my 83 z28 CFI. stalls when put in gear with the brakes on. it idles around 1,200rpm if my tachs right. but when i put it in gear it just stalls, instantly. any ideas?

 

1200 rpm idle is too high, but I dont trust any factory guage. Does it sound like its idleing at 1200? I would check the timing. If its too retarded then it could die with a load on it.

 

i dont know for sure what its actual idle speed is to be honest. and its started back firing now just before dying. does that change anything? or would you still say the timing is off?

 

Not saying for sure its the timing, but it still definetly could be. Checking the timing is a good thing to do every now and then anyways, and if you have a timing light (which you should if your going to work on these cars) then its free.

 

ok, set the timing to 6* (well, pretty close to it) before tdc. and now things have changed. it idles at 1,200 like it did before. im going to give alittle background here first which i should have done at the beginning of the thread.

i bought the car not running, from someone else who had the car sitting for the majority of the 2 years they had it. the person that had it before them built the engine, but the person i bought it from could not tell me for sure what was done to it, so i bought it (cheap) and decided to mess with it. at first, all i had to do was change the wiring harness (tracking that down was a bitch...) but then it stopped running again VERY shortly after. changed the fuel pump and it runs, idles at 1,200rpm, and stalls in gear...

now im not sure if my tach is right... but, heres what it does now, initially it idles at 1,200rpm and then drops to ~800-900rpms and will idle longer but still dies, now i dont know if this has any relation, but after driving it, it idles at 3,500rpm (and yes, it sounds that high) any ideas for either or both problems?