Backfire BANG and stall. WONT START

red ink

Founding Member
Apr 8, 2002
746
1
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Arizona
After driving the car on the freeway and pulling down the off ramp my car backfires with a loud BANG and continues to run. I give it gas and it begins to sputter and nearly die until i let off of the accelerator. While coasting at an idle i again try to give it some gas and it acts as if it's got no juice, choking and sputtering. Finally it dies. Now it just cranks and cranks but wont fire. i need help. I did a search.:Zip2:
 
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I agree - a fuel starvation issue was my first thought too. If it's the pump getting weak, it might come back to life after it cools off (the diaphram is often what gets weak from heat).

A quick check of the inertia switch and the Fuel pressure would be revealing.

Good luck.
 
hmm..
It was running alittle weak on the freeway also...fuel starvation? I'll check into the fuel system. Mabey the pump...aftermarket bbk 250 fuel pump, and it's got a ghetto off brand billet fuel pressure regulator. thanks
 
Now were are getting somewhere thanks guys...
I've narrowed it down to the timing belt as the first thing i'm gonna check when i get my hands on a garage with some tools. I beleive the fuel pump primes and am pretty sure the pump works because it smells much like gas when cranking the car for many attempts. I hope it's not the distributor because it's a new billet msd unit and i'll be just another to add to the list of ppl who have had problems with their 300 dollar distributor when i coulda got a cheapy stock unit for 1/3 the price:nonono:
 
You can rest assured a timing belt is not the issue.

It's also highly unlikely that the timing chain let go or even jumped a cog. I'm not sure how you narrowed it down to a cam timing issue in the first place (I say this not to be a jerk but because it's easy to get off course with diagnostics, which leads to wasted time and money).

You might want to yank codes at this point - any direction gleamed from doing so is always welcomed.

Good luck.
 
Now were are getting somewhere thanks guys...
I've narrowed it down to the timing belt as the first thing i'm gonna check when i get my hands on a garage with some tools. I beleive the fuel pump primes and am pretty sure the pump works because it smells much like gas when cranking the car for many attempts. I hope it's not the distributor because it's a new billet msd unit and i'll be just another to add to the list of ppl who have had problems with their 300 dollar distributor when i coulda got a cheapy stock unit for 1/3 the price:nonono:

I seen msd distributors go bad as soon as a week after they are installed brand new so dont rule that out if you have your old distributor reinstall it to see if it solves the issue .
 
Even with nearly 140000 miles? I understand they stretch and sag over time
we have a chain and not a belt in our cars, and its so short that i highly doubt it could stretch enough to cause timing to be that much out of wack. maybe your dizzy hold down came lose and allowed it to turn a bit. i would start there
 
A backfire in the exhaust sounds more like too much fuel instead of not enough. You also said the car smells like fuel when you try to start it. Try this, press the gas peddle all the way to the floor before turning the key to the on position. Then try to start the car with the pgass peddle still pressed to the floor. This will keep the injectors from shooting fuel into the cylinders.
 
In the vein of what 94 Cobra said, I just saw the blower for sale in your sig. You're not running some fat injector set-up from the blower are you? If so, that would allow too much hot-start cranking-fuel (flooring the pedal while cranking, like 94Cobra noted, can help in that situation.

Good luck.