Well, some background first. The car is a 91 RS, 305TBI, A4. It's been sitting for about a year, and was running (with a slipping trans) when I parked it. My daughter said she wanted the car when she gets her license next year, so I decided to crank it up, move it to the shop, and start cleaning it up, and get ready to replace the trans. As the thread title would suggest, this didn't go so well.
The battery was dead, so while that was charging up, I drained the fuel tank (these tanks suck to take out!) While doing that, I found the rubber connector from the fuel pump to the hard line was rotted, so I replaced the pump and lines in the tanks, along with the pick up filter and the main filter.
Now, I have fuel (decent cone at the two injectors) and I seem to have spark (did the old screwdriver in the plug wire to ground trick)
What specifically is happening now is that when I crank the engine, I get fuel, and every now and then the motor will try to run for a few revolutions, then die.
I've checked the vats (#8 key) and it seems that when I turn the key to start, I lose the resistor value at the under dash plug. I got some resistors to total 2.3kohms, and bypassed the vats key.
I also pulled the plugs (big time fouled) cleaned them up and re-gaped them, cleaned the contacts in the distributor, etc.
I still have the same things...cranks, have fuel, spark, and sometimes it catches for a few revs, then dies.
I'm not sure where to go from here, but going to keep trying and hope I can figure it out.
Any suggestions will be very much appreciated!
I WILL post the results when I get it fixed!

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I have no codes, just "12" repeating endlessly which I understand to be normal since the engine isn't running yet.

 

Oaky, a quick update. I've gotten the car to fire a few times, but it doesn't run longer than a second or two. I checked for codes again, and now, I'm getting code 12 three times, then code 53 three times then 12 again.
Code 53 is "High voltage at battery OR High voltage at exhaust gas recirculation valve OR Voltage reference error OR Problem at vehicle anti-theft system"
How much voltage is "high"? My battery charger isn't the best, but when I hook it up, I get 13.8 vdc to ground. That seems normal to me. I havent checked at the egr valve, nor reference voltage (what is that) and what does problem at vehicle anti theft mean?

I'm done for the day, gotta go get ready for work, as I'm probably heading to Brazil this week for a few weeks of work.
Thanks again for looking and responding!

KevinD

 

 

your vats system is bad from what i have heard you car not running for very long is sign that your security system is bad

 

Thanks for the replies!
I've already bypassed the Vats key, but not the module. Guess I'll have to figure out how to do that. I didn't think it would be the Vats, as I thought the car wouldn't start at all if the Vats was bad.
My car doesn't realy start, but it does fire and run for a couple of revolutions when I am cranking it. I haven't messed with it since Sunday, just pushed it back out of the garage. When I get back from Brazil next week, I'll work on it some more. For now, I'm going to research the Vats system more.