Hey everyone,

Been awhile but I'm back with a question.
Car starts and runs great for about 2 minutes, dies and won't restart for 5 or 10 minutes. Then it will fire right back up and repeat. The idle gets a little rough for a second then just cuts off.
I replaced the ICM in the distributer, same problem. Looking for next steps.

Anyone experience this before?
Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

When the car will not restart for 5-10 minutes. This is the time to check for fuel and spark. I'd hook a fuel pressure gauge to your fuel rail and crank the car. Make sure you have 40+ psi. If you do, then I'd get a spark tester (or just use a spare spark plug, ground it, and see if there's spark when cranking).

I had a similar issue. It would randomly turn off like someone flipped a switch. Sometimes it would restart. Other times it wouldn't. Other times it would start, idle for a few seconds, then die. It was completely random. I had 40+ psi at the fuel rail. And I had spark. I was chasing my tail for a month. Then I got a noid light from AutoZone. Hooked it up to one of my injector connectors. I'm watching it blink as the car's idling. All of a sudden it stops blinking and the engine dies a few seconds later. I try to restart, it won't fire, and the noid light is not blinking when cranking. Let it sit a while, crank the car, the noid light is blinking and the car fired. Long story short the injector driver in my ECM was flakey and would randomly stop working. Put a new ECM in and problem solved.

 

Thanks, waiting for a fitting for my gauge.. Then I will test.
Just as a fyi, when it dies and won't start, the fuel pump does engage. For what that's worth.

Thanks again for the quick response.

 

Been a year but....
OK checked fuel pressure, it was good.
Hooked up an inline spark tester. Car ran for a couple minutes, died. Tried to restart and tester didn't light up when cranking.
So, I am assuming it's spark related. I have already replaced the ICM, even swapped out an old distributor.
The ICM I put in was from Advance Auto, not sure how much that matters.
I was thinking of getting a Jeg's distributor, in the reviews someone said they had been blowing through ICM's and that distributor seemed to fix that problem.
I have the original and a MSD distributor now. FYI, I have an MSD 6 ignition.

Any ideas?

 

The msd box could be a problem too. Disconnect it from the system and test it. If it still has an issue you can always reinstall it. For right now, remove another possible thing to be a problem.

 

Sounds like the coil to me. They’ll do that if there is a bad ground or on the way out. Double check your grounds and as said bypass the MSD box to rule that out. Good luck.

 

Nice call Aliceempire.
MSD 6-AL was the problem after all.
Hooked stock ignition back up, all good.
Thanks everyone for your input.