Acts like it's out of gas.

[Auladan]

First, allow me the obligatory "I HATE THIS [expletive deleted} CAR."

-Ahem-

Hokay. Now, this thing's had it's share of problems, from oil leaks to timing failure, but it's been running moderately reliably for weeks until now. I was driving to school (an hour away), and had pulled over at the first gas station on the way to fill up. It was running perfectly, as it had been. I put in 6 dollars worth of 92 octane, got in and tried to start it, and just a moment after it started, it died. With the key still turned, the starter continued to whir. So I tried again, and the same thing happenned. I tried 12 or so times, and did a few brief checks under the hood. Everything looks fine.

So, as soon as it starts, it dies. Belts are all in tact, I still have power, no visible leaks, no strange sounds.

Any ideas?

 

[95kate]

ok back to basics. ok it takes fire for an engine to work. fire is made up of spark, fuel, and air. something is wrong with one of those 3. try to figure out which one it is. first make sure you're getting enough. then make sure you're not gettin too much. from there you can start tracing back your feeds and exits. you say you're getting plenty of spark. so make sure you're getting plenty of fuel. you may need to check your injectors, but if nothing outta the ordinary check your air. check tb. if that doesnt work you might have to take your head off and make sure you dont have any messed up valves. is the check engine light on? run a obd II if it is and see if that helps... this is looking less and less as something simple. i think you're gonna have to find this one out. as for a daily friver i'd go get a cheap beater civic to get ya around until you get this fixed, cause if you have to tear it apart it's gonna be down for awhile unless you have time and money to tear it apart, fix it and put it together again. i'll go ask a mitsubishi specialist i know down the street and see what he thinks.

 

[Defiant]

You may have jumped timing on that last shutdown. Have you run a compression check?

And no, it's not diesel. That puts out a cloud you can carve a house out of.

 

[Auladan]

I haven't run a compression test yet. I didn't think my motor would turn over enough to get a proper reading. Given my explanation of its operation, do you think it'll work?

As well, are their specific timing marks I can look for to see if I've jumped timing? I lost my last motor due to timing failure and I really don't want that again (obviously).

 

[Auladan]

A'right. I found my Haynes repair manual, and this is what is says:

Engine starts but stops immediately:

1. Loose or faulty electrical connections at distributor (or crank angle sensor), coil or alternator.

2. Insufficient fuel reaching the fuel injector(s) <-- Something I doubt, since when swapping FPR's, plenty of fuel poured out of the rail, both times I swapped the unit.

3. Vacuum leak at the gasket between the intake manifold and the throttle body or between the intake manifold and engine.

Number 3 is highly likely, since the throttle body I have on there came from the car's stock motor (160,xxx miles), and I've taken it off and on over a handful of times, and I've never put on a new gasket. When I swapped my stock intake manifold in place of the Cyclone that came with the current motor, I scraped away the old gasket, sanded it down, and put on a new one.

My coil fires off the plugs as it should (or at least as far as I can tell, I set the plugs out and cranked the motor, and had someone watch as they all fired for several seconds). But if my problem does have something to do with the coil/ignition, I'm blaming the transistor. It's from the old motor, had been left out over a year, and could have finally bit the dust.

Any ideas on this?