Mind Boggling Disty Problem

[Silver_Wraith]

Ok Its time to ask for aome more advise. Ok so far i've replaced Plug wires, cap, rotor, and as of last night the distributor. Now for symptoms it seems to want to run cold but as the engine comes up to temp cuts out and dies. Now i'm wondering if i might have a bad ground problem somewhere that as the engine bay heats up the increases the resistance of the wires causing a short form somewhere? or am i way off in left field on this one?

[hgallegos915]

I got myself a new battery, and added a ground t it and cleaned the 0ld ones and i have had that problem less and less now. My coil is good, checked it. Maybe thats whats wrong. ALso sometimes the engine will flood, all i do is remove the engine fuse start and resinert as starting and it starts right up.

[TsiMiata]

will it not idle when warm or not run at all?

[Silver_Wraith]

Ok well it wasn't running at idle at when it was warm. Took the new distributor back to kragen and got yet another one. Installed that one and purred like a baby. Took that one up the steet to get it up to temp came back to park. while waiting in the spot it started to choke out hit the accelerator and *bam* dies. try to start it again, start choking and dies again. So i tow it home and do a compression check and it came back with a 20 psi spread so i'm in a half way decent spread and it means that i didn't bend a valve while the ecu was trying to reconfigure the timing to what it wants. So today i learned to never trust Remanufactured parts the first time around and when you fix one problem you only come up with another one. BTW the engine will crank but it won't start up on its own. I'm now thinking it might be a fuel delivery problem but i can smell fuel and when i was doing the compression test the plugs where wet with fuel. So again i'm at a current loss.. any suggestions?

[IanL]

If it's dying only when warm, AND only at idle, it's probably the Idle Air Control Valve, which doesn't have control until the Bypass Air Control valve is closed by the coolant warming up.

Online Manual Page F2-37 Step 6, and Page F2-98/99.

[Gro Harlem]

Its not your plugs, wires, disty, iac valve, tps or any of that crap.

It is your coolant temperature sensor. Something similar happened to my sisters protege when her CTS was bad. It would run completely normally up until it got warm then it would idle like dog**** and eventually it wouldn't even run anymore.

The CTS is an 18 dollar part from any parts store and is located next to the coolant cap on the engine. There should be two of them. I think the one you'd want to replace is the one with the green plug, but i'm not 100% positive which is which (there is a black and a green one). You might just wanna replace them both to be safe, or you could buy a new one and just trial and error it til u get it right.

[TsiMiata]

Im thinking it might be a vacuum leak. The car runs real rich when it's warming up. Rich enough that if there was extra air getting by the VAF it would still run. Then when it leans out the mixture when it's warm it dies out.

[Silver_Wraith]

Ok Gro Great call but unfortunately still didn't fully fix the problem.... my question is where is that other sensor you your talking about i found the obvious one right next to the coolant fill did the resistace check and it was 22kohms and was indicating 216 degrees. replaced that and then the timming belt let out a 3 to 4 second squeal and then cranked over to idle... it was an alright idle until comming up to temerature then (in relation to gas needle for referace) 1/4 mark the idle started to stabilize at about 750 then it started a sluggish idle with the car viberatingand if i just slowly eased the gas pedal down it would smoothly come up in rpm but if i push the peddal at a normal accelerating use it engine would bog down until i let off or bog all the way out? no now i'm at a back to scratching my head. Is my Timing belt Slipping or could it a fuel delivery problem or am i overlooking something all together?

Ok as for the other tests i check the IAC and it was fine with the ohm check. And as for the Engine vacuum while the engine was coming up to idle i pulled the oil dipstick up a little bit and heard a noticable change in the way engine was running so i have vacuum. i don't have a vacuum tester so i don't know if i'm running the proper amount of vacuum but it is there atleast a crankcase vacuum.

[IanL]

The coolant temp sensor which controls the fuel injection is the one on Page F2-81 of the online manual. The wires are Purple/Blue and either Black/Blue (94/5)or Black/Brown (91/3).

[TsiMiata]

Your timing belt cannot slip.