darkprophet597

Alright folks, I need some serious advise. A couple months ago, I was driving my '92 LT1 (150k) when it stalled out at about 40 mph. I was able to restart it with a serious loss in power and I limped it home. It had a strong a fuel smell and was smoking out the left exhaust pipe. I did some research and thought the opti might have gone out, causing one or two of the cylinders to miss so I changed the opti, spark plugs, and plug wires while I was at it. The opti was in rough shape and so were the plug wires. I got everything changed out, went to start it up, and it's not pretty.....I have to crank it forever to get it to start and then it runs really rough and there's fuel seeping out through the exhaust manifold creating a puddle under the car. There was even some fuel coming out of the left exhaust pipe. I triple checked that the wiring to the opti was correct and checked to make sure each individual wire was sparking with an extra spark plug. I'm at a loss. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

antfarmer2

Pull the vacuum line off the fpr and smell for fuel. Or could be leaky stuck injectors. Save your old opti!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

darkprophet597

I still have the old opti but I noticed the connector that the wiring harness plugged into at the top was practically broken in half. I pulled the vacuum line from the fuel pressure regulator and there was fuel in the line.

antfarmer2

There you go change it and the oil before starting or you will have a grenade. might take a bit to clear the fuel out of the canister. It is the sensor in the opti that folks need if you don't want to mess with it I bet you will get some PM's wanting it.

darkprophet597

Well, I feel like a dummy but I learned a lot about the car needlessly changing parts! I'll post an update once I get this done. Thanks for the help.

antfarmer2

Anytime there is a button for this at the bottom right.

darkprophet597

Well, I changed the FPR and it's still dumping fuel out the exhaust and smoking. Any ideas?

mtwoolford

there's no such thing as needlessly changing parts on a 24 year old car; change out as much as you can while parts are still available.

antfarmer2

It could be the injectors sticking too. Did you let it run for a while the canister and the vacuum system could be full of fuel.

darkprophet597

It took a good 20 seconds of cranking before it started firing at all and there was a steady stream of fuel coming out the left exhaust pipe.

93Rubie

A fuel pressure tester and some pinch off pliers could narrow this down to the injectors. Those are not a ton of money to buy or borrow.

PatternDayTrader

Are you sure its fuel dripping out the exhaust ?? How do you know its not something else like say condensation or coolant ?? What color is the smoke ??

If you replaced the regulator because it was leaking raw fuel into the vacuum line then I can pretty much guarantee its going to run poorly for several minutes after you finally get it restarted.

If in fact you have raw fuel dribbling out of the exhaust then there's really only one thing that will do that, and that would be a failed injector.

darkprophet597

It's definitely fuel, and a lot of it. My garage reeks of it now. Could it be left over from however much was dumped into the vacuum lines before I changed the FPR? It made a pretty sizable puddle coming out of the left exhaust and from dripping down from where the headers come together and connect to the rest of the exhaust. Are you saying it may be an injector (or injectors) that are stuck open?

PatternDayTrader

Yep ... that's exactly what I'm saying. You can confirm my suspicions by attaching a fuel gage and priming the pump (turn the key forward) and then just observe how long it takes for it to bleed down to zero. In your case I'm guessing less than 10 seconds.

antfarmer2

how long did you run it to clear it out? Have a fire extinguishers handy.

If you need new injectors call Jon at FIC before his shows up.

darkprophet597

OK. I'll have to get ahold of a fuel gage and check that out. Optimally, it should retain pressure and not bleed down at all, correct?

darkprophet597

Well, I cranked it as long as I dared to considering how much fuel was ending up on the ground. I was just going through some other threads that mentioned FIC. I'll have to give him a call.

antfarmer2

My all stock 94 will hold all nite. Are you sure it is not leaking from the fuel line on top of the tank and flowing down.

Maybe pull the pump fuse and see if you can dry it out.

dizwiz24

my 93 (also a speed density car) had this same issue with stAll out and plugs fouled ...would not restart

it ended up being a bad o2 sensor (likely contaminated by non sensor-safe sealant from a recent hotcam/valve springs swap).

darkprophet597

I just tested the injectors by running 12 volts to each one and listening for the click. The #5 injector was the only one that didn't click so I'm thinking it's going to be the culprit. Just ordered a rebuilt set from FIC.