Last Saturday I filled up my Yugo, about 5 gallons of premium (car calls for 89) in my 8 gallon tank, on a not nice section of Woodward ave. Car drove fine after this, ran flat out perfectly, started easy, etc.
Sunday it was misbehaving, acted like it was cold when it wasn't. Bucking, missing, etc. A few miles later it gave up completely. I checked the ignition system over to find the coil to distributor wire had backed out of the coil, it was covered in evidence of arcing. After plugging it back in I had a very weak, orange spark.
A new coil was installed, now I had a hot white spark. Car still wouldn't start, but would cough and sputter. We tried starting fluid, no help. Ignition timing should be good, distributor hasn't moved. Cam timing is spot on. Had it flatbedded home.
I thought maybe I had fouled the plugs, new Bosch coppers were installed. It now would try to run. More starting attempts with a friend cranking while I played with the carb got it running, It idled as it should, and we let it warm up. Now i could roll it around the parking lot in 1st, it would take off fine, but any significant throttle input would kill it dead. Will rev in neutral all day long. Very hard to start, though it would occasionally start normally. It seemed to only fire when I let off the key.
I pulled the jets out, they were clean. Accelerator pump working. I got it running again and looked at the spray pattern from the main jet, looked like it was getting plenty of fuel. Just for fun, I pulled the fuel hose off the carb to check for flow, THE GAS THAT CAME OUT WAS DARK YELLOW. I didn't have any HEET handy, but I did have a half bottle of Marine Stabil. I poured a big dose (about 6mL) in the carb vent and it ran better, then worse after a minute.
Bad gas, right? Its the only thing I can think of. Note the ignition in this car is a electronic Bosch system, it is dumb(advance is all vacuum/mech), and it still fires hot. My timing is all correct. When it runs, it sounds fine at idle/crawl. The car ran great prior to last weekend. The whole "only fires when I let off the starter" thing makes me think I got ethanol gas that was already saturated, and the fairly open(my EVAP is deleted, the vapor hose just vents near the firewall) fuel system let more water in and now I have some extremely hard it light, slow burning fuel.
Sunday it was misbehaving, acted like it was cold when it wasn't. Bucking, missing, etc. A few miles later it gave up completely. I checked the ignition system over to find the coil to distributor wire had backed out of the coil, it was covered in evidence of arcing. After plugging it back in I had a very weak, orange spark.
A new coil was installed, now I had a hot white spark. Car still wouldn't start, but would cough and sputter. We tried starting fluid, no help. Ignition timing should be good, distributor hasn't moved. Cam timing is spot on. Had it flatbedded home.
I thought maybe I had fouled the plugs, new Bosch coppers were installed. It now would try to run. More starting attempts with a friend cranking while I played with the carb got it running, It idled as it should, and we let it warm up. Now i could roll it around the parking lot in 1st, it would take off fine, but any significant throttle input would kill it dead. Will rev in neutral all day long. Very hard to start, though it would occasionally start normally. It seemed to only fire when I let off the key.
I pulled the jets out, they were clean. Accelerator pump working. I got it running again and looked at the spray pattern from the main jet, looked like it was getting plenty of fuel. Just for fun, I pulled the fuel hose off the carb to check for flow, THE GAS THAT CAME OUT WAS DARK YELLOW. I didn't have any HEET handy, but I did have a half bottle of Marine Stabil. I poured a big dose (about 6mL) in the carb vent and it ran better, then worse after a minute.
Bad gas, right? Its the only thing I can think of. Note the ignition in this car is a electronic Bosch system, it is dumb(advance is all vacuum/mech), and it still fires hot. My timing is all correct. When it runs, it sounds fine at idle/crawl. The car ran great prior to last weekend. The whole "only fires when I let off the starter" thing makes me think I got ethanol gas that was already saturated, and the fairly open(my EVAP is deleted, the vapor hose just vents near the firewall) fuel system let more water in and now I have some extremely hard it light, slow burning fuel.
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