help! car died

[tsoccer3299]

well i was on my way to work this morning and just a few blocks from my house i get two VERY loud backfires and the engine just dies right there. I was able to back it down a little hill and parked it right in the parking lot there. The car will turn over but won't fire up. I just got home from work now and am headed up there now to really take a look at it. I'm figuring since it backfired it ran rich for a few seconds before shutting down and maybe there is just no spark in the cylinders???? so an electrical problem???
thanks and wish me luck

it also didnt help that my mom was giving me a ride to work and was like i hope you didnt blow the engine and have to replace all of that. I had to assure her it wasnt that bad i hope

 

[tsoccer3299]

anybody have an idea of whats up? I checked all the wiring connections and they are all together

 

[Killercanary]

Were you accelerating or decelerating when it happened? Its VERY hard to diagnose your problem with the info you have given. Did this just happen out of the blue? Did you just install some new parts? If I had to totally guess I'd say it sounds like a timing problem. Is the distributor loose?

 

[LoudToy958]

Check the rotor in the distributor. Then see if it is loose. Sounds like a spark issue. I had a problem with my dist once before, did the same thing you described. I just kept having rotors brake apart. Turned out the dist was on its way out. When it died it did exactly what you just described. Two pops, then nothing.

 

[tsoccer3299]

when it happened i was slowly accelerating. And yes it was straight out of the blue, havent had any problems with it then bam. I also havent done any type of mods to it lately. Distributor wasn't and rotor were not loose at all.

 

[Killercanary]

Check to make sure you have spark first, then go from there. There are many items it could be, so start with the BIG problem (spark or fuel) and then go from there.

 

[tsoccer3299]

i think i've taken it all the way back to the accell 300+ ignition module. This came with the car and i didnt get the stock one so has anyone else had problems with it?

 

[tsoccer3299]

ok heres a better rundown of what i figured out today. what was really weird was that after putting a screw driver in one of the spark plug boots it finally fired up. I put the boot back on and then it fired up again and for the next 10 minutes or so i had absolutely no problems with the car. In this time i swapped out the accel coil with the stock one and both of those worked so the problem isnt there. I figured the distributor may have been going out so i went and bought a new distributor and rotor. Got back home and before putting the new distributor on i tried starting it again and no go. Replaced the distributor and rotor and nothing. The rotor spins and everything and there was no plastic or metal in the bottom of the old one. All the wiring is good and i think I've traced it all the way back up to the ignition control module. So I'm going to get that tested out tomorrow. I wish i had the stock ignition but when i bought the car it had the accel on it and just about the only stock part he didnt give me was the module. Oh well, so thats where im at now and sorry for the long post