Ok, so this car is why I love vehicles with carbs and points. I have a '93 1.6L DX, did the timing belt and water pump a few months ago and then put around 500 miles on the car, had no issues with the car for that time. The timing had not jumped I just did the belt because I was in there for the pump. I took the car on a long drive one afternoon and at some point the seatbelt light came on and at the sametime the engine kind of sputered, I put the clutch in and revved the engine a few times, put some gas in it because it was very low and fired it back up and it ran fine. A few miles down the road it did the same thing, light came on, engine sputtered, clutch in, fine. The third time it did it it died, I pulled over to the side of the road and the car would crank fine, start, sputter and then die. The head and emergency lights where acting very odd and in general the electrical system was acting off, relays where buzzing for no reason, the lights where flashing, kind of thought it was possed. Well I got it back, fixxed the main chassis ground which was bad and that fixxed the lights and the relays but the car still wouldn't run. It would turn over fine, kick off and start for around a second, come up in RPMS and then die, like it was running on the prime of the fuel system but not getting running fuel. I put a fuel pump and just now a fuel pump relay and new ECU along with the relay at the ECU and nothing changes it, I am quickly reaching the point of crushing this little monster, any ideas?

 

Have you installed a fuel pressure gauge to see what happens after trying to start it? Another way to see if its a fuel problem is see if it will run off of carb cleaner spray. Just remove one of the vacuum hoses off of the intake tube and use the supplied straw on the can and have a helper try to start the car. Do not try to soak the inside of the intake, just do small squirts to get vapor in there. An engine will run good off of carb spray.

Don't crush the poor car, one of us might buy it!

 

If you are getting fuel pressure when cranking but dropping off once engine starts you might try taking a look at the Mass Air Flow sensor. The fuel pump relay is a dual coil style relay. When cranking the engine, voltage is supplied to the first relay coil by the crank circuit, continuous ground for this coil is supplied by ground point #4 by the left strut tower. Once you release the key from cranking then that coil is deenergized but second coil within the relay then becomes energized to supply power to the fuel pump. This second coil within the fuel pump relay is supplied voltage by the main relay but ground path is provided by a switch inside of the mass air flow sensor. If this switch is faulty or air flow door is sticking and not opening up correctly then fuel pump will not be supplied power once key is released from cranking. This switch can be checked by simply bypassing it and providing separate ground. To do this you need to open up the DIAGNOSIS box in left rear corner of engine compartment next to the brake master cylinder. Ground the Pin lableled F/P as shown in drawings below. Ignore the TEN grounding part in the first drawing as this is used to check for fault codes. This F/P pin is just a branch circuit of the one to the air flow meter to allow you to check fuel pressure but works great for diagnosing fuel problems.

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