So far, it's died leaving the driveway in reverse. No sputtering, nothing. Just backing up and......dead. It's died on me sitting in traffic when the e fan kicked on. Then tonight I pulled into the driveway and it died. No sputtering, bucking or anything. Just died. Where the hell do I even begin to trace this?

 

Does it fire right back up like nothing happend? Or do you have to let it sit?

 

I've had 2 vehicles do this. both were TBI. The first was an '88 Camaro, so I swapped to a 355. The other was an '89 S-10 4.3 w/ 292,000 miles, so I stripped it and let it go.

 

mine does this sometimes at random during idle.. fires right up after but is annoying cuz then i have to wait for the idle to come back down b4 i can put it in gear

 

Mines did it twice so far. It only happened when I go to park it though. I think it has something to do with the idle since my car idles pretty badly. I can start it right up again after it dies though, so it doesnt really bother me too much.

 

could be a fuel pump relay going out. had a similar problem awhile back and changing the relay worked. i also changed the MAF relay along w/ it. about a year later the fuel pump died.

 

Yeah, it fires right back up. Cranks for maybe a second and turns on.

The whole fuel pump assembly is only 2 1/2 years old. I would hope it's nothing to do with that.

 

neither of mine were fuel pump related, I did the tests.

 

I see a possible hint in that it's dying when the fan comes on. Is this always the case? Keep in mind that turning on the AC forces the cooling fan to come on, so the stalling could also coincide with the AC coming on.

Years ago I had this problem with my TBI. When the fan kicked on it would momentarily cause a severe voltage drop and almost complete loss of electrical power to the whole car for just an instant. Occasionally, depending on what other systems were in use, it would cause the engine to stall. I was also blowing fan relays every month or two.

I recommend you remove your fan relay and examine the contacts for scorching. If you notice any charring, discoloration, melting, or other signs of excess heat from the cooling fan over drawing inrush, then you need to grab a new relay pigtail harness that isn't messed up from a scrap yard and solder it in. Also at the same time you need to replace the cooling fan motor. I'm thinking this is the cause of the issue, an old cooling fan overdrawing unrush causing a voltage drop sever enough to kill the engine. As far as I know the fan motor is still available from GM, part #22137318.

This is what my contacts looked like before I replaced it, concrete evidence of my cooling fan overdrawing. Soldered in a new one, with a new GM relay and a new GM fan motor, and I haven't blown a single relay in 2 years and I don't even notice a voltage drop when my fan comes on.



Please note that there could be other systems that are overdrawing in a similar matter, this is simply MY experience. I suppose even an old faulty alternator could cause such a problem. Do you have crazy stereo equipment?

 

I had this happen to me once when idling in traffic. Out of nowhere it just dies. Started back up no problem, but it kinda worried me. I figured it might have been electrical so I re-did most of the ground wires and replaced/rerouted some of my other wiring a little better. Didn't do it again.

 

It's only died once when the fan kicks on. Although you can tell the car loses voltage when it kicks on or you turn the AC on. The last two times it just shut itself off.

 

Used to happen randomly to me. I later realized that the alternator was losing power from time to time (completely random). Became worse after installing underdrive pulleys, so I put in a 200 amp one, no problem since. Gives perfectly steady 14 volts even at 450 rpm idle. Mine was always getting worse under heavy electrical load. This also could explain the stalling under high current requirement, resulting from the fan kicking in for your case. I would check the battery voltage (Should be close to 12.5-12.6 volts with disconnected terminals) and the terminals and connections for corrosion. Also check the charging voltage under heavy electrical load (headlights, fog lights, a/c blower, brake lights, fans turned on) at idle. Should be around 13.5-14.5. More like 13.5 under that load. At least you could eliminate charging system as a cause of your problem.

 

my lt1 car dies randomly damn optispark


if its just stalling out it could be the IAC"idle air control" since that controls the idle or it could be carbon build up in the iac bore remove it and clean it with carb cleaner mine aswell clean out the rest of the intake when your that

i havent had the issue personaly but ive fixxed alot of random stalling issues by just cleaning the iac out

 

I work at sears auto so I used the electrical testing equipment and everything checked out ok, battery, alternator and charging system. I also checked the fan plug as posted earlier, it's fine.