Hi, I own an 89 iroc-z tpi 305 that I'm currently working to get on the road. When I first bought the car about 3-4 months ago the car had no problem starting,. Although the car has not been driven for a very long time, I bought the car with a busted rear, and after working on the chasis and everything thing else I'm now looking to put a rear in it, and it is currently sitting on jack stands, and 2 tires. I decided last night to throw the drive shaft back in, and fire it up. When I went to fire it up, it had a lot of trouble getting started, but eventually started chugging along, but than quickly died. I than tried starting it again, and it refused to fire up. After a few more tries, I threw fuel (This is my really the first car I've ever worked on and don't know much about cars so correct me if I'm wrong please) throttle bottle and than went to start it and it fired right up. I than checked the fuel pressure and noticed that it was 0, which I'm guessing is the reason it won't fire up right away.

I'm new here and did do a lot of searching on the forum looking for answers, but couldn't really find one. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

 

sounds like your fuel pump is not working.. do you hear it when you turn the key on? it should run for a few secs/ if you hear nothing check the fuse and the fuel pump relay. If those are good, its probably the pump.. have fun pulling the tank.. Be real carefull working with fuel, make sure you disconect the battery, both terminals, you want no accidental spark

 

Where is the relay located? And I checked the fuse and it looked like it was fine, so I don't think that would be it. Can the fuel pump just die from sitting their to long?

 

How old is the fuel in the tank?

 

Honestly, I couldn't tell you. My fuel gauge is screwed up, so i actually don't know how much gas was in it when I got it, which was in July but apperantly the car was sitting before that for a while. But as I said in my first post, when I went to initially look at the car before I deciding to buy it, it fired right up. I put a gallon of fresh gas in it earlier today before I tried starting it again and it didn't work.

 

Here's a helpful troubleshooting article: http://www.austinthirdgen.org/index.php?pid=35

Hope this helps.
Lou

 

That article was very helpful thank you very much.

I ended up fixing the problem which was the fuel pump negative wire was not grounded inside the car. But once I fixed that the fuel line from the air filter was spraying out gas :x. So today I went and picked up the repair kit from autozone, and put it on. I'm getting around 40psi fuel pressure, but my engine still will not fire up. If I dump gas in the throttle body it will run, and stay running as long as it's being reved and not idling. Have no idea what is going on now.

 

Where are you checking the pressure? At the rail? Does it try and start/sputter at all when you try and start it without spraying fuel in the throttle body? Have you checked for spark yet on all plugs? If it sat for a while, it could have had a fuel issue and spark issue that both decided to give you trouble at the same time. Check for spark before going too much further with the fuel as you have pressure and it still doesn't want to light. Also, did you check the fuel pressure while cranking? Still at 40 psi?

 

Yes I was checking the pressure at the rail. I checked the spark plugs and it was flooded.