Hey all, I am new to this site and I'm having some serious issues with my 1987 camaro 305 TPI.

Ok heres some history. First, it needs to be noted that a previous owner definitely made some performance modifications, and not very well (I.E brake booster, shift kit, performance chip in the ECM, terrible wiring). At one time the car ran great. But now it was having a really rough time starting. Once it got started I could keep it running and it ran OK, yet still rough and hesitant. Could restart it within 5 mins but if I waited longer it would take time to crank. I started looking into checking the threads here and just kept finding more and more issues with this thing. Heres what I have done

Put a new Distributor cap and rotor on, needed it anyway. And then I tried to set the base timing just to be safe before going to test the TPS, IAC, MAF sensor, etc. Reading here to unplug the wire to put the car in bypass mode before the timing is what I tried to do, and realized the check engine light wont even come on. I manually tried to put the ECM in Diagnostic mode with the jumper and nothing. I pulled the ECM out, found the pinouts and validated the grounds were OK and the battery supply was there. It seemed to me that all the battery power voltages within the two connectors were fine. There were some that didn't match exactly, and I can get more specific if needed.

Also, I tapped the fuel rail and read the pressure, and after the car was started it ran at about 38 PSI steadily, and held the pressure for a while after the car was off. Im pretty stumped, I even had another ECM from an 89, (both are 1227165) and put that in and still couldn't get the diagnostic mode or the check engine light to even come on. Can someone help me out with some troubleshoot steps? Thanks

 

More information, I have checked all the fuses under the hood, all are okay, and the ECM 20 Amp in line fuse near the battery. The three relays are tricky, because I dont know how to test them, or what each of the three are. One says MAF Power, and then I have two other relays.

Moreover, in my novice approach to this I unplugged the ECM completely and tried to start the car. It wouldn't fire as I didnt think it would since I am creating a giant open circuit in the harness. But when I plug it back in and spray some starter fluid in the intake it turns over and stays running.

 

I apologize, I am going to move this thread to the ECM forum, I did not realize how many different areas I can post in.

 

I'm having the same problem, did you figure out a solution? thanks

 

I have not. I actually had planned on re-posting because I have recently began trying to solve it again.

 

So I am still having the problem with starting and keeping the engine running. The issues are still that it is very hard to start, and now it doesn't like to keep running. I am wondering the best plan of action to really debug and fix this issue the right way. Being this isn't my everyday car, I can sort of take my time and do this right. Here are some pictures of the car, with all the mods that were done by a previous owner. I am still working to understand them, and how all of these signals are ultimately used by the ECM. I think this has turned into an electrical issue just as much as a potential hardware issue.

 

I have several pictures and two videos, but I am not sure how to upload them for all to see.

 

So I posted all of my pictures to an album in my profile. It is a full coverage of the engine as best as I could get with my cell phone. Also, I have posted these two videos to YouTube. Any help would rock!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCCdF...ature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVgVG...ature=youtu.be

 

I would recommend getting a scanner or a data logger to see what the engine is actually doing when you try and give it throttle. I had a Ford Probe that would do the exact same thing to me...car would die as soon as you gave it gas, it ended up being a disconnected MAF on that one.