No start, runs rough with the spout connected/disconnected....need to some feedbac

[Methodical]

For a little while my car has been missing around 2500 to 3000 rpms. It makes a sputtering like sound (similar to like blowing out you mouth with both lips together – best I can do for now). I only really notice this when I am driving in part throttle but when I get on it I don’t notice it and she scoots. Then Friday (10/12) the car died on me on the highway. First it died for about a second or two and came back to like. Then about 20 seconds later it died for good. I had to drift to the shoulder of the highway. Get towed home put in my stock coil and she fires right up. I then changed the coil to an older MSD I had. Now the car just runs like ****, it sputters real bad and it lacks power.

So I began the diagnostics. By the way I have the MSD 6AL box. Here’s the strange thing that I noticed – with the spout plugged in the car and the stock wires connected to the coil, the car won’t start. But when I pull the spout out, the car will start but will run real rough (similar to like something vibrating as I run thru the rpms). I know it doesn’t have much power because the computer is not advancing timing. Now when I plug in the MSD box and put the spout in, the car will start but not easy and will run real rough. In either case, the car runs rough (similar to like something vibrating as I run thru the rpms) and is low on power and sort of put puts out the exhaust. Seems to have gotten worse real quick.

I plan to test the TFI Module but wanted to know what could be going on here? The plugs are normal, wires and cap are pretty new and distributor is only about 5 months old.

What do you guys think?

Just looking for ideas.

Thanks

Al

 

[95Vert]

Really sounds timing related. Try starting it up and advancing the timing to total timing and see how that works, w/o the spout. This is to eliminate the computer from controlling the timing at different rpms, wont hurt anything to run TT all the time. Just check the basic timing crap.

 

[BlackVert]

is it possible you have a bad tank of gas? my caprice ran like that and i finally tried a can of that stuff to get the water out of the gas (i can't remember what it is called right now ... a senior moment), and that cleared it up pretty much immediately

 

[331_mustang]

Seriously.... sounds like your MSD took a crap. While MSD's are great when they work, they do have reliability issues. I've had several issues on a number of cars with them, and these symptoms sound very similar. I finally got to the point where I made a jumper wire to bypass the MSD in case it ever took a crap on me while I was out on the road. I actually think they make/sell these jumper/bypass wires now. I would strongly recommend bypassing the MSD and getting a new coil and working through your issues from there to be sure it isn't that.