After my 90 n/a engine died on me i went with a rebuild. After driving around all night fine, the tach suddenly died although the engine remained constant, also the check engine light came on. When i tried to start the car it sounded like it had jumped timing and therefore refused to start. I dished out cash for a tow and fix but the mechanic had only adjusted TPS, fixed a vac leak, and re-adjusted timing. As i suspected the car started and ran fine after these fixes but eventually the tach died again followed by check engine light. And now its sitting again and when i try to start the idle is CRAZY until it finally sputters and backfires to death. I even got it to start up once but it quickly died as soon as i moved an inch forward. I have no idea what this could be, the tach dying/check engine light thing had happened to me a couple of times b4 engine swap but never caused it to breakdown like this. Any help from u gurus out there?

Thanks
Jay

 

you said the tach died but the engine stayed constant. Do you mean the engine kept running? The tach signal comes from the trailing coil/ignitor assembly. however, from what I understand, the engine should run without the trailing plugs firing. What codes do you get from the check engine light? Do a search on the forum about "check engine light" and you will find out how to extract the codes from the engine computer and what they mean. When the check engine light comes on, there is a code present that will tell you what is wrong with the engine. This code will help a lot in troubleshooting the problem.