I have a 2000 protégé dx, manual trans. , 1.6 liter. came out to start car and would turn over very slow. battery tested good, mechanic put in new starter, motor now cranks over strong but still no start. he told me starter was bad it was drawing too much current. car has new fuel pump, sock filter, new spark plugs, new fuel pressure regulator and one new coil pack. it is getting spark but it is orange/yellow color. intake air hose is clean. pcv valve tested okay. car has 84k miles. new air filter also. if I crank engine for 5-6 seconds it will start and run for 2-3 seconds and then die out immediately. when I check plugs they are wet and blackish looking. it looks more like gas than oil but it doesn't have any (gas) smell.my Haynes book says it could be vacuum problem or ecm problem. car has new camshaft position sensor also. no engine codes come up. I drove car that morning and everything was fine, then 2 hours later tried to start it and all I got was the slow crank as mentioned above. help

 

Kinda hard to say without looking at it but that one has 2 coils and each coil runs 2 cylinders. I always replace both coils when one goes out. It is very easy to get the 2 plug wires crossed too. Check to be sure they are on the correct cylinder. I had one towed to me a month ago that had those wires crossed. It is possible that the MAF is bad, try cleaning it. Black plugs mean excess fuel or not enough air. If the MAF is telling the PCM that it is at WOT it will flood the cylinders with fuel by holding them open too long. You can try disconnecting the MAF and see if it makes a difference. Orange spark is weak spark so either a bad coil or the MAF is telling the PCM it needs more fuel etc.

 

thanks for info. will check it out