well.....me and my brother are having quite a few issues with his bird and hopfully you guys can provide a little help-so here it goes.....Car stalls at any stop....as in, he basically has to hold both the gas and brake pedal when he stops so it doesnt stall on him-if he doesnt, then it shuts off. Same issue when he turns his car on to let it warm-up....runs/idles for a good 5 or so minutes then you hear the engine losing its grip on something, and it shuts down. Does this sound like a fuel delivery issue? hes ran the lucas fuel stuff pretty frequently since hes had the car hoping that it would help clean the injectors or whatever. Any idea on what this could be??

On to the next issue.....im leaning towards an electrical problem on this one-but an outside opinion is always better.....Along with the issues stated above-he was told it was his alternator not working right and his car was jus running straight off the battery....so we took both the battery and the alternator to auto zone to get tested....both came back fine, fully charged(battery) and alternator passed all the runs they did on it. So he bought a new belt thinking that might help at all-no dice. As soon as we put the battery, alternator and new belt back on, we fired it up to see how it was acting then...Right off the bat-the car sounded so much stronger and seemed like it was goin in a good direction.....i opened the door, sat in the drivers seat and turned on his headlights....the dome light shut off immediately and there was no response with headlights raising up or turning on. We had a similar issue with the lights before, but replaced the headlight switch and evrything seemed to work fine-but after we installed his alt n battery, its doing it all over again. Any suggestions???? id greatly appriciate any feedback on these issues.Thanx for your time......if this is electrically related-any advice for us to start looking into would be awesome......again guys-thanx

 

also....i left out that his horn/lights dont work at all....i jus went out there and checked all of his fuses and every last one of them are fine.

 

First off, he has a vacuum leak. Shouldn't be too hard to find one THAT big, I'd look at the brake booster check valve and hose or the MAP sensor for starters.

Second, for the alt thing, check your battery voltage with the engine running. If it's less than 14V, something's wrong. Also, check the connections of the battery cable and the fusible links at the starter solenoid to make sure they're tight, corrosion free, and otherwise undamaged. There is a junction block behind the passenger's side headlight I'd check next, where the alt output wire runs to. Check to make sure all of the connections here are secure, as this is how the alternator output voltage is distributed to the battery (or you could just replace the output wire with one running straight to BAT positive).

 

I've been having the same problem and my vacuum lines are all fine. I replaced my fuel filter thinking it could be messing with the pressure, it helped with my fuel issues but it still stalls and has a rough idle. The Chilton manual I have says it's either the EGR valve, ignition coil, or distributor cap/rotor. I'm replacing the dizzy cap/rotor today.

I also found some wiring disconnected near the battery that relays to the mass air flow sensor. Plugged that in and it ran substantially better, but still has a rough idle and still attempts to stall.

Still check your vacuum, usually the most common problem.

 

I would also run a DVOM on his fuel injectors... Resistance should be about 12.6 ohms (someone's going to argue with me about this, I KNOW, but this is what EVERY good used V6 fuel injector I have ever tested has tested at) , within about 1 ohm, no more than about 2-2.5 ohms difference between the lowest and highest readings. Seeing as how he LOVES that fuel injection cleaner (which sometimes has a tendency to eat away at the insulation on the injector coil wiring)... Each bank (if you test bank-at-once) should read about 4 ohms unless there is a bad one in there.

:edit: Pull your plugs, put them in order, and tell us what color they are. Plugs are the best indicator, for us without OBDII, as to how each cylinder is behaving in terms of the A/F ratio and oil control. They should be a light tan color on the insulator.

 

well this car is officially drivng me to the brink of insanity. Heres a run thru of parts weve replaced in the past month....

EGR valve( cleaned with carb cleaner, looks almost new)
Spark plugs (bought new)
Spark plug wires (bought new)
Distributor cap(bought new)
multiple MAP sensors (from jyard)
multiple IAC valves (from jyard)

We have tried to find the vacuum leak( stuck our heads under the hood with the engine running, but the motor is to loud to hear anything. Not loud in a bad way either...) the MAP sensors we got from the jyard havnt changed anything, and i doubt that all of the sensors were bad. His 'bird' is driving us nuts....i have a 60* motor in my car, 3100 L82 in a 1995 Pontiac Grand Am GT.....and i havnt had nowhere near as many problms as him. Granted that they are 2 diff cars, but both being 3.1L 60* v6. Anyways.....the vacuum hose to his brake booster wasnt hookd up when he got the car and we thought that was the problm but turns out its not. Any certain spot that is a common problm for a vacuum leak??? thanx guys.....

 

I'd still run a resistance test on the injectors, just to be on the safe side. Either way, what I would look for next in terms of a vac leak is the nylon hose running between the PCV valve and the intake. The rubber boots have a tendency to lose their elasticity and form leaks around the nylon pipe. You can just replace this with a small section of fuel hose and never have to deal with a leak again. Also, check your EGR pipe connection, the nylon line running into the MAP and the nipples at both ends of it, the nipple on the fuel pressure regulator, and the lines at the evap can behind the pass side headlight, which have a tendency to rot due to the fuel vapors (that are also exposed to manifold vacuum as opposed to ported).

 

I'm having practically the same problem. did you find out which hoses were leaking or what the problem was? i was hoping maybe you found a leak that i have too. replaced most of my tubing and a few valves. every part you mentioned and 800 bucks more. I've determined my car may be possessed. Anyways, any info would be helpful.

 

Mine turned out to be a bad EGR valve. Considering it was the factory one. Engine runs almost perfectly now. But now that the engine is running smooth, I can feel/hear other things going wrong. Ughh...this car is never satisfied.

 

I had mine checked by this whack shop that may or may not have checked it right so maybe i should try replacing that. As for the other problems, yeah, my camaro is a money pit. thankfully has a clear title. so you didn't find any hidden vacuum hoses in there or anything right?

 

All my vacuum hoses and lines are fine. Hoses to the A/C however, are not, but who needs A/C in Washington State?

I thought it was an ignition problem, so I replaced all the ignition parts. Still had issues so replaced PCV and EGR valves (both didn't work). Runs smooth now.

 

It just randomly started running smoothly again? odd

 

EGR solenoid may have been stuck open, that would have been the next guess as this only happens at idle, apparently. I feel your pain as I know those things are INSANELY expensive for 3 coils of wire and a couple pintles. I never figured out why mine kept not working on my 93 Grand Prix and throwing a code 32 even though I KNOW the thing was electrically sound and the ports were clear...