TBI 350 needs prime to start

In reply to ShawnG :

I'll try bumping the fuel pump like you suggest. 

It is relatively easy to make the built-in pressure regulator adjustable (though hard to get at after the fact), and about as easy to convert to an externally adjustable regulator.

It is a general rule that no problem will ever manifest while it is being monitored by test equipment.

In this way, automotive repair verifies that Heisenberg was right on a macro scale.

I vote failing fuel pump as well. This very similar to how my truck acted. Then one day it died while driving not to start again until I put a new pump in it. 
 

Edit:  Similar millage as well. 

dean1484 said:

I vote failing fuel pump as well. This very similar to how my truck acted. Then one day it died while driving not to start again until I put a new pump in it. 

I told the tech at the first shop to change the fuel pump (and the relay) even if it was working, but it had good pressure and volume, so I let him to talk me out of it. 

I wonder where the relay is on this thing. 

Floating Doc said:

I wonder where the relay is on this thing. 

On a GM truck, I think they are usually on the firewall, and fairly easy to get to.

Here's the latest.

Spark is good.

No signal to the fuel injectors.. Fuel pressure 10 PSI at the TB. Fuel pump fuse is good. No codes. Swapping the computer to a known good one made no difference.

The technician is the local automotive electrical wizard. He said not to have the truck flatbedded to his shop. He's afraid to move it, since he had so much trouble getting it to reproduce the problem. He was at my house today for the first round of diagnostics, and will be back with a wiring diagram and some other diagnostic tools.

Stand by.

In reply to Floating Doc :

I suggest good donuts as a motivator for him. 

Need to get Dusterbd13 in this thread.  In my S10 build thread, he mentioned a failing ignition module or a bad ground could cause a problem.  I’d assume since you are getting spark that the ignition module is good, but maybe not.

Pickup coil is my guess in the distribuor or the ignition module. Oil pressure switch maybe? 

Stampie said:

In reply to Floating Doc :

I suggest good donuts as a motivator for him. 

Donuts? berkeley that, I'm baking fresh bread every weekend.

In reply to Floating Doc :

I had a weird problem on my 92 Suburban that I could never diagnose, but Aeromoto eventually did. Each injector has a fuse, and I'd somehow managed to blow one, but in the process of troubleshooting it I ended up frying the ECU too. I'd check the fuses, but keep that spare ECU nearby just in case. 

Distributor, possibly ignition module as well, but I haven't talked to him yet.

He got it running while I was at work yesterday oh, so I drove it to work this morning and it runs great. I'm supposed to bring it by the shop for him to set the timing, must have it pretty close because it drives fine.

I'm registered for two days of back-to-back autocross this weekend.  It's 400 miles each way to my friends house and about another hour from there to the speedway, which will be two round trips.

With a total of about 1000 miles of driving, and as well as the truck ran today, I'm towing the Miata. I'll pick up a U-Haul flatbed in the morning.

Look for this if you're on I-75 in North Florida, or I-10 in the panhandle. The picture is from when I brought it home last February.

One last update.

About 1200 miles in 4 days. Cruised at about 70, pushing it to about 77 through Pensacola after an S2000 passed me on the first morning. I've spent a bunch of time hunting for a venue before, so I didn't want to lose sight of it. I lost track of him after we got off the exit, but by then the racetrack was a couple of miles away.

The truck ran flawlessly. Pretty amazing since it has the original engine. The odometer broke at 242k miles in about 2000. When I got it 10 years ago, they said they figured it had about 350k.

I drive it about 5,000 miles a year, so I figure we're at about 400k.

In reply to Floating Doc :

Awesome! I didn't realize you were heading to the GCR event. I saw their pics on FB, it looked like a decent turnout.

In reply to Pete Gossett :

Great events. Well run, nice people, fun venue, and 8 runs per day. I'm glad I went, and I'm hoping to return.

In reply to Floating Doc :

The only reason I've not been to one of their Pcola events yet is because they seem pretty adamant about being locked-in on site until at least 5pm, which is a bit late for me being 2-hours from home.