just picked up a grand prix with lq1-CHEAP

[no_doz]

just picked up or 93 or 94 (im not sure yet as to the year) pontiac grand prix with the 3.4 lq1 off of my girlfriends aunt because it wont start. its getting spark & compression & its turning over fine, so my guess is the fuel pump at this point in time. the body is in great shape & the trans is too, picked it up for $125 with a clean title! im bringing it home tomorrow & will start tearing into it (if worked on it once before but her aunt wanted me to do all the work for free & im not down with that on one of these in case it was something wrong with the engine). just out of curiousity any suggestions as to what else could be causing this no start condition?

[SappySE107]

bad oil pressure sending unit is a possibility, or a blown fuse.

[robertisaar]

just picked up or 93 or 94 (im not sure yet as to the year) pontiac grand prix with the 3.4 lq1 off of my girlfriends aunt because it wont start. its getting spark & compression & its turning over fine, so my guess is the fuel pump at this point in time. the body is in great shape & the trans is too, picked it up for $125 with a clean title! im bringing it home tomorrow & will start tearing into it (if worked on it once before but her aunt wanted me to do all the work for free & im not down with that on one of these in case it was something wrong with the engine). just out of curiousity any suggestions as to what else could be causing this no start condition?

does it have a MAF? if so its a 94...

[Mars]

have your aunt turn the key and use some quick start in there.

OPSU will let the car idle for a certain ammt of time before it cuts fuel I belive... cause there is usually no pressure for 5- 10 secs if the oil's cold.

[SappySE107]

Not if its bad inside, then it won't even turn on. I have had this happen before.

[no_doz]

not if what is bad on the inside? im sorry but you guys have me lost lol

also, the car cranks & cranks but wont fire, yet it has compression & spark, but im yet to confirm the presence of fuel, im still waiting to hear from her so i can tow it to the garage & tear into it, im really tempted to just buy the $130 topend gasket/seal set & timing belt, but thats a pretty decent chunk of my paycheck & it will have to wait until next week when i get paid. at this point im not sure if i want to keep it and use the money from the camaro to beef it up & put in a 5 or 6 speed (because ive already had this combo in another car & after i ran it hard for a good while it smoked the tranny right before the engine blew) my motivation against keeping it is that i already know how big the reliability difference is between this engine & the other 60* engines, but what is the main cause of this?

upon second thought-if i can fix or greatly improve whatever makes these things so unreliable in comparison to the pushrod engines, im just going to swap out this engine with a cheap 3.1 & sell this car to get me a 3rd gen v6 camaro to put the lq1 in im basing this on the fact that A: if i do ever supercharge this engine (which is very likely once i get the 93 maro sold) i will lose the ability to plant it due to the fwd, B: therell be a 400lb weight difference, and blown up v6 3rd gen maros are easy/cheap to find/find parts for & they just look so damn beautiful although how much of a bitch is it gonna be to mate the v6 rwd 5 speed trans to the fwd engine?

[no_doz]

on a humorous side note, the original owner of the car was the aunt's son (my gf's cousin), & when this car broke down he went and got another grand prix on payments, with the quad 4 engine & that pos blew-i just thought it was funny that both times hes picked vehicles hes picked these semi rare to find 4 valve chevy engines & both of them took a crap on em :P also the mileage on the car is 149k & not actual, i know from talking to the original owner that he put a new dash in a few thousand miles before it took a crap & it had a few thousand less than what was actual so his mom put the mileage as non-actual (UGH!), & i know hes no lying to me because he didnt get squat out of the car sale, hes just happy that his mom paid $800 to have a new pos quad 4 put in that other grand prix lol

[SappySE107]

If the oil pressure sending unit is bad on the inside, it won't turn the fuel pump on.

[no_doz]

really? how much are those usually & where are they located? thanks for your help guys

[pocket-rocket]

Call the parts store, I don't have a price off hand. It's right above the oil filter. It's about 3 inches long and an inch in diameter.

[no_doz]

sweet-ill call autozone, advanced, & o'rielys tomorrow & ill post prices in case anyone else comes across this thread maybe itll save em some time.

[no_doz]

son of a bitch! i went to call autozone about the oil sending unit figuring it was gonna be bucks, turns out its $5.99!

[asylummotorsports]

Now now. Be nice about Quad 4's. I have one of those too in my California no rust Beretta and it has 154,xxx miles, runs perfect and still has the original clutch in it.

About your car, as was suggested, hit it with some starting fluid and see if it fires.

[no_doz]

dont get me wrong, thats a gorgeous car & ill bet it hauls, but reliability wise everyone ive know has had problems but theres were 150k+ but then again they may havegotten abused cars, not real sure.

[no_doz]

am i going to have to take off the upper intake or anything to get to this? does anyone have a picture?