Okay, my '90 RS with a 305/TBI/700R4 has been having some very serious problems running since about last Wednesday. I had it out on the road that morning and it ran fine; nothing unusual and nothing out of the ordinary. I washed and waxed it, then when I tried to move it over in my garage, it would barely start and ran like crap.

I figured I'd managed to soak my distributor somehow and that that was causing the problem. It's had a few warm days now to dry out.

I started it again last night and it seemed to be getting better, other than a rough idle.

Figured I'd take it out on the streets around my neighborhood this afternoon and see how it acted, then maybe see about some new plugs/wires. Bad idea. The idle was horrible and erratic and the car has next to no power. It's like there's a "disconnect" between the accelerator pedal and the engine, because I could put the pedal to the floor and it would NOT get above 20 RPM, almost like there was a delay in it accelerating when I would try to speed up or perhaps it just didn't want to downshift.

Thank God I was on backstreets with no traffic ...I brought it back home promptly and it BARELY got up my driveway. I tried to give it gas to get up the drive and again, slow/little response from the engine. I actually ended up just taking my foot off the gas entirely and letting the car pull itself up the driveway (that worked better).

Once I was back in the garage, I opened up the hood and just let it keep running for a bit. Did NOT sound good. The idle would keep swaying up and down between 700-1200 RPM or so. Every once in awhile, it would suddenly rev itself, get up to around 1500 RPM, run smoothly and sound like it normally did (before this trouble started), but then it would sorta shiver and the idle would drop drastically/sound horrible again. When the RPMs got particularly low, I'd hear a ticking sound that seemed to come from the distributor area. It died on me once.

The car doesn't seem to have any trouble starting now. I just had it professionally looked over two weeks ago and they said everything was in good running order, so this comes as a real shock to me. Oh yeah... and all fluid levels are good. No wiring appears to be damaged or broken that I can see.

PLEASE...any/all help or pointers in the right direction for what might solve this would be appreciated, or at least if this sounds like the sort of thing I should have my car towed for, rather than brave the roads trying to drive it somewhere to get looked at or risk serious damage to my engine or something. I am no mechanic, unfortunately.

 

if the distributor gets wet inside i like to dry it with a hair dryer to make sure its dry. you may have gotten water in a connector somewhere also. check the codes and see what you have.

 

If you have replacement ignition parts, I would start swapping... starting with the ignition module...

 

skirkland- Hm...hair dryer. Good idea. I'll give that a go and see if it helps. I haven't had the "Check Engine" light come up yet. I don't have a code scanner, but I think my bro might have one I can borrow.

KN- I don't yet, but I was looking at the one MSD makes, since it's got a cover, too and that would probably help some with the water issue in the future. Probably wouldn't hurt to upgrade anyway.

Any notions on whether the car would be safe to drive to a shop when I've got ignition parts? There are several within a couple miles of my house and no highway driving (just plenty of impatient morons who like to do twice the speed limit in residential areas). I'm mainly just worried about it possibly dying or not getting up to speed quickly enough when I turn onto a main road; just had the exterior completely restored and the last thing I want is to get rear-ended by a speeder.

 

Ah, and the plot thickens...

Talked to one of my friends earlier who said something similar happened to her '97 Dodge Intrepid and it turned out to be a faulty fuel pump. I just looked up the symptoms for that and sadly, that does sound like a real possibility for my car, as well. Or possibly the fuel filter.

I may just have to try to get it to a shop for proper diagnosis. It still irks me that I had no real warning signs before this started, though.

 

Okay, forget the fuel pump. I just checked my car and I can hear the fuel pump doing its thing just fine. Guess I can't rule out a clogged fuel filter, but the pump should be fine.

Now I'm thinking a few bad spark plugs could be a real possibility here, too, as my symptoms also match that.

 

I had a faulty pump in my iroc, and I heard it prime every time. The sound means nothing other than it "turns". If your real concerned with it, put a fuel pressure gauge on the outlet.

 

Looks like the fuel pump's good. Even though my friend seemed sure that's what it was, I replaced mine within the last 2 1/2 years. I remember when it went bad; the car wouldn't even run

Anyway... I was going to run it by my "usual" local shop yesterday, but their consensus was that it still sounded like the distributor is the most likely culprit and that some of the wires may have been messed up by the water. Since the wiring wasn't pro-installed, they didn't want to mess with it (liability reasons) and referred me to the top wiring guy in town.

So, I went to talk to this guy for a good half hour/45 minutes. Based on its performance on the road and what I had done before it started acting up (car wash), he was almost positive that I just haven't been thorough enough with the trusty hair dryer. He thinks there's still a good deal of moisture hidden away within the distributor (and that the cap may be cracked), which is why the car has been so erratic. I was told to remove the cap and just totally go over every little nook and cranny with the hair dryer. Also told me to examine every little part for damage or exposed wires, and that I shouldn't take it back out on the road until I've made sure it's dry inside and that any damaged parts are replaced.

He seemed pretty sure that would fix my car right up; in any case, I got a pretty good vibe. I had cash in hand ready to let him work on it, but I appreciate his honesty in telling me this is something I can (probably) deal with on my own. I'm so used to mechanics who will try to push every stupid little thing on me as a solution, just so they can charge me outrageous amounts.

My bro's going to be in town near the end of the week, so he's going to give me a hand with this. Here's hoping I'm back on the road soon...

 

Is there a published procedure somewhere that outlines how to check codes?

 

I went ahead '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''GOOGLED'''''''''''''''''''''''''''' it for you.....

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