car won't start, any ideas?

[suavyx1000]

Hi,

I'll try to keep this as short as possible. I've had my car (91 eagle talon n/t) sitting for the past six months because I go to school and haven't been driving it. I've gone home every two weeks to start it for 5-10 minutes to keep it functional. I'm going to start driving it next week, but I went home two days ago to try to start it and it didn't start. One time it started for a few seconds, then it died. Since then it cranks over just fine but makes no inclination to start. As I said, it's been sitting for six months with the same fuel in it, so i don't know if that plays a part? I had my timing belt replaced this year, so the timing's fine. Also, I think the ecu's ok, tho i'm not sure, I've been pretty good about checking for the tell-tale sign of bad capacitors. Any ideas?

thanks in advance,
Nate

 

[redliningdsm]

my advice is to start with the basics check for fuel and spark if you have both then u probably have a lose wire good luck man had the same promblem with my laser

 

[Jackson]

Gas expires after 3 months unless you had put in a stabilizer.

 

[suavyx1000]

so what happens when you have expired gas in a car? Do you need to get it all out or is there some additive you can add after the fact? Does expired gas cause any damage to components?

 

[dsm mad man]

i know this is a little old but, if you havent figerd it out yet try a fule cleener, and it depends if the fule gunked up or what. but try puting that in like a galon of gass and put it in your car.

 

[NOSLO2PT0]

Gas expires after 3 months unless you had put in a stabilizer.

I've driven cars that have sat with gas in the tank for over a year. Prolly wasn't the best idea, but the car ran fine. I wouldn't try to run much boost on it, but it will still run.

 

[oldman]

my advice is to start with the basics check for fuel and spark if you have both then u probably have a lose wire good luck man had the same promblem with my laser

Do what he said.

1.To check for fuel: Pull the fuel hose off the driverside of the fuel rail, have a friend crank the car couple times to see if it squirts fuel.

2. To check for spark: pull one of the wires off the coil, hold the wire connector with a plier that has a rubber handle as close to the coil as possible. Have your friend crank the car again to see if you have spark. Be carefull.

Get back to us with what you find.

 

[suavyx1000]

it turned out to be the ecu. I wasn't getting any spark, and I bought an ecu off dsmtrader.com for $50 and put it in. Presto it worked. Must've had a bad capacitor/relay somethin. Thanks for posting!

 

[Jackson]

Glad to hear that you got it working!