Thread: Sudden onset flooding, fails to run

Hello all, thanks again for your time.

Car has been running solid for a long time except for a few small electrical issues. Nothing significant enough to cause a real issue with my car actually running. Just drove it this past weekend for a couple long drives even got good gas mileage for the first time in a while.

Yesterday, drove it a few hours and it was running great. Pulled strong, ran smooth steady idle. I went and got gas at the local speedway as the options of gas stations near me are limited. I always run highest octane even though my timing is only at 17. Gas station is less than 2 miles from my residence and had no problems with the short drive from station to home.

This morning I went to start my car, started up fine. Idle was okay for a few minutes as I went inside to eat some oatmeal before i left for work. Heard my idle start bouncing hard so I go outside to see whats going on and my AFR's are all over the place and it has idle bouncing from 500-2500rpms. I touch the gas pedal for a second to see what the result is and the car falls dead. Will not start. Cranks over and over. I pull all spark plugs to check spark and fuel. Plugs are soaked fuel sitting on the pistons. So i dry the plugs, throw them in wires and have someone crank it so I can watch spark. Spark is solid. Check voltage at the ignition coil, 12v coming in. I pull the fuel pump fuse and crank the fuel out to let it dry and close it all up to try again. Floods again. I change to my other set of spark plugs and do the same thing, same result.

So i pull the fuel pump fuse and crank it over. It starts and runs like it was idling earlier. Rpms all over the place same with AFRs until it runs dry on fuel and dies. No changes or anything were done to the car in weeks.

What has been done to the car and has not been changed in years:
Calum Basic- Calum b13 ve injector n60 maf tune
walbro 255lph
aem eugo wideband
msd 8969
17* timing always running highest octane available
n60 maf

What has been changed in the past year or 2:
Spark plugs-NGK's from gregv. I keep 2 sets
Distributor, cap and rotor
Fuel filter
vacuum lines
NGK spark plug wires
Re-installed car audio system
Battery
Grounds- Increases in addition, size and quality of connection to chassis

What I have checked:
Spark, Fuel and Air
Voltages at ignition coil, ignition chip, maf, tps and injectors


Any idea what else to check/inspect or replace? I am starting to think that it is either bad gas and it is not combusting properly, thus leaving liquid and flooding or that the walbro finally smoked my stock FPR and its running wide on fuel pressure. I am going to try to get a fuel pressure gauge on it shortly as well as compression check for good measure.

Guess I should probably add that it is flooding at least 3 cylinders. It was harder to tell on #3. The others had completely soaked the plugs.

replace the CLT (coolant temp sensor)

Installed a fuel pressure gauge, sprayed some carb cleaner in the engine and on the spark plugs and buttoned everything back up. Threw a bottle of Valvoline water removal in the gas tank. Running okay now. A little bumpy idle at first but then came around and is idling fine now. Let it warm up, the fans came on, gave it some high revs and its still idling okay. Going to let it run a while before I go for a ride to see how it does. Almost certain that it was a bad tank of gas, must've had water in it. I bought a coolant temp sensor but didn't even get to put it in as I knew my fans were working and assumed it wasn't CLT. Hopefully this was the actual solution and its not just an intermittent problem that is temporarily not showing its symptoms.