No, mechanical fuel pump.

 

Actually, that's exactly what he did. He had it towed to a repair shop close to his house so he can check it today and if it won't start today, have them look at in in the morning.

His plan is to put some Ether in the carb and see if that helps.

 

Easy Mike! Wow, you're a veteran and I appreciate the response. That's definitely worth a look when he's back out there today.

 

I was having same issue on my 1981 Vette, 3 times after driving some miles, stop for fuel and take back off and she just stopped on me. My problem was the mech. fuel pump was vapor locking....and it has the third line to prevent this but while car was stopped and no air flow heat under the hood was rising the temp on the top of the fuel pump and thus vapor lock. Once all cooled down she would re-fire. I had no fuel to carb when this happened. Only fuel in carb bowel was there to run on, when that went thru, she would stop in about 20-30 secs.
To add to this issue we also found the fuel pump cam lobe was toast and she was not getting a full push on the fuel pump and so a less than needed flow of fuel to carb was also happening.
So in with a new 350 GM crate engine...and while doing that and swapping intake it was discovered that intake gasket on left head was put on backward before causing the water passage to be blocked so this was making engine oil temp higher at times (close to 250/f) so add this higher oil temp helped to heat up the fuel pump to cause the vapor lock.
Long story short, after new engine not once has the engine shut down on me yet (fingers crossed). Cooler temps, better fuel pressure and she runs like she is supposed to.

 

Well either will fire it up for sure but either is a very dry spray it evaporates on its own in seconds an can be harsh on a cold engine if he is gonna try that tell
Him to just pull off the air filter lid an poor a very small amount of gas into the carb that will give the same result with out fear of damaging anything

 

He just tried spraying ether into the carb and starting and it's acting the same way that it was last night. So, sounds less likely to be a gas problem. I'm now thinking that it could be a spark problem? Maybe the ignition module. I recall a similar situation about 10 years ago with the car.

 

You think maybe fouled plugs from a flood? Or distributer issue. I just changed my distributer cap and rotor and man what a hell of a difference.

 

This is getting exciting... He pulled one plug and it was terribly corroded. He pulled a second one, and it was not. Would corrosion on a plug be enough to stop it?

 

Not on one plug. How do the others look?

 

Have him pull one plug an put the tip of it on the exh manifold or another ground while he is NOT holding it an have someone crank the engine of it sparks then you have spark of not then your problem is most likely the distributor, cap or rotor I would change all the plugs reguardless an the cap rotor it is all too in expensive to not do while it's down. Sounds like your getting closer to the problem though good luck hope it's something simple an you can have your vette back soon

 

The most likely culprit here is the ignition module.

 

I would have to agree with BKbroiler.

 

Ditto, I'm with BK

 

I appreciate all your help and your experience led you the right direction. Turns out the gas must have just been a coincidence.

The coil had burned up. Somehow, the ground wire going to the coil had charred. He replaced the coil and cap and she fired right up. He sent me a picture of the coil and burned wires that I'm fighting with Picasa to upload.

The question is - why did the ground wire char?

 

Another wild goose chase.

 

glad to hear you found the root cause. I always look for spark first then if it has spark I move to fuel. Most times I find it to be lack of spark. Just glad you got it going.
Rodney

 

GM did a revision on the old first hei coil grounding.