I'm at a friends working on his car, and I get in my car to leave. Gas is almost empty, so I pull into a Sunoco and get 3 gallons or so. Get on the highway, doing 70 steady, not going fast at all. I have the stereo up, and all of a sudden I see the tach falling. I mute the system, give it gas, and it makes a funny burbling sound then stalls. Pull over, and it wont crank, it just spits and sputters. I got it to run for maybe 10 seconds once with the pedal to the floor, and it just was gasping and struggling the whole time. Kinda sounds like a car that is really out of time. I figured at first I got some bad gas with some water in it, but drygas didnt help. Could this be the timing belt? If so, do I have to worry about valve damage? It wasnt making any clatter or clicking when I had it running for those ten seconds. Also, how hard is the replacement of the belt on this engine, and around how much are timing belts? Thanks for the help..BTW, 88 Si, BPU

 

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if you got onto the highway with it i wouldn't really say it would be your timing ----it does sound like a gas problem ---i mean if you got up to 70 and your engine detoninated maybe it could screw up your timing ------i would start somewhere else first .... sounds like a gas problem to me try to fill the rest of the tank with some good gas from somewhere else

but a timing belt is a pain to replace and very dangerious if it gets messed up


anyways BUMP (maybe someone can help better than me)

 

The car was fine getting on the highway, and then all of a sudden ten minutes later it died..

 

Sensors, check them. Also check the codes. If you dont know how search on the forums and youll find several threads.

 

Is it possible the timing belt jumped teeth somehow? Maybe a tensioner failure? No CEL or codes..

 

*cough* Distributor....Open it up, check the rotor. Betcha that rotor screw fell out. Causing the rotor to spin at will so it's firing randomly basically...

I know I'm right, hehe, I just had to put my rotor screw back in AGAIN yesterday morning...Damn gotta get some locktite, haha. Happened to me 3 times, driving along fine, all of a sudden, car sputters, down shift to give it more rev, dies right out. Try to get it started, just sounds like it's firing every few cranks randomly...

Yup. Check it. 3 screws/bolts to take the cap off, should take you 1 minute. Touch the rotor, try to pull it out, if it slides right out, you better be lookin' for that screw and hope it caught on the magnet cuz it's a tiny ****.