I have an 89 IROC-Z with a 305 TPI mounted to a standard shift 5 speed. I bought the car from a guy who had problems keeping the car running. He went to start it one day and the starter stayed engaged, melting the battery. Here is where I come into play, what I've done and what i can't figure out....

Replaced the starter. There was a small blue wire connected to the big starter post that ran up near the battery and was spliced to a red wire that went into the big wiring harness on the firewall (don't know why it was spliced or what it went to). Started the car and it ran for 45 seconds or so and died, couldn't get it to start up again. Put fuel pressure guage on and had 0 fuel pressure. Replaced the fuel pump and fuel pump relay. The insulation around the fuel pump relay harness were melted off, like the wires got too hot. Connected the battery cable and got smoke from the fuel pump as if it was grounding out. Checked grounds and wires, reconnected the battery and got no smoke. Turned the key on and got 75 PSI fuel pressure. Pump came on for two seconds and stoped like it should until you turn the engine on. Tried to start the car, smelled gas and checked oil, oil had turned into gas basically. Checked fuel pressure regulator which turned out to be bad. Replaced regulator (got 45 PSI), upper plennum gaskets and oil. Car started after alot of work. Replaced battery cables just in-case I wasn't getting a good connection. Car idled at 1500 RPM's cold and never came down. After about 3 minutes it ran real rough and eventually died. Would not start back up until it had cooled down.

Here's where I am having major issues figuring out whats wrong. The temp guage does not go above 210 even after it runs for the four minutes until it dies. I replaced the temperature sending unit and the temperature sensor. The two electric fans have been hardwired together (which I know is wrong) and they do not come on at all even when I know the engine is running temperature. The temperature guage didn't hardly move with the new sending unit and when the engine was cold I was able to rev the engine to 5000 RPM's. After the engine got hot (temperature guage barely moved) I couldn't rev the car above 3500 RPM's without it loosing almost all power and backfiring through the intake at times. I replaced the ECM thinking it was getting too hot and screwing up (I put plenty of electrical grease on the backside of it). I'm getting a good hot spark from the coil but I replaced it just incase. I wired the fans to come on right after I started the car, thinking this was a cooling problem but I ended up with the same outcome, engine gets hot, car runs like crap and won't go above 3500 RPM's, car dies and won't start again until it cools almost all the way down (about an hour or so).

I know this is alot of reading but I have searched forever through the forums and cannot find a fix for this. I don't have any other ideas so I hope one of you can help me figure this out.

 

well dude, no car is gonna reach temp in 4 minutes. So don't worry about that. Check your timing if you can. And if you are melting wires that means they have way to much amps running through them, or shorting out stuff because of bad wiring. If your car is backfiring it sounds like a timing issue. And when you got smoke from the fuel pump and then it stopped when you disconnected and reconnected the battery THATS NOT GOOD, Sounds like you are frying stuff because of a short somewhere.