unseenT/A

Hey all,

I'm totally stumped here, after hours of working on this car i'm back to the drawing board.

Here's the story, I drive a 1992 Camaro RS 3.1 V6 as a daily driver, bought it for $550 replaced literally everything, cars been good to me up until last week.

It was extremely cold in NYC these past few weeks, i take the car to work every morning and it was giving me hard starts for a few days but overall it drove pretty normal, on one particularly cold day i went outside like any other normal day went to crank it NO START! It sputtered a little bit but i gave up after i noticed it wasn't going to start.

Here's what's been replaced/checked.

ALL parts listed below were changed about a year ago when i bought the car unless noted otherwise.

MAP sensor
All Injectors
TPS
IAC
Entire new distributor w/ICM
Plugs
Wires
Coil
Knock Sensor
Coolant Temp Sensor
EGR valve
02 sensor
And any other sensor that i may be missing.

Only code the car had recently was 32 which has always been present due to something up with the EGR wiring.

Virtually the only thing that isn't new is the Fuel pressure regulator and the Fuel Pump


So i towed it to my friends garage where we usually work on the car and here's what we established so far. THE only way the car even tries to sputter/start now is if we move the distributor WAY off the mark where it's supposed to be

The car HAS spark, it's white/blue and jumps half an inch
Injectors are firing
Fuel pump primes (Car has 40PSI at the rails).
Car only did 70PSI compression test, 120 with oil added to cyl (engine is cold) this scares us abit cause it's LOW. But could it be because of a cold motor?
Dist is pointing at #1 when at TDC
We changed the coil with the old one, removed the EGR and made sure the plugs were gapped correctly.
Still nothing.

So we suspected the timing chain was either stretched or jumped a tooth, we changed the timing chain and WALAAA it did infact jump a tooth or two, we re-align the cam/crank change the sprokets/chain button everything back up with new parts. And of course it doesn't start, literally no change to the way it's cranking. We were both amazed.

I don't know what to look at next, it seems timing related due to it sputtering when the dist is moved around. It also sounds like it's cranking abit funny/uneven.

Anybody have any input in what it could be?

TLDR:Has fuel/spark all basics were checked, timing is where it should be etc.

Gumby

starting fluid, if it tried to start you know its bad fuel, if it pop out intake or exhaust, you know timing is off, if nothing happens your spark isn't good enough.

best test for no start, as it should atleast try on it.

unseenT/A

Forgot to mention, it doesn't start on starter fluid.

It doesn't pop out of the intake/exhaust either.

punkmaster98

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Gumby

then the spark is bad, doesn't matter how it may look, if it can't fire off starting fluid, its bad. should atleast pop.

unseenT/A

Thanks for the input man appreciate it!

What should i be looking at next then? We swapped the coil with the old one with no change, ICM?

Also the dist i threw in there was a CARDONE SELECT Part # 841633 not sure if they are any good, i'm tempted to buy an AC Delco unit

Gumby

did someone put a tach on it before and use the plastic splice n crimp they all come with, it will nearly cut the wire in two over time. mine had just 3 strands left when noticed.

its newer, doens't it have the vats anti theft sytem? I know it can be buggy but I don't have it.

unseenT/A

Yeah it has VATS but from what i understand if it was the VATS it wouldn't activate the injectors or even let the car crank.

And nobody put a tach on it as far as i know

Found my old dist with the ICM, gonna throw the ICM in it and see what happens.

unseenT/A

Anybody have any other input here?
I'm going there Friday to swap the dist with the old one.
Currently where the car is staying they've come to the conclusion that the motor blew the valve seats or something. I find it hard to believe the motor lost compression overnight it ran fine the day before

Gumby

enough gum in the engine could do just that, valve go down and the stem locks onto seal and pulls it up. just remove valve covers, not hard.

unseenT/A

Thanks for the input. Going to take the valve cover off and look at valve movement for sure.

Gumby

stage things can happen, i had that eariler in my V8 car, ran fine night before, start up the next days and it sounds like the engine was raced n blown up while I slept. 2 gummy lifters colasped on start up.

unseenT/A

Changed the dist/ICM it started right up, me and my friend were both ****ing shocked. Must've been the ICM lol Thanks for your input Gumby, your first suggestion about not strong enough spark turned out to be correct.

Gumby

starting fluid is a great tool for the DIY mechanic, problem is to many "abuse" it and it has a bad rep but it has a place in every tool box. I always have a can around.

Stewie

Bad ICMs can cause all kinds of weird symptoms. I always carry a spare in the car because an ICM can go out any time, any where, for no good reason. Takes just a few minutes to swap in the spare if I'm stuck someplace awful (like 70 miles away from my house).

AL PACHUTA

IM HAVING AN ISSUE WITH MY 1990 3.1 RS CAR SAT IN STORAGE COUPLE YEARS WAS RUNNING BAD PROB FUEL ADDED 5 GAL NEW WITH SEA FOAM SEEMED TO GET BETTER THEN WONT START CHANGED FUEL FILTER -NEW DIST COMPLETE PLUGS WIRES -COIL GOOD SPARK TIMING WAS CHECKED AT DIST A NUMBER OF TIMES TRIED SPRAYING START FLUID NOTHING OH ALSO CLEANED THROTTLE BODY NEW IAC CHECKED AND REPLACED VAC LINES FUEL RAIL OPEN FUEL PRESSURE LOOKS GOOD WHEN DEPRESSED STUMPED GOING TO PUT ANOTHER SET OF PLUGS IN ORDERED NEW FUEL PUMP ANYBODY HAVE ANY INPUT ON ELEC PROBLEMS OR MAYBE FUEL PUMP JUST NOT UP TO PRESSURE WONT FIRE ON STARTING FLUID HELP ANYONE THANKS AL

Tuned Performance

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Your having a caps lock issue too