LT1 engine with optispark, 95000 miles. I can drive the car 15 miles and let it set for about an hour and it won't start it'll stumble like it's starving for fuel. Let it set for another hour and it'll start. Change the fuel filter twice and, cleaned mass air flow sensor. No codes presently. It quits mostly on my wife but will start for me. Any help is appreciated.
Coil?
I've had heat soak issues with coils where they wouldn't fire if they got heat soaked after a drive and a 30-60 minute stop. You could drive it all day and it was fine. It was the stop with no air flow that made it show up.
In reply to Dead_Sled :
Will optispark sink heat like a regular coil? Any experience on opti service life?
I had a Caprice cop car I replaced the opti on. Is it time? Should it throw a code?
In reply to TRoglodyte :
The opti replaces the distributer, but there's still a coil on the front of the engine near the driver's side head. I've never had opti issues but that certainly could cause a no start issue as the spark timing would be off. 96 Opti is vented so it "should be good".
My understanding is that an opti issue would set a code, but the engine codes cannot be read with the built in computer on the 96s so you have to use an external reader.
I don't know what would cause the opti to fail after driving a bit, that's why my mind went to coil.
My experience is was with coil on plug northstars and lawnmowers. Both would run fine until shut down, then they would either not restart, or would run like E36 M3. Pop the hood and let it cool and it was fine.
Hard without more detail, but my step one on GMs is to check the idiotic side terminal battery. Might be stupid, but I've had 3 cases of that being the cause (which is most of the cars with that problem I messed with.)
In reply to Dead_Sled :
Now that you have refreshed my memory the cop car would start and run poorly but it would start, this one will start intermittently but I haven't seen a misfire code out of the OBD2. coil is a good place to start thank you.
In reply to Apexcarver :
Thank you for mentioning that I never thought of looking at the battery and I am looking for a stupid problem
New coil acquired going in tomorrow oh, this thing needs to run because it's a Buick . wife loves them. My son says he can hook it up to a laptop so we may get real-time information but computers are scary to me. I'm used to filing points and spewing fuel out of a fuel pump
Hooked up to the scanner over the weekend and got 3 codes, lean condition Left Bank and right Bank and purge valve malfunction. For the purge valve malfunction I started looking for leaking vacuum hoses and replace some that had deteriorated pretty badly. The purge valve code went away but I still have had a lean condition on both Banks. It seems to start fine when cold but if you drive it for 15 miles and shut it off it may or may not restart. Changed out the fuel pressure regulator and it doesn't seem to make a difference. Still lean on bank 1 and bank 2.
Car failed again,I'm thinking temp sensor messing with the fuel. Any common failures?
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