91 Si not running

[BillyBishop]

Hoping PuckLuck sees this thread, you helped me out big time last year! (http://www.revscene.net/forums/684997-igniter-icm.html)

So I was coming off the highway and came off the gas to slow down. At this point my car began to slow faster than it should while in fifth gear, almost as if my brakes were engaged. I got back on the gas and the engine began to bog. Tried to restart it while still rolling, no joy. Pulled over and cranked, fired up weakly for a few seconds then quit again.

I'm getting spark, I have compression, fuel is getting to the injectors, ECU is showing no codes -- I'm lost.

This morning I checked everything again. While cranking when checking for spark, it fired up again for about 10 seconds until quitting again.

Any suggestions? Luckily this happened the day before I was going to drive to Victoria for a week!

[Impreza]

I guess when you say "fuel is getting to the injector" you just tested fuel pressure and flow right? Have you check if the injectors are working or if the computer is controlling them?

[audiobahn]

Almost sounds like your fuel pump is dead. You have fuel but not pressure

[Puck Luck]

Fuel pump isnt very common on these, but being over 20 years old, very possible. How are you confirming there is fuel?
sorry...just noticed this thread

[BillyBishop]

Thanks for the replies everyone. This has been on the backburner lately, it's not my primary car so not my main priority. Got a bike to get on the road first!

Since September the car hasn't been driven regularly, only a 10-20 minute drive every 2-3 weeks. This time it had been nearly two months and I insured it for the summer. Drove it for a week then this problem came up.

Having had the same fuel in the tank since August I suspected possible fuel contamination, however unlikely that is. I pulled the fuel rail off the injectors and had it dump fuel into a container as I cranked. Clean fuel and it really gushed. I don't have a fuel pressure gauge to check from the fuel filter -- should I necessarily do that? What I did probably isn't the normal way to confirm that I'm getting fuel haha.

No codes from the ECU -- is there a way to test the injectors?

[godwin]

I would check the fuel pressure first (gauge is really cheap) Chances that all injectors have gone bad at the same time are really small.

If the car is stored, you really shouldn't start up for short period of time like that. Best is to add some fuel stabilizer, battery tender and store in doors.

[BillyBishop]

Well, figured it out!

When I said I was getting spark, I was testing the spark plug wires with a timing light. It would be intermittent at first but I blamed that on the timing light because it's over twenty years old. So I figured the dizzy would be fine, but that's where the problem was. For some reason, the screw holding the rotor to the shaft was missing. I don't know how, but that can only mean that when I installed the rotor last June (2013) I didn't tighten it properly and it slowly worked itself out. So it went 4,000km until the screw fell out.

Now I'm assuming it was there to begin with because it went 4,000km just fine. When I opened the dizzy cap tonight I didn't find the screw at all. I didn't open it with the intention of catching anything that might fall so it could've slipped out rolled down my driveway somewhere. I'll take a look around tomorrow when it's light out.