Hi everyone. I know this problem has been covered before & I have done countless searches on it already. Just wanna get some feedback or point me in the correct direction for searches on it. My Camaro just died on me a couple of days ago. Ended up flooding it trying to get it started again so I just towed it home. Got it started the next day, but it barely ran. To keep it from dying out I gotta keep the revs up, it also misses alot! Also, it smells really rich & the exhaust smokes alot, (like smokescreen alot) while running. Here are things that I have done already.

1. Listened for the fuel pump to prime while turning on the key. It does. Now I have a fuel pressure gauge attached in the engine bay on the feed line by the rail going from the hard line to rubber line. Is the gauge suppose to read any pressure while the key is on? Or just when the car is started. It has pressure while the car is on & revving. Gotta reconfirm what the reading is though.

2. Changed out the ignition module, cap, & rotor.

3. Tried new coil. (external type)

4. Ran car with the CTS disconnected. Still barely ran. Same symptoms.

5. Checked all the fuses.

I still gotta check the spark plugs & wires.

Just a couple of questions.

1. Would a dying fuel pump cause the car to miss & smoke like this?

2. Could a clogged fuel filter do this?

3. Would a bad O2 sensor do this?

Sorry this post is soooo long but I'm just a little frustrated. Like I said I did some research with searches & if I missed anything that was already covered in my questions, just let me know. Thanks everyone. Aloha!

Anthony

 

Sounds like your really rich.

You said it ran identical with the CTS disconnected. If the ECM doesn't see that sensor, it will default to -40*F, making the car dump fuel into the motor. If it ran the same with it disconnected, I'd take an ohmmeter to the sensor and compare the reading to whatever spec is. Also check out the IAT. Will have the same effect, but not to the same extreme.

Ohm out the sparkplug wires as well, and make sure they aren't arcing to ground or crossfiring anywhere. And pull the plugs like you are planning. Look for any fouling, minute cracking in the ceramic, etc...

Dying fuel pump or clogged fuel filter would cause the opposite condition: Lean.

Bad o2 could possibly be the culprit. O2 sensors always fail lean, meaning that the car's mixture could be perfect, but it's telling the ECM that its really lean. The ecm would try and correct the false condition by dumping fuel into the motor, giving you your rich condition.

Good luck

 

Now that I think of it, I am throwing a code 44. If I'm not mistaken, I think that's lean exhaust indication. Could an O2 sensor just "all of a sudden" die while I'm driving & cause the car to die? Think I might just change the O2 sensor for the heck of it. It might be only the second one I went through, & I have 120,000 miles!

Thanks for the ideas & opinions onebinky! I appreciate it. Anyone else got any thoughts to add

 

ttt

 

yes it can just up and die while driving... mine did lol. You arent alone... I'd replace your CTS and O2's as general maintenance anyways. This will probably be the last time you'll have to change those out for years anyways and you'll never have to worry about them again.

 

Also forgot to add that in order to get it started, I gotta crank it for awhile & pump the gas. If I don't play with the gas pedal it won't start.

 

Also note, OEM recommends o2 sensor changes every 12,000 miles

I also don't follow that rule, but I datalog pretty frequently and can keep an eye on the o2 x-counts and range to make sure it's good.

 

sounds really dumb and all... but you could check your ecm if you have messed with it... when i did a chip swap in mine, i forgot to plug the computer back to the car all the way, and of course, that would cause it to die

 

12,000? wow, well, mine had obviously never been changed in the 102,000 miles she had been driven before I got her. I think I'll replace mine in another 3 years or so, lol. But my ECTS also had never been changed, this was obvious because it was so brittle that the prongs just broke as soon as I got my fingers around them.

Any word on what you've done with it and the results yet?

 

I'm gonna change the O2 sensor later on today so wish me luck

 

Things like that happen all the time So I don't think that it's dumb.......And yes, I did check all my wiring hookups just to be sure

 

Oh well, it wasn't the O2 sensor. I pulled the plugs & wires also. I found out that plugs number 1 & 3 were only finger tight & spinning freely! Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't that cause those cylinders to lose compression. Both of those plugs were also veeeery fouled & black as hell along with plug number 2 also. I was surprised to find that number 8 was well worn cause usually I have found that number 8 fouls out the most. So do any of you think that my extremely fouled plugs & those that were only finger tight could of caused my problems? I can only work on the car a little at a time everyday so I feel like a turtle trying to get across a field here lol! The wires seem to be ok but I'm gonna hook up some cheap ones that I have just to be sure. Wish me luck!

 

Fouled plugs can definately give you drivability problems, and so can loose plugs. Really sounds like you're on to something now, good luck!

 

I am not an expert on computer setups, but I always thought ECM doesn't really begin doing its work until the engine is warm. O2 sensor doesn't sense things until it gets hot enough. Is that correct?

If that's the case, O2 sensor should not play any role when you trying to start the car. Computer should be in open loop (using preset table for fuel injectors) and ignore all sensors until it enters closed-loop mode. Again, no expert, so correct me if I am wrong guys.

Have you tried checking compression in all of your cylinders? I am not sure what exact symptoms would be if one of them didn't have a compression, but worth a shot. I think you already were on the same track, but I am not sure if you were planning to get a gauge.

I had a geo metro (my first car) that cracked one of its valves so had no compression. It behaved sorta similar and I had to take air filter out then pump a lot of gas to get it moving. Ran on 2 out of 3 cylinders for 2 days

 

You're correct that it doesn't look at it during open loop, but the car does remember previous fueling conditions. It records these as "BLM's", which stands for block learn multiplier. Basically the equivilant to long term fuel trim on newer cars. It will reference these previous conditions and take them into account during open loop. So if the o2 is telling the car that it has a history of running lean, it will account for that by adding more fuel into the mixture.

 

So if that's the case, he can disconnecting neg cable from the battery to reset the ECU (15 sec, or something). After that, ECU should use factory presets since it won't remember anything. Then we'll see if it changes anything. Right?

 

i think its 30 seconds, but yes, that is precicely right... i just did that to help mine pass smog... it ran rich during the "pre-test" so i figured it was a bad O2, so i restarted the computer, ran it without warming up the O2, and i passed cuz the O2 didnt have time to screw up the mixture... too bad i have a miss or i could be registered again...

 

Wow! I leave for work & when I come back I get all these replies. Thanks everyone! I did already try disconnecting the battery to reset the computer after changing out the O2 sensor, so I'm one step ahead there. And yes VILeninDM, I am gonna do a compression check on all my cylinders when I get the chance. I still hope that my loose spark plugs are the cause of my headache here. I'll keep everyone informed when I get to the car later on today.

 

Well, it seems that I just have a bunch of little things that all went bad on me. I changed the spark plugs today & now the car fires right up without me having to pump the gas. It then ran semi-ok with me on the gas a little for about 5 seconds. Then it started to stumble & smoke again. It won't idle at all & smokes even more when I try. Next thing to check will be all EGR related so I'll keep everyone updated.

 

Just wanted to let everyone know that I finally got the car running & solved my problem. Turned out to be a leaky injector & it was dumping waaaaayy too much fuel into the motor. Thanks again for all your help guys. Laterz.

 

So, how did you find it? Just curious in case I ever see a similar problem

 

When you turn the key just to on, the fuel pump energizes for a few seconds. What I noticed was that one of my injectors was squirting out fuel when this was done. At first I thought that maybe it was like a prestart priming type of thing, but later learned that it wasn't suppose to do that. After swapping in the other injectors, nothing squirted out when I turned the key on.