85 P-Type Wont Start

[marinegilbert08]

Okay guys. Here goes. I just got an 85 P-Type stock 5mge. It was an auto converted to a 5speed. The P.O. drove it fine up until about 2 months ago when he shut it off one night and the next morning it just would not start. He has spent plenty of time trying to figure it out, and i was there for 3 hours trying to get it running. We swapped out known good distributors, coils, igniters, relays, fuses, fusible links..etc. So what we have so far is 1 leaky fuel injector (which proves that were getting fuel up there), there is fire on the Coil wire and there is fire at the spark plug wires. The engine is in time. It wont even fire on starting fluid. In the 3 hours we played with it we got maybe 2 times where it seemed like the engine TRIED to start, but they were short lived and barely noticeable. So any ideas would be appreciated. And if you happen to be near Harrison Ohio maybe you could stop by and take a look at it ;).

Thanks Guys

[supra*13]

well you have fuel and spark and unless there is something clogged in the intake you have air, have you check your compression?

[marinegilbert08]

well you have fuel and spark and unless there is something clogged in the intake you have air, have you check your compression?

I havent checked the compression stupid me thought it was gonna be a simple distributor change to get it running so i didn't think to take many tools with me. But i would think that if it was running fine one day compression wouldnt suddenly compleatly deteriorate overnight.... right?

[Supra-Mark]

Doesn't seem likely to me, my hg issue was very gradual, even with a cracked head and 2 quarts of oil an hour spewing out the top of it, it still ran and drove fine. So it doesn't seem likely... unless something really severe occured. Air filter/tubing would be a good thing to check, I couldn't get my parts car to start, so my grandpa decided to squirt ether up the air intake and nothing happened, so I kept cranking and he kept spraying and BOOM! The (original plastic) intake pipe exploded, revealing a nasty mouse nest inside. Cleaned it up, patched it up and slapped it together with some tape and it ran like a top. My poor grandpa... farmer since the day he was born, 80 something today and still raises and works his own cattle and takes care of the place. I probably about gave him a heart attack, but he was just laughing when it happened!

[marinegilbert08]

The intake tube is clean, the stock plastic has been replaced with a metal one doing to the plastic one umm... catching on fire. No possible way for anything to have got into it. Cone filter on the end, aluminum all the way up to the top of the engine, and the last foot is the original hard plastic pipe that leads into the TB. We tried ether, we know its breathing there is ether and gas smell coming out of the exhaust from where its not burning it.

[StanS]

Bad AFM or ECU?

[marinegilbert08]

Bad AFM or ECU?

We've switched back and forth between 2 AFM's and both of them seem to pass the press it open and hear fuel spray test. Weve done the same thing with ECU's but the extra one came from a junk yard so i guess there is no guarantee that it is actually good. My stupid hayes manual says im not allowed to test my ECU cuz im not smart enough and i could break it. So is there actually any way for me to test it? Or just swap it out with a known good one from my other car?

EDIT: I found the checks for the ECU in the TSRM.

[driftartist]

i really dont know it seems like you covered almost all bases...but maybe crank position sensor? cam position sensor?

[marinegilbert08]

i really dont know it seems like you covered almost all bases...but maybe crank position sensor? cam position sensor?

Is there even a Crank or Cam sensor on an 85? The cam sensor only came out on turbos didn't it? And my book makes no mention of a Crank sensor at all. Could you point me at it if there is one?

[marinegilbert08]

Alright guys.. After finally getting this car home via car dolly, the Valve timing was off on it by about 4 teeth and it was leaking from a fuel injector. After cussing at it for a lil bit getting things back together from fixing the Injectors... then realizing that i messed one up and another one was leaking, pulling it apart and putting it back together again.. its got a strange idle, its missing through the driving range, and it smells like the clutch is burning. But its a place to start. I think the missing is just having the ignition off a bit. Im not so sure about the clutch though, the PO said he never had a problem with it, so does anyone have a suggestion? It only sat for a couple months could the clutch just be sticking from sitting?

[Supradad]

You are possibly running the wrong spark plugs.
If they're not right it will run like crap.

It also sounds like the cold air intake has a vacumn leak and is sucking air.
Makes it hard to start (if it even starts at all) with a vacumn leak in the intake.

[marinegilbert08]

Got it started, moved to a new problem in a new thread.

http://forums.celicasupra.com/showthread.php?t=52379