Parked for a few weeks, car won't start

SON240sx Automotive
1

93 S13, stock KA24DE. Car was parked for a few weeks, it was started less than a week ago, worked fine. I had to change the waterpump today as I was visiting Toronto, the car wouldn’t start. I boosted the battery, it cranks fine, no problem, just won’t catch.

Fuel pump primes, you can feel fuel flowing through the return line, but can’t feel flow in feed line (coming out of the fuel filter). Wtf?

Took out spark plug, connected it to wire, touched end of spark plug to strut tower bolt/valve cover, no spark. Cleaned distrubutor rotor and cap since they had a lot of residue on them from the coolant being flung all over the engine bay by the waterpump. Still no spark.

Left plug out of the cylinder, cranked multiple times, no fuel mist sprays out of the head. Another wtf moment. Fuel pump is a brand new walbro installed a couple of months months ago.

Any ideas guys? It mysteriously started for like half a second once, but I was outside of the car turning the key, couldn’t get on the throttle in time. It was after squeezing the fuel lines in weird manners. lol

Fuel filter was replaced last year. And yes, there is some gas in the tank, probably about 3 weeks old I’d say. I had a jug of gasoline lying around in a storage container from like 2 months ago. I put a litre or 2 into the tank. No difference.

Possible culprits:
Bad ignition coil, bad rotor/dist. cap, big vacuum leak, plugged fuel filter, bad timing, malfunctioning FPR…???

2

change fuel filter? its like 17 bucks, or be badass and get the 300zx fuel filter, which is bigger and costs less for some reason.

3

I’ll change the fuel filter when I start driving the car again in December. But for now I have to figure out why there is no spark. Am I doing it incorrectly? I left the plug in the spark plug wire, and touched it to the valve cover, nothing, then the strut tower bolt, nothing. This was while cranking.

4

Check spark from the coil.

No spark…check for power to the coil. No power, trace wires. Check fuses.

5

Can I plug the coil wire directly to a spark plug, so it fires 4 times as frequent and just ground the plug to the valve cover to test the coil?

6

Take the wire off the coil completely.

If your coil in good. It WILL find something to ground to and spark.

Trust

7

kick it

8

^lol

Btw, once I’m back from Waterloo, we gotta meet up to install the non-rusted hatch and wire up the wiper and rear defroster. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’ll be fun in -15°C weather, mid January. hahahah

9

i know this might sound like a dumb question but when you were changing your water pump, did you knock something out of place or anything?

can you elaborate on what you mean by ‘car won’t start’ ?
does it crank but not start…does it not crank at all.

i guess you have to just use the process of elimination.
start simple or least costly.

if you got moisture in your gas tank …your filter will absorb it and harden
and it wont allow any fuel to be pumped through your lines.

if thats not it.
maybe its something electrical?
is there a check engine light on or do you have any trouble codes?

and ya check for power to your coil.
cracked wires or broken wires will definately cause unwanted resistance.

10

I did not change the water pump, that was the plan, but the car wouldn’t even start so I just spent that time trying to figure out what was wrong. It ALMOST started once, during periods of cranking for 10s, like 30 times with breaks in between to let the starter cool. I heard it fire for about half a second and then it stalled. I tried starting it using throttle body cleaner, nothing.

The battery was connected to another car’s while the other car was started so that can be taken out of the equation.

My fuel pump works perfectly fine, it is a brand new walbro 255. My spark plug wires are perfectly fine, and so are the spark plugs. I still got no spark when I tested at the spark plug. I am visiting home this Friday, I will try the coil trick to see if its working or not, then pull the fuel rail to see if the injectors are spraying. Hope it isn’t too cold that day.

Edit: That fuel filter thing you’re talking about, I’ve never experienced a plugged fuel filter before. Since I installed the walbro, the gas tank doesn’t “hiss” at me when I open the cap, I assume this due to not having a strong seal around the o-ring below the sending unit. I doubt that minor vapor leak had anything to do with it. Also, it was driven home a few weeks before that then left there. How do you explain that?

11

The gas tank not hissing thing happened to me.

Ended up being a cracked gas tank at the top. Solid subframe bushings and multi loses that battle lol.

12

heres a trick… grab a big socket wrench. Go under on ur passenger side. ook up and ull see starter and soli… stick the wrench up in there right in between the two. and wiggle it around, if it starts to spark, go to ur car and start it. worked for me…

13

^failed to read the thread

14

Went to Toronto today, had like 30 mins to work on the car. I cranked the engine, it started for about half a second and then just stalled. I there was fuel after I took the plug out, but the spark plug wouldn’t fire. So, as Chris suggested, I did the coil test. It turned out the the coil was grounding just fine on the strut tower bolts. After that spark went from the coil to the distributor and then back onto the spark plug wire, something is getting lost in between there. I can’t seem to figure it out. I used a multimeter to check for continuity across the distributor rotor and the distributor cap. They were all fine. Then I cleaned up the contact surfaces as well, but no change. What’s driving me nuts is that it started only on the third crank and after that NOTHING, no matter how long I cranked.

My starter seems to be turning a bit faster than usual, it sounded disconnected compared to last time I visited, there was no grinding the flywheel though. I jacked up the car, went under, found that the bolts are loose again since they’re the incorrect bolts, due to fucking 240coupe reinstalling the engine. The engine still cranks, the main pulley spins, so I’ll take that as a positive connection between the flywheel teeth and starter.

Sorry for the long post, but no update except there is NO spark at the plugs after the WORKING coil which is sparking perfectly.

I will try a new distributor cap and new distributor rotor on the next visit. I have to get my fucking car running perfectly fine by January for the e-test and because I got hired for a co-op job only accessible by car.

15

Cap and rotor…main ignition cable as well.

How strong is the spark from the coil Ahmed?

16

The spark from the coil is enough to travel across the spark plug eventually…I think. :stuck_out_tongue:

Something in between is fucking it up, but they are all very conductive, near 0 ohm resistance…the wires are 3 kohm IIRC. I checked for spark using the main ignition cable connected to the coil, about 0.5" from a strut tower bolt. I COMPLETELY forgot to test the coil with no wire on it and let it ground magically to something nearby as per your suggestion. My bad Chris. lol

But during that half an hour, progress was made. Now I know I have to add a nut to the mismatched bolt on my starter, and get a double jointed midget to access the threaded end of the top starter bolt. I also have to try getting a new rotor and cap for the dizzy, probably some new NGK plats.

17

check if you have any codes, you might be getting fuel to the injectors aswell but they are not opening and closing. this happened to me it ended up being the crank position sensor. if thats faulty you wont get spark or fuel out of the injectors.

18

^The plugs were wet when pulled, I could smell the fuel, and the coil was firing when cranking.

Edit: I forgot to check codes, that’s a good idea. I will do that next visit.

19

Yeah check codes - and you’re sure the wire from coil to disty is good?

20

That is the wire I used to ground the coil when cranking, and I saw visible sparks. The wires are about a year old. Bosch premium wires with lifetime warranty bought from crappy tire, and the plugs are NGK V-power Plats also bought from crappy tire about 6 months ago.