New engine went in and started for the first time just yesterday. Since then I've been having some interesting problems. Today I went to break in the cam... started the car, revved it to 2000rpms and fluctuated it from 2k to 2500 while my brother watched for leaks, filled the radiator, etc. Oil pressure was holding well at 60psi. Car ran for approx. 5 minutes and then bogged down and squealed REALLY loud and died. Let it sit for a couple minutes and then restarted it... revved it to 2k-2500 rpms again and held it... oil pressure still good. Car ran for about 5 more minutes... once the temp got to about 220 the car bogged down again and died and this time shot water out of the radiator about 3 feet into the air. I let the car cool off again and then filled the radiator back up and restarted it. Same as before ... temp got up to about 220 and the car bogged down and squealed then died and water shot out the radiator again. Once again I let it cool and filled the radiator and started it again. This time is seemed to run a little bit longer and after about five minutes I slowly let my foot of the gas to bring the RPMs down. dropped to 1500 then 1k and just about the time it got to 1k it bogged down again but didn't really squeal this time, just kinda died. Now I watched the oil pressure every time the car died and it did not drop prior to the engine dying... as the engine began to bog down it started to drop but that was just from the slower rotation of the engine. As the engine got hot, the oil pressure dropped from 60psi to about 45psi. It seems to hold even less oil pressure as the RPMs dropped when I let my foot off the gas. Seems to me like the Melling High Volume oil pump should be holding at least 45psi at idle when hot?? Also, I'm running open shorty headers and my brother said he occasionally saw a spark or two shoot out the drivers side header... a friend of mine said that was normal when running open headers for it to shoot sparks out like that. What the hell could possibly be going on to make it bog down and then squeal and die. The squealing part is really stumping me. I was thinking that since I haven't had a chance to hook up the timing light yet that maybe it's the timing that's causing it to do this. Could it be fuel starvation?? I'm running 24# injectors with the stock 305 chip and was told that I should run the fuel pressure as low as possible so it's currently set to about 30psi. Please help. I'm practically broke and don't have a job so I can't afford a scan tool and I don't know anyone that has one.

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1986 Trans AM
355 TPI
4 Wheel Disc Brakes
9 bolt Borg Warner Rear (2.77's....oh joy) :P
6" rods, approx. 9.7:1 Compression, Stock TPI (soon to be ported), 24#/hr LTI injectors (cleaned and flowmatched by Cruizin Performance), Hedman Shorty Headers, 3" exhaust with 80 series flowmaster, SBC 993 heads completely redone and modified for 1.6 RR, 1.52 RR (for now), Comp Cams XE262-14 TPI Cam, Holley AFPR, TPIS airfoil, MSD wires, MSD 6-AL Ignition, Hypertech 53,000 volt coil.

Track times to come.

 

The only thing I can think of is possibly your fan clutch is you have a non-electric fan.
u said it gets up to 220, which is about what temp. the fan would come on at.

 

Who told you to run your fuel pressure that low?? As far as I know fuel pressure should always be between 44 and 52 with TPI.
bsa

 

id say check the timing, then find out where the squeqaling sound is coming from, FAST, you dont want to srew that stuff up. is it a metal to metal squeal, did you lube everything up. i dont know what else to tell you, also put your y pipe on, yiu dont have any backpressure with open headers. flashes of light, and flames are normal out of headers but "sprarks" are not, make sure all of your parts will work with eachother good luck

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90 RS 305 tbi, 4 3/4" cowl Hood, Edelbrock TES headers, Flowmaster exhaust, Crane roller cam, comp roller rockers, vortec heads/intake, ported tbi, w/new injectors, MSD probillet Distributer/ coil, 1 inch tbi spacer, air foil, 14x4 k&n flat base air cleaner, Rebuilt 700r4 w/ B&M shift kit, B&M Megashifter, 3.23 posi, 2 12 RF's with mtx amp, top of line alpine cd player, soon to have 90-91 gfx, z-28 wing, new paintjob, rims, and all new lowered suspension.

 

The fan is electric.

One of the moderators told me to run my fuel pressure that low because of the combo of my injectors and computer.

The squealing sound sounds more like a belt to me. I know everything inside the engine is lubed up properly and with the engine holding good oil pressure and running as long as it has I'm sure everything it lubed up well now. Maybe as the engine starts to bog and die, either my alternator or PS belts are squealing. It's interesting to me that it only does it AFTER running about 5 minutes... if it were an oiling problem I would think that it would happen sooner. It seems to me like it only happens under 2k rpms too.

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1986 Trans AM
355 TPI
4 Wheel Disc Brakes
9 bolt Borg Warner Rear (2.77's....oh joy) :P
6" rods, approx. 9.7:1 Compression, Stock TPI (soon to be ported), 24#/hr LTI injectors (cleaned and flowmatched by Cruizin Performance), Hedman Shorty Headers, 3" exhaust with 80 series flowmaster, SBC 993 heads completely redone and modified for 1.6 RR, 1.52 RR (for now), Comp Cams XE262-14 TPI Cam, Holley AFPR, TPIS airfoil, MSD wires, MSD 6-AL Ignition, Hypertech 53,000 volt coil.

Track times to come.

[This message has been edited by 86TpiTransAm (edited November 17, 2001).]

 

another thing it may be...

its a new engine, and if the tolerances are very close then it is possible, but very unlikely that when it gets hot the pistons expand and causes the engine to lock up, and it cools down and will run again.

My dad told me a story of a car ..it was a 1950 something and when he rebuilt it this was happenening.

 

I may not be the most knowledgeable person here, but I'm gonna have to agree with irocbsa, that fuel pressure seems absurd. 30psi? You couldn't possibly get a good spray pattern with that low of pressure. But any fuel problems aren't causing the squealing. Maybe it's an accessory or something, try removing the belts to see if that stops it.

