Ok bought my EF about a month ago, it has the 1.5L with the dual point in it. It ran ok when I purchased it, idled fine, and had a slight sputter in second gear in the low rpm range. Drove about 75 miles that day and took my girlfriend out to teach her how to drive her eventual project car and she bucked it around alot. When I got back in the drivers seat, i went to leave the parking lot and part throttle the car would almost stall out. I had to go WOT in order to drive the 15 minute drive home. If I came to a redlight or stop sign i needed to keep the throttle pinned, and I didn't wanna kill the engine so I kinda blew through a red light. Got it back to her house, and pulled the plugs the next day. Put new ones in and it started up and idled fine. Drove it around the block, and it died at part throttle in second gear, just basically died out, like as if it flooded out. If i pull the plugs and put them back in the plugs are soaked and it wont start unless i pull the plugs or let it sit for a few days. It will then idle fine, once I take off and hit part throttle in second gear, it dies again. I changed the fuel filter, and it didnt do anything. I have it at my mechanics and he is gunna look at it this week sometime, I am thinking distributor or fuel pressure regulator? Any ideas? TIA.

 

sounds like either of those check spark first, it should start even with bad fpr.

 

How does one test for spark?

 

take a screw driver put in the spark plug wire and put next to ground and then turn over if it sparks its good.

it it has spark crack the bolt on the fuel filter and turn to on pasition to see if you have fuel pressure....

 

ghetto way undo a spark plug and hold it against the block while someone cranks.
no check engine light? if so count the ecu

 

http://techauto.tripod.com/index.htm

 

Wow thanks for that link, that will definately help, if I dont hear anything from my mechanic shortly I'm about to start ripping into this myself.

 

first mistake was letting gf drive the car lol j/k. im thinking dizzy. just wondering if this is gonna be a project car whys a mechanic looking at it and not you?

 

Partially because I'm lazy, but I have picky parents who hate that I have a car that doesnt run sitting in front of their house, and I just recently sold my project 240 which was a big pain, so I'm just frustrated with cars and the cold doesnt help. I'm finally calm and ready to work on it, so I'm starting to get ready.

 

As for the CEL, it comes on when I turn on the key to acc/on but it goes out after a few seconds. When the engine does crank over and run, the CEL is not on.

 

check your fuel for rust. it sounds to me like there is rust settling after you let the car sit for a day or two. then when you drive (or let your girlfriend jerk the car around), the rust is aggitated and the fuel becomes contaminated again. i had this problem on my ef last year. your situation sounds very similar to mine and it took me a month to pinpoint the problem.

problem fixed with a new gas tank.

 

So just curious, what did it cost you? And how hard was it to do?

 

was the fuel filter super dirty when you changed it? should be able to tell if it's rust just by pouring out the dirty crap in the filter. I remember my old EF had black fuel come out of the filter when I tried to pour it out

 

Well the fuel filter was inside, where the shiny new filter was shiny, was all nasty and black, the fuel i dumped was a little black, but the new fuel that came in, when I didnt tighten down the filter enough, was all clear looking.

 

Ok so updates, got a new dizzy off of ebay and popped it in today. It runs now, but it misses horribly through 1st and 2nd, but doesnt shut off. The ecu displays a blinking light 8 times. I read in the FSM that its the TDC sensor, which is on the dizzy i guess. It does nothing for me though because the FSM just says to measure resistance and check for continuity. Its gotta be a timing issue, anyone has any of these symptoms before?

 

Maybe the timing belt jumped a tooth whilst bucking. A new dizzy shouldn't be throwing that code. Do ur spark plugs look normal when u pull them? Do u have good compression in all four cylinders?

 

Plugs were pulled yesterday and they were rich, all black and they only have like 10 miles or less, as they were just replaced. Still waiting on a call but I'm willing to bet the timing is the issue, it may be the 6 pin plug that plugs into the dizzy, that didnt want to stay in, so I'm thinking that could be an issue, I'm thinking about rebuilding the old distributor and seeing what happens. I bought this new dis. off of ebay, from aip electronics or something to that sort.

 

I take it the dizzy was installed properly, not 180 out..(it shouldn't happen as it is indexed). Check timing for sure. Jump the connector, let the car warm up fully, use the gun and see...Normally, if you have the engine timed dead on, the dizzy will sit dead centre on the top mount.

 

Ok so it's running properly now, had a buddy help me check the timing, it was at least 14 degrees retarded with the new dizzy, from AIP electronics off ebay, NEVER EVER buy a distributor from them, they are junk. I pulled the valve cover and top cover and checked the cam timing...perfect. So we pulled the bolts out of the distributor and advanced the distributor past what the bolts allowed. It got much better. So we decided since I replaced the rotor on the old distributor, if we could get it running for a second we could see the timing. Put it in started right up and idled great, 2 degrees advanced was the best we could pull it in. Bolted her in and now the car is running great. I didnt get to drive it far, because I had a few beers in me, but I'll give an update later.