I bought a 1988 2.8L firebird a few months ago that I've been working on to get running. I know I must be close because I've had it running afew times and I thought I had done it but the next day it still did not want to start. Most recently after replacing the fuel pump I got it to start off spraying some throttle body cleaner after that it ran on its own gas for 2-3 hours. I had some injector cleaner and iso heet in the tank to help with possible gummy injectors and moisture in the tank. When I turned the car off it would start right up. The next day all it will do is chug once or twice then die, and thats where I'm at. I'll list the parts I've replaced and checked, maybe one of you guys and help point me in the right direction.

Throttle body
IAC
TPS
Plugs and wires
Ignition coil
Dist. and rotor button
Fuel relay
Fuel pump, pump filter
Inline fuel filter
and most recently because I thought my injectors were bad some injectors and fuel rail from a 86 Camaro that I bought and used for parts.

Thats it thanks for taking the time to read, and I hope I can get this car figured out so I can quit bummin' rides everywhere.

 

If you have a pressure gauge, check the fuel pressure. Also check the resistance of the fuel injectors, which are known to short out electrically.

 

Sadly those checked out also at 43psi and I had 16whatevers of resistance. Thanks for the suggestion.
I double checked my TDC on the correct stroke, the position of my rotor button, and my plug wiring today and they were all correct.

 

How long does the fuel pressure hold? GM says that the fuel pressure should hold for at least 20 minutes without losing even 1 PSI of pressure.

Also, remove a spark plug and check the color of the tip on both sides of the engine.

 

I'll have to double check the pressure, when I first bought the gauge it held fine, but after swapping injectors I think the pressure slowly falls after a minute. The plugs I checked today, plugs 1 and 2 were fine. Both were black with no build up. Though when my dad checked it last week he said the new #1 plug had some carbon deposit on it. So I dunno. Thanks for the help I'm tremendously grateful for any help.

 

If the plugs are black, they're not fine. The injectors you put in are probably leaking and causing the engine to run rich (too much fuel). Spark plugs should be almost new to tan to slightly gray in appearance, depending on fuel additives and other things. Black plugs are a sign of too much fuel.

 

I could have sworn the terminals at the end of my plugs were black out of the box. Excessive fuel will cause the car not to start? That's disappointing when I bought the camaro, from family, he said it ran fine till the fuel pump died, so I figured most everything else should be fine... oh well still a steal at 150 bucks. If my old injectors are just clogged is there a way to clean them?

 

The insulators on the plug tips (white when new) is what I'm referring to, not the electrodes, which are sometimes black and sometimes silver.

Yes, excessive fuel can foul out the plugs, causing a misfire or no start. It's happened to me before.

:edit: You can get an AC transformer from RadioShack and make your own injector cleaner... There is a thread around here somewhere about that . Or, you can send the injectors out to be cleaned (SouthBay and a couple other places, I think) for about $15 per injector, or you can somehow get the car to a shop and have them do it for about $250, which may or may not work. Or, the last option is to pick up a cleaning kit from the parts store or eBay and do it yourself. Be prepared to pay for the last route, however, as the air-powered cleaning cans are $$$. There is a 3M kit out there somewhere that will do the same, but I've yet to find it.

Best option is to go to SouthBay and get a set of new injectors that are warrantied for a long time. They'll probably tell you to do this anyways as the Multitecs you're running are prone to both clogging (assuming the pintle cap type) and shorting out internally, as I said before.

 

Thanks Maverick, we also offer a promo code for 10% off for all tgo members.
Honestly if you are going to clean your fuel injectors the most efficient and reliable
way to have it done is to send them to a reputable company that can put them through an entire cleaning and flowtesting process. Fuel injector cleaners, cleaning kits, etc may work but the problem is that you will not know how effective it was without being able to visualize the spray pattern, check for leaks, etc.
And yes, if you have multecs, i would definitely recommend swapping them out. The multecs are prone to coil failure and are very problematic. We do not even take them as cores.
slightlychris if we can help you in any way please do not hesitate to contact us.

www.southbayfuelinjectors.com
516-492-6504

 

Maverick:
Nope insulators are still white and clean. I'm going to make sure I'm getting fuel to the spark plugs tomorrow by checking the wetness before and after I try to start the sucker. Thanks for the suggestion about southbay also.

Southbay:
I didn't see anything about cores or core charges on your site. Is this promo something I have to call in for because I didn't see a promo code spot, I didn't go all the way through with a checkout I just wanted to see shipping costs. Nice price for 6 though only 40-ish bucks more than a cleaning not with shipping and 3 year warranty

 

slightlychris,
we do not have a core charge, and as mentioned when people offer their multecs to us we respectfully say no...we have quality products and the multecs are just too unreliable for us to take a chance in selling them.
As far as the promo code is conerned, you need to go through the checkout process and then you type in TG11 or if you prefer to order by phone just mention that you are a tgo member.