ATF start for flooding: not necessary?
 

Hi all,
I was reading through the shop manual for my 90 GXL and I came across a short bit about starting the car after it had been flooded. It said that if you depress the accelerator pedal to the floor, that no fuel is injected into the chambers while the engine is turning. Thus, if your car gets flooded, you should be able to floor it and then crank the engine and the gas should get ejected or finally ignited when the plugs dry off enough.
Anybody have any experience with this?

-mark

That will work sometimes.. The problem is that most flooding is caused by leaky injectors or low compression.. So this will not work in those cases...



-Zach

ATF won't help the car start when its flooded.
One out of the 3 times my car has flooded it was right right after the ATF treatment.
ATF helps build compression; if thats why your car won't start then its worth the try.
But if your car is flooded, the plugs are probably somewhat fouled. ATF will only foul the plugs more.
Compression, spark, and fuel thats what you need to get it running.

Sorta.. When you flood the car, that causes a lack of compression. Your engine has oil around the housings. This oil layer forms a seal with the apex seal, and THAT is what gives you compression. When you flood your engine, the gasoline washes the oil off of the housing, causing you to lose compression.

ATF re-coats the housings, causing you to build compression. It is true that both flooding AND atf will cause fouling of the plugs. You should change your plugs after either, ESPECIALLY the atf treatment... Also, it's a good idea to keep a fouled set around to use when doing the ATF treatment.

As for the original post, the 89-91's came with a feature in the ECU where by flooring the gas when you crank, it disables the injectors. This is equivalent to what we 86-88 guys have to do--removing the injector fuse. ;)

-Tesla

Actually, you don't really need to get new plugs after doing the ATF treatment, or after a flooding. All you really need to do is take the plugs to grinder that has metal bristles. It'll clean up the plug and make it look almost brand new...I'm sure its not QUITE as good as getting new plugs, but its cheaper and it works pretty damn well. After doing the ATF treatment to my car this weekend, I took my car out and did some hard runs, and I could barely get above 110mph, this was in my 90GTU. After pulling the plugs and grinding the buildup off them with a bristle grinder I took my car out and hit 140mph...beating my previous top speed record in my car of 135mph. Not bad for a slightly modded NA..