charliegt

After thinking I had resolved my hot start issue, it started again two weeks ago. I think it was due to the hot weather. This weekend I was back in town and decided to run more tests, only to find that now the car will not start. It acts like it is a flooded (cranks and sort of fires every now and then, but only when cranking). The car had been sitting for a week, so is it even possible that it could have been flooded? Regardless, it ended up flooding when I was trying to start it - so I pulled the plugs, dried them off, cranked 15 seconds 3 times, let sit, then put the plugs back in. Still no dice.

My original problem was hot starts (would act flooded and stall if I didn't apply some gas once I got it running), and lumpy cold starts (a little throttle smoothed things out). I have done the following things to try to fix the problem:

replaced the FPR
replaced the coolant temp sensor
replaced the fuel pump
replaced plugs and wires
tested the intake air temp sensor
tested the fuel temp sensor
tested the map sensor
tested the tps sensor
tested the fuel pump relay and (speed) relay

The only code is code 16 (egr). Could this be stuck open causing problems starting? My car has been throwing code 16 since I bought it, but the problems have only started in the past year or so. I've also searched and it seems that a lot of people have this code without any side-effects.

I took a few pictures of my plugs, because it looks as though the front leading plug is wearing at a different rate than the rear. These plugs have about 1500-2000 miles on them:

The plugs from the rear rotor:


A close up of the leading front rotor plug:


The plugs from the front rotor:


Could one or more of my coils be going bad and causing these types of problems? I don't experience any breakup in the higher RPM usually associated with a bad coil.

I'm also wondering if perhaps the timing is thrown off either because of a failing CAS or the knock sensor malfunctioning (no codes though).

I'm out of town during the week - so I'm using this time to try to come up with a list of things to test/check once I get back this weekend. Thanks in advance for any thoughts and advice.

-Charlie

charliegt

Also, I know that the wiring harness that runs in the driver's side fender has been damaged - but it happened long before the problems began. Does anyone have a diagram, or know where to find it in the FSM that would show what wires run on that side of the car?

-Charlie