CAS or fuel problems?

[na_turbotalon]

Yesterday my car decided to crap out on me on my way to work. I pulled away from a set of lights and gave it a little extra because my lane was ending, then my car shut down on me and I coasted to a gentle stop. It wouldn't restart after this, sometimes it would make a loud popping like a backfire.

I towed the car home, and after time it would want to sometimes start, but would pop and go nowhere. Eventually I got it to start, with lots of popping, some flames from the tail pipe, and an A/F ratio around 19:1 at idle. I was hopeing all of this could be related to a bad tank of gas, so I got some fuel conditioner and added some of that. It seemed like the car got better after that,(whether it was in my head or not I don't know) so I let it idle for about 15mins to try and straighten itself out.

When I went back to the car later while it was idleing, the Tach was jumping all over the place. Car is set to idle at approximately 1500, which it was, but the tach would go to 7000-3-5-4-6-2 etc, without the engine following. I blipped the throttle a few times to see if I could make it catch itself, but the engine stumbled and eventually stalled, now I'm back to not being able to start it.

Because of the tach problem I started to think of the cam angle sensor maybe being hooped. I did wash the car about 5 mins before the initial shut down. And I have this in my hood:

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

But I've never had this sensor go bad before, and am unsure of the symptoms.

Sorry for the long read, but shoot me some ideas before I start eliminating problems one by one and wasting money. So far I can think of:
1. Bad gas, full tank less than 24hrs old.
2. Fuel filter maybe, will be replaced either way.
3. Cam angle sensor wet and hooped.

 

[grnchevyz]

Could water have gotten to the MAS and foul it? It would cause the sputtering and all that fun stuff...just a suggestion.

 

[Lunch_Box]

He is running AEM EMS so that wouldn't be the problem.

 

[na_turbotalon]

It's a little more than just sputtering, and it's a speed density car now.

 

[ixsaves13]

I'd check the power transistor / coil pack. I have a 90 TSI and with these cars the tach signal is attached to the coil pack, along with the tach signal. I believe with the 91 and newer cars the tach signal comes from the transistor. Check that out.

Hope this helps...

 

[na_turbotalon]

I'll try swapping the TR unit, but for coils I use a bushur COP and MSD DIS4.

 

[92awddsm]

Check and make sure the power tr is plugged in good and there is no water in the connection. If that checks well, replace the power tr itself. I just recently had a cas go bad and it never would restart. It never had a tach issue either. I had the power tr plug come loose once and had the exact same problems you have now.

 

[na_turbotalon]

I did a compression test and all's good there but when I when to put the coils back on I noticed this:

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

WTF , so after I fix the wire I'll give it another shot and see what else got fubared because of this. Why it didn't blow any fuses I don't know.

 

[na_turbotalon]

Problem solved, sharp edges on the COP kit from bushur cut through the wires and arced them. Some of the other wires were starting to wear through so fixed them too, and got rid of the sharp edges of course. Time to make my own plate.