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91 Z28
Come see The Vicious...

 

Expanding pistons huh?? I checked all of my piston skirt clearances and they were all within spec. The pistons I'm using are made by Badger, they're a .125 dome piston for a 6" rod and they are for full floating rods, not press fit. Plus it seems the engine wants to die at lower rpms as opposed to rpms around 2500. I think it could be a timing or fuel pressure problem... or a combo of both.

 

I only have two belts, the alternator and the power steering and I could remove the power steering belt but I can't exactly do that with the alternator... I kinda need that to keep it running. It COULD be the fuel pressure/timing combo isn't right and causing it to bog at low rpms and when the engine bogs THEN the one of the belts starts to slip and squeal.

 

Hmmn, I thought the LT1 injectors were rated at a much higher pressure than the 3rdgen injectors? If that's true, then you could be just leaning it out too much. I'd suggest getting the pressure up to 40 or so, anyways, and monitor the A/F ratio via external gauge, or with a scanner on the O2 sensor.

Seems to me you're just running out of fuel.

Spray some belt dressing (check the AP stores for 3m belt dressing) on the belts, should eliminate the squeak, WD 40 will work, but might get a bit messier.

 

How do you monitor A/F ratio with an external guage??

 

Ah, you can run the engine without the alternator belt. You just won't be charging the battery. You can sorta monitor the a/f ratio by jumping the A and B connectors on the ALDL with a paperclip. Do this once the engine is running. Once it goes into closed loop, SES on means rich, off means lean. Hypothetically your computer should see a lean condition and lengthen the injector pulses to compensate. So you may have the right a/f ratio but just poor atomization of the fuel. In this case you won't really be able to see it by watching the SES. Or you may have maxed your injector pulses and still be lean. If this is happening then you will be able to see it by watching the SES.
But it sounds to me like whatever is squealing is what is stopping your engine, not fuel related (as if something were locking up, either internal or external, like accessory). You can run the engine without all your accessories, except for the waterpump, don't want things to overheat.

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91 Z28
Come see The Vicious...

 

You can monitor through the ALDL, somewhat as described above, but as I recall, the SES light flashes quickly, or slowly, depending on AF ratio, but I don't recall which is which.

There's several AF meters available on the market, some which use the existing O2 sensor, some which require the use of heated O2 sensor, and some sold as a complete package...ranging from about 50 bucks to 150bucks, for the non-wideband ones.

Another option is if you have a laptop (or your desk top is close to the car ) you can download Craig Moates scanning SW, make or buy a cable (about a 100.00 to buy, no cost for the SE download) and monitor through the ALDL connector using your CPU as a scantool.

But the fuel pressure seems excessively low to me, heck, I'm sure the injectors you're using can't be outputting more than the SVO 24#'ers (rated at 24#'s at 36psi?), and no-one I've read about is running such a low fuel pressure with the SVO's, even on stock engines.

 

To me it sounds like something with your cooling system, i.e. waterpump. that might be whats causing the squealing of the belt, and the high pressure of coolant. the way i see it, and i don't know if i'm right, but its just something to ponder, is that there is something thats causing your water pump to be overworked possibly, maybe causing extremly high pressure, and your belt squeals and the engine bogs and stalls because it can't turn the pump enough without losing alot of power. i'm not totally sure if thats at all possible, but what else could explain the coolant blasting out of the radiator. could a thermostat put in wrong do that? Just an idea. don't know too much about the mechanics of the cooling system, so i don't even know if its possible.

 

the comment about the waterpump got me wondering if you might possibly have a reverse rotation pump... when the thermostat opens it might cause the belt to start slipping due to the pump trying to push the coolant in the wrong direction putting an excessive load on the engine witch might make it bogg down and cause the belt to squeel... when the engine stops the pressure being released from the coolant trying to go in the wrong direction would release and then you get your instant old faithful... I might be way off but its a theory... the only other thing I can think of is the torque converter may not have been in all the way but that would be a very remote possibility from the symptoms...

zroc

ps... maybe a stuck thermostat...

 

I plan on taking the thermostat out and boiling it in a pan on the stove to make sure it's not bad. It's new but I've heard of it happening. The water pump COULD be the possibility. It's NOT a reverse rotation pump. It's the same pump that I was using on my 305 with the same pulley setup. The pump might need to be replaced. The insides were a little rusty when I looked inside. I plan on probably replacing it as soon as I get another job. Tonight my friend and I went outside to set the timing and before I started it I advanced the distributor a little more than what it was when I had these symptoms. My friend checked the timing and it was only at 3* so I know the timing had of been 0-1* earlier which is WAY low. We bumped the timing to 6*. I also bumped the fuel pressure to about 35psi for the time being. The car ran for over 10 minutes and never died. I shut it off when the cops pulled up. Guess running a car with open headers at midnight will **** the neighbors off. So it looks like tomorrow I'll check it out again.

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1986 Trans AM
355 TPI
4 Wheel Disc Brakes
9 bolt Borg Warner Rear (2.77's....oh joy) :P
6" rods, approx. 9.7:1 Compression, Stock TPI (soon to be ported), 24#/hr LTI injectors (cleaned and flowmatched by Cruizin Performance), Hedman Shorty Headers, 3" exhaust with 80 series flowmaster, SBC 993 heads completely redone and modified for 1.6 RR, 1.52 RR (for now), Comp Cams XE262-14 TPI Cam, Holley AFPR, TPIS airfoil, MSD wires, MSD 6-AL Ignition, Hypertech 53,000 volt coil.

Track times to come.