ccconor

I parked my car after driving one night, went back the next morning and the car started, but seemed to be running off 4 cylinders (as i have experienced before with a dead ignition coil) immediately pulled back into my parking garage and went on my day coming back to it later. I checked to see if my new ignition coil was faulty or something, im getting spark from both ignition coils. While doing this I noticed A large coolant leak from my radiator in many spots that seemed to spray all over my engine, distributors and battery. Attached is photos of where these leaks were coming from. Is it possible that if coolant got on my distributor it would
of completely fried it and caused it not to work? I’ve pulled spark plugs and checked those for spark plugging them into the wires and i’m getting no spark. (When I did this yesterday I was getting spark). Also here is a link to a video of what my car is sounding like when it is cranking over right now. https://youtube.com/shorts/yApsDEkeh5U?

CLLEXUSS

Seems probably related to the coolant spraying all over your engine, electrical something somewhere got wet, hard to know without being there. If something gets too wet and shorts something it could cause a fuse to pop too, there's just a lot of things there

CLLEXUSS

The way it sounds like it wants to start seems like half the cylinders are out but it sounds like you are getting some spark, maybe 50%, I don't think the coolant spraying would affect timing that I can think of off the top of my head lol, but it sounds like timing when you listen to it, but again I don't think that's what it is probably related to the coolant I would think that's the simplest answer, coolant sprays on engine causes electrical problem.

deanshark

On my old 93 I had the timing jump due to the coolant leak from the thermostat housing getting into the timing cover and on the belt which made it slippery. So it is possible.
In the video it sounds like it jumped time. It sounds exactly like mine did when the timing mark on one of my cams was not correct after the T-belt job, 6 months ago. (about 4 teeth off) I set it to the wrong mark on the cam gear.
Are you saying you have spark from the coil wire before it goes into the distributor cap but you have no spark on the plug wires coming out of the distributor cap? That would point me to the dist cap, rotor, or timing. Did you check for spark on every plug wire? Is it just 4 plug wires coming from one certain dist?
Are both coils new or just one? (which one) When was the last tune-up? Like have the distributor caps, rotors, and wires been changed?
If it was me, the first thing I would do is take off the top timing covers and line up all the timing marks (crank pulley and 2 cam gears) to see if the timing is right. If you need to change the caps and rotors they need to come off anyway.

ccconor

I started going through all the ignition system with my spark issue, ruled it down to the spark plug wires, it just seems that they were on their last leg and the coolant spraying onto them killed them. New spark plug wires and I have spark on all 8 cylinders.

Now I still have my no fuel issue, or lack of fuel. I’m gonna pull the back seat out and see if the fuel pump is getting power.

Now with spark again it sounds very different when turning over. Attached is a video of that. I’m thinking the timing belt maybe did slip? It was done last within the last 10k miles according to previous owner; but who knows if that’s true.

I was looking for timing marks and I can’t seem to find them at all? Is there a specific place that im just not checking, or do the marks have to be put on by the person doing the timing? (Also what would cause that weird plume of smoke to shoot out the intake at the end??)

deanshark

It now sounds like it's running out of fuel, like there's no fuel pressure, but I can't be 100% on that. I mean, I would still check the timing marks.
With mine when I did get it to start, after resetting the belt, I had a boatload of white smoke come from the exhaust. (went away after a few minutes) Don't know if that would be the same as the puff of smoke you have coming from the throttle body.
In this tutorial; http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/engine/timingbelt.html In steps 11-13 You can see the white timing mark on the crank pulley set to 0 and the white marks on the two cam pulleys. Step 10 is the way you will see it by just pulling off the top timing covers. Where he has the white chalk marks there are notches in the cam gears which line up to the timing mark (little bump) on the timing plate behind the cam gears.
When you turn the crank pulley (clockwise) to set that timing mark to 0, if the cam gear timing marks both don't line up, spin the crank pulley around one more full rotation. If they still don't line up then it jumped.

