The journey begins

[Gilles]

Originally Posted by tada

Well, here's a small update, a chance for me to vent, and maybe some humor.

So the car will start every time, but it will not idle above 300 rpm (I guess the first tick on the tach), and it will die after a short time idling. Giving it any gas pedal will cause a little bit of rev (very little) and then stalling and dying.

Tada,

The symptoms you are describing reminds me of one time after re-installing the throttle body I was not able to maintain idle, and after a lot of head scratching I noticed that one of the small pins inside the connector that goes to the throttle body was bent...

After getting the single pin straight again, the engine ran smooth ever again .. :-)

It may not be your cause but simple enough to check, good luck!

[jb92563]

Probably good idea to replace the fuel filter anyway but it does seem like the engine is starved of fuel or badly out of timing.

Check the Fuel Pressure rail, and borrow a fuel pressure guage from Autozone. I did the same thing and found out that they rent tools at zero cost.

If the pressure is good then you have most likely eliminated the fuel pump from the equation.
I also did a flow test that confirmed the volume of fuel delivered was in spec as well, eliminating blockages, plugged filter, pinched lines, dying fuel pump etc.

The Durametric will confirm all sensors are OK, no shorts or open circuits and values are in range.

The other part of the starved engine formula is combustion mixture which is of course controlled by computer and sensors. Most suspect is always the MAF and not just that it needs to be cleaned but to verify the wiring is not faulted. Again Durametric will help with that.

Keep posting findings and we will keep sending suggestions, but the Durametric is key to looking in the right areas.