90 GTU non-turbo

Was driving down the street and shifted into 3rd and I see the dummy lights come on and I'm not accelerating any more. I pull off to the side and the car is dead. I try to start it up and it dies right away. I try starting it again and give it gas to keep it going but the engine is shaking very violently and is shaking the whole car and exhaust system, etc. I look under the car and the engine is all over the place shaking very violently on the motor mounts. It's making a steady and rapid knocking noise, which I'm not sure if it's inside the engine or the motor mounts, but I think it's coming from the passenger side of the engine compartment.

I installed a new fuel filter 4 days ago so I thought maybe the hose came off or loose so the engine was starving for fuel. I checked the hoses and they were still on but I'm not sure if they've come loose or moved.

As of now the engine shakes very violently and will only idle when it's been given some gas. At idle it shakes very badly but when given gas it's not nearly as bad but making popping noises in the exhaust, not too loud but not there before this happened. I had just filled my tank a few days ago also so it's not a problem of a lack of fuel.

I have no idea what happened because the car was running fine and then this all of a sudden happened. I would really appreciate some help on this because I have school and work to go to this coming week.

 

Sounds like the AFM failed or is not pluged in. The plug does come out rather easily.

Rob

 

Well check the easy stuff before thinking of a bad engine.

Spark?
Fuel?
Compression?

Take the plugs out and have some oner turn the engine over while you look at the spark holes(remove the injection fuse to prevent extra fuel goin in)

See if water/gas/oil comes out.
Also listen for 3 good wooshes.

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A bad idle like that and backfiring with pinging/knocking noises almost sounds like an apex seal or something.

 

YOu said you seen all the dummy lights come on while driving? Could be a bad alt.

good luck.

 

Bad alt acts different.

It will run but the headlights and dome lights and so on will dim and stuff until the thing flat out dies due to a dead battery.(I know/happened on both my FC's)

Once dead it would not even turn over.

This is something else.
Also AFM plugs aren't easy to come out unless you've removed the retaining clip.

edit: after some thought. If the battery isn't totally dead then it may be running on very little spark causing the crappy running.
BUT If you have a radio you can tell by it cutting on and off due to low power.

 

Honestly that sounds like a seal failure. Do the simple compression test, 3 good wooshes.

 

Thats pretty much how my rear rotor failed. It started but could barely beat out a cement truck with a full load. Good luck and stick with it.

 

The battery has the correct charge and the lits aren't dimming.

Could this really be just a spark problem? Would it shake that badly? My car seems to foul spark plugs up earlier than they're suppose to be changed, so they might need it. The outside porcelain that I can see were blacked up a little bit. Could this be a problem with spark plug wires? I've never changed them and I don't know how old they are.

Does anyone think the problem could be with the fuel filter and the lines going to and from it? Could they have come loose or just not be situated right to cause a lack of fuel?

Also would an apex seal just give out while driving?

Thanks for all the help it is very appreciated.

 

If the fuel lines came loose you would know it. Most likely a nice big flame would pop out of your hood and say what's up. At the very least you would smell it from a few feet away from the car.

If you have a fuel restriction is is possible that your car will run for a few seconds and die to due draining the fuel rail of gas.

The Spark might be off as in Timing. Maybe the CAS got knocked way off and is running crappy. I've heard of ppl's cars only running under throttle but would die like that.

Take the spark plugs out any way.
Remove the EFI fuse(I think third from the fender/usually green)
Crank the engine over with the gas pedal to the floor.(open throttle plates giving accurate readings.

If you hear WOOSH WOOSH WOOSH then the seals are ok and you need to look elsewhere.
If you hear WOOSH ...woosh... WOOSH then start looking for a new engine/rebuild.

If it's ok for that then soak/clean the spark plugs and try to run the car again

 

Well, I got the car back home tonight from where it died at. I had to keep my foot on the gas the entire time so that it wouldn't die and the acceleration is really horrible.

Digi7ech, you said you've heard of people's cars running only under throttle and would die like my car, but did they have really bad acceleration and power?

Tomorrow I'm going to take out the spark plugs and check 'em and do those tests you mentioned. Hopefully I don't need a rebuild but I have a sneaking suspicion that I do, in which case it will not be good at all because this car is my daily driver.

 

Rebuilds are not a big deal. It's just a "Suprise you need to spend about 1500 on your car to get it running again" kinda deal.

www.rotaryresurrection.com = the most inexpensive way of getting back on the road after a blown motor.

 

Alright I got a video up of how the car was running this morning.

http://www.student.ipfw.edu/~spaus01/000_0004.MOV

The movie is in Quicktime format.

Edit: File is 4.8MB

 

the good news is it only took me 10 secs to download the 4Mb file..

on the other hand that bad news is it wouldn't work!

my car started doing that onces turned out to be fouled leading plugs.. it was running off only the trailing since it was a steady but the engine was rocking back and forth.. just changed the plugs and it ran fine.. cleaned off the old ones and they work fine as well.. i now carry a set of plugs and tools to change l clean then in the glove compartment

 

The video should work now.

 

Using a timing light, all of the coils except T2 had a strong light pulse. When the timing light was hooked up to T2 the light was intermittent. When the throttle is opened up some the light will become a stronger pulse. Any thoughts/ideas?

 

The car will idle (roughly) at around 900 rpm. When I turn on the headlights, however, the car will die. It doesn't seem to be a problem with the alternator because the interior lights such as the map lights don't dim. It seems to be that the car simply dies under 600 rpm or so (the headlights giving it an electrical load which causes the rpm to drop for a bit, but in this case, drop low enough to kill the engine)

 

::Idea:: Buy a DSM Haha jp, somebody help my man out.

-Donovan

 

did you check the afm wire like that one guy mentioned?

 

wish I had 1500 sitting around for a rebuild

this thread should def. be archived.

 

Hey i got the same problem you got i was driving and it died on me.the next day i started it up it ran like crap and its still running like crap i changed the plugs too and its still running horrible i got a 89 gtu so dont feel alone.but tomorrow iam going to do a ghetto engine check.if u have any luck getting yours operational get back to me.i wonder if its the afm.

 

maybe your leading ignitercoil is dead/dieing? i know it is rare but when u describe the timing light coming on intermittently it sounds like an electrical problem. is it a self powered timing light? because i have read that self powered timing lights may not work properly on the fc. it also sounds like your problem may be fuel related, though i doubt a line came loose. maybe u pinched your fuel line, or maybe the fuel filter is broke? maybe u tanked some bad gas?

i think most likely it is your afm. or... maybe, your seals are toast. g'luck.

 

Yes, I couldn't even get the AFM plug out. It was rather tight in there.

 

The timing light hooks up to the battery and is an inductve design so all that has to be done is to clamp it around a spark plug wire.

 

I installed new plugs also and that seemed to help a little bit. The old plugs were blackened up on one set and blackened up with some orange nasty buildup on the other set. The thing is, the last time I changed my plugs they were like that also (mind you both times well before they're scheduled to be changed) but the last time I changed my plugs I certainly didn't have this big of a problem.

 

Two things:

- a compression test will tell you right away if your motor is blown.

- you may just have a massive vacuum leak, like this guy:

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...hreadid=281723

Start checking hoses...