ccconor

I didn’t have a CEL before all of this and I decided to check and see if I had any codes. I have codes 14, 15, 24 and 31. For codes 14 and 15 are “Ignition no.1 and no.2 signal” With this I would expect to see an issue with spark but I have fairly strong spark on all 8 cylinders. I suspect these are left over codes from my spark plug wires that I just replaced. Now moving onto code 24 and 31, they both seem to be issues with the MAF, would these codes be what is causing the car not to start at all?? These may also be left over codes? At one point I started the car with no MAF when testing for spark. Should I clear the codes and see if any come back? Also while checking codes my O/D off is constantly flashing, what would that mean? I will go and check the timing belt today like you said and return with the results of that.

deanshark

They could just be stored codes from before, especially if ya had the AFM unplugged while trying to start it. I'd say pull the fuse to reset the codes and try again. You'll get a better view of it all from that. The 14-15 could be from the bad plug wires but there also could still be something else wrong. The AFM will not cause the car to not start. I actually drove a couple years without my AFM plugged in on my old 93.

ccconor

I went and checked the timing as you said and looked at the tutorial and it appears as though the person who did the timing did not put a a mark anywhere on the timing belt. Is there any other possible way at all to check timing?

ccconor

I watched a video talking about a bypass ( ) in the diagnostics port for sending power to the fuel pump so I decided to do that. Here is a video of how the car is when trying to start with that. So far i’m going to guess that the guesses have been correct and it’s a timing issue, as to even get to the point of starting I have it at in the video, I had to hold the key turned for a long time and as soon as I stopped turning the key it would die about 2 seconds later. or my fuel pump may be bad? Here is the link to my video ( )

deanshark

The marks you are looking for are not on the belt itself. The belt, when new, does have white lines on it only to help line it up the first time. Once the engine spins, those lines will never line up to the timing marks again.
The marks you need are little indents on the cam pulleys, which in that tutorial are marked with white chalk. If yours aren't marked with chalk then you're gonna have to look, or feel, for them.
I'm trying to find a video that has them but I'll look more tomorrow.

ccconor

Ok, I went back to the car and I believe that the car is all in time. After going over some other testing, I found that my fuel relay is in fact not getting any sort of power at all. Every other relay is getting power, I tested the relay and it is working as it should, as well as tried another relay for the fuel pump that I had from the previous owner (Also worked fine when I tested it.) I am not getting a click or a feeling of it clicking when I put the car in the run position. I believe there is a way to bypass this relay correct? I think I saw a post about it a while ago but I'm struggling to find a write-up of how to do it on UCF10 LS400. I believe that this may be my issue. Not too sure how it all of a sudden stopped working. I think the sounds of the car starting before was leftover fuel possibly? When I did take my spark plugs out they were quite wet. If possible could someone link me a write-up of how to bypass the fuel pump relay/fuel pump ECU?

Yamae

The fuel pump relay is only switching the current (low/full) to the fuel pump as is shown below. It is the circuit opening relay which controls the power to it. Bypassing FP and +B at the check connector makes it possible to power the fuel pump.

Other than the fuel pump issue, I worry that your engine was badly over heated. The condition of the radiator top shows it. The root cause of the problem may be there.

deanshark

If the plugs are wet then you are getting fuel. But if you're getting spark now on all 8 with the new plug wires you say you put on the plugs shouldn't be wet, the spark should burn that fuel away.
Ya got me stumped on this cuz I still have it in my mind that the timing might be off. Cuz that's what mine sounded like when the timing was off. Sorry.

ccconor

Ok so I’m going to probably seem stupid to a lot of you LS veterans, but this is the first car i’ve ever truely modified. I’ve always done my own maintenance and family’s maintenance work but never anything super hard, just breaks, oil changes, coolant flushes etc. After looking through forum post on forum post I found one referring to the open circuit relay, and just as a last ditch effort unplugged and plugged those relays back in. Magically… It runs. At first it was running REALLY rough, like massive white cloud of smoke and dying after a couple seconds, it stopped the cloud of smoke but would still die after a couple seconds. It now turns on and stays on. I do have code 13 and code 31 though disappointingly. I’ll have to get to those next after replacing my radiator next. 31 seems to just be the AFM which will be easy enough to fix! Thank you everyone who put in the 2 cents, especially deanshark. I look forward to staying on these forums and community!