I have an 89 Firebird Formula 305 TPI 5spd. I just bought a 94 Z-28 in case my Formula died and right away something happened. I tried to start the car and it turned over, but nothing happened. I smelled gas and assumed that the ignition was not igniting the fuel that was being sent into the cylinders. After a few seconds of cranking the car would not turn over. I put on a battery charger and let it sit overnight. The next morning the same thing happened so I decided to check the spark plugs. The #2 plug was pretty bad looking. The porcelain was all black and the rest of the plug looked really fouled. Then I decided to replace the plugs along with the distributor cap, rotor, and wires. After that the car would crank but nothing more. I then noticed a smell of gasoline under the hood. It was coming from where teh air filter is. I also realized that my charcoal canister was cracked, but that probably had nothing to do with a few inches of gasoline around the air filter. The next step was taking off the mass air flow sensor and tubing up to the throttle body. I opened the throttle body to find that the plenum had gasoline in it. Does anyone have any idea what is wrong? My only explanation is that the pistons pressurized the gas and pushed it up the base manifold and up the runers and so forth. That just seems a little too far fetched for me.

 

Welcome to TGO, best place on the web for 3rd gen information.

For the fuel issue, most likely the fuel pressure regulator went bad. There is a vacuum line that runs from the regulator to the plenum (or TB?). When the diaphram leaks fuel is forced through the vacuum line directly into the plenum.

RBob.

 

i'll 2nd on the regulator. i have a bad one now.