's brand new, its got a little more area not covered by a carbon-dusting (nice black... not burned or corroded). But, these plugs are not old at all! I mean, a week or 2 at best. Still dumping a whole lot of fuel into the cylinders though.

Its kicking, like it wants to start, but it just can't get them going. I can smell the fuel from the exhaust pipes its so rich.
I'll see if my fuse pannel has right/left banks of injectors. It has TBI 1 and 2 listed, but there have never been any fuses in the box. I'll check them.

Still doesn't explain why there is so much gas going into the cylinder. What tells the ECM to enrich the mixture? Its like all gas and no air.

 

Cold start injector switch not shutting off drowning it? Try holding the pedal to the floor and start it. Plumes of black smoke mean either the cold start injector isn't shutting off, or the afpr diapham is ruptured and shooting fuel through the vacuum line. Is it TPI? Ooops didn't check.



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'88 Camaro RS 2.8L
'88 Formula 350 (Too many mods to list...)