It ran ...twice

[neophile_17]

Hey guys,

First a little background- this car is 6 hours from me so I need to plan things out a little more than I otherwise would. The car itself is an 85 Fiero with an LX9, WOT Street/Strip Cam, and headers.

Saturday evening I finished everything needed to try and start her up. She fired up on the second crank which was amazing and honestly a little surprising. However, after tidying up some loose ends Sunday I went to finish bleeding the coolant and the engine started idling lower and lower until it died. I tried a couple things but in the end I had to pack up and head home before doing a thorough diagnosis.

One of the things I did Sunday was connect vacuum to the valve cover breather since I don't have a pre-throttle body connection anymore. Is there any chance I kept oil from draining back into the pan and starved the engine?

My impression is that something is dragging in the engine. Any ideas on what could have gone wrong. I know I'm lacking in information but it's killing me considering how close I thought I was.

Thanks for your insight!

Sam

[robertisaar]

watch fuel pressure the next time you key on? i've seen a failing pump do nearly the same thing.

and by vacuum to the valve cover, do you mean full manifold vacuum at all times?

[1988GTU]

Pull the plugs. Might have been over fueling or filling cylinders with coolant.

[neophile_17]

Thanks guys.

watch fuel pressure the next time you key on? i've seen a failing pump do nearly the same thing.

and by vacuum to the valve cover, do you mean full manifold vacuum at all times?

Fuel pressure will be first on my agenda since it's the easiest to test. Yes full manifold vacuum. As soon as it stopped running I plugged the TB connection and left the valve cover open to atmosphere. It still didn't start after that.

Pull the plugs. Might have been over fueling or filling cylinders with coolant.

I did smell the tailpipe to see if I could smell gas from an overly rich condition, and I tried flood clear mode. It's still possible but I'm leaning away from overly rich as the culprit. Hopefully I didn't mess anything up badly enough to fill the cylinders with coolant when I put it back together. I guess I'll find out when I go to do a compression test.

[caffeine]

Not having vacuum hooked up to the valve cover will not affect oiling in a significant way. The factory PCV system does not create a vacuum in the crankcase it merely circulates air through it.

[neophile_17]

I was afraid it might affect oiling in a negative way- keeping the oil from draining back into the pan and starving the pump. I'm still a little concerned that that might be the case :-/

[caffeine]

Not at all. Nothing to be concerned about