Folks,

I recently finished the majority of my lq3 swap into a 1972 Nova. I got plates on it the other night and decided I'd take it out for a spin. Well, I drove from my house out to run some errands (all within a mile of the house). A half mile drive, the car did great. Another half mile, the car did great. Then I went for the big trip... 2 miles, tops. Well, I'm pulling in to Walmart and as I'm sitting at a stop sign the engine died. I went to restart the engine and it cranked and cranked. I let up and tried again and it cranked and cranked. The third time I couldn't hear the starter or the fuel pump engage. I ended up having to have the thing towed home (one mile for about $75.00). Today, I went outside and tried to turn the engine over and after a few cranks it fired right up like nothing was wrong.

Does anyone have an idea of what could be going on? Bad ground? It doesn't seem to be an overheating issue. And it doesn't seem to be an electrical issue since it fired right up today. Maybe the computer got hot since I have it in the engine compartment within a foot of the header? Issue with the fuel pump?

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!
Mike

 

Do you have a fuel pressure gauge? I had something similar happen and it turned out my battery wasn't getting charged enough and the voltage my fuel pump was getting wasn't making it happy.

 

Yeah, check you FP. I had a check valve in my fuel system that had gotten stuck and starved the she for fuel. After it had set for some time it freed up.and I haven't had a problem since.

 

I have one of the inline test ones that hooks up to the shrader valve on the fuel rail. I'll see if I can figure out a way to hook it up and monitor it while driving to see what's going on. What is the pressure I should be looking for if anyone knows?

Thanks all!
Mike

 

I should say that I hooked a volt meter up yesterday while it was at idle and I had 14.1 or 14.2 volts at idle at the battery. I am worried though that at speed there may be slippage (I can't hear any) because the accessory system is the same as the original truck setup just with the AC delete. I'm afraid there might not be enough pulley wrap to get the job done.

Also, apparently I need to check the oil. Yesterday I pulled the radiator cap and I had to put in about a quarter of a gallon of coolant. I thought I had the system fully bled and burped. I don't see any white smoke or smell coolant on startup though. Motor oil does look a little odd on the stick....

 

Odd on the stick? Look like a milkshake??

If so... STOP driving it. You've got coolant leaking into your oil...

 

Sounds like a possible head gasket, take a pic and post it, should be able to tell pretty easily if it has coolant contamination. But that wouldn't account for the for the dies and won't restart. 14V is plenty sufficient. Minimum fuel pressure is 58psi.

 

If you don't have an overflow bottle that lets coolant suck back into the radiator when it cools then you can expect to always be a quart or so low.

How long did your car/motor sit while doing the swap? Oil will collect water while sitting, usually a great idea to change the oil before the first start.

As for the thing dying check all your fuel filters. It is pretty common to stir up fuel line debris when doing a swap. Especially if you had to modify/sump the tank. If you find any junk you may need to back flush the fuel system.

That is one advantage of a carb, easy to check for fuel.

 

The car sat a while even after it got to the point that it finally had oil in it. The initial startup was in August of 2011 from what I can find in my videos that my ex recorded. From that point on the car sat since I've been starting a business. I'll get out this weekend and snap a photo. It isn't totally milky, but something is different from what I'm used to looking at whenever I change oil. Before that first startup, I'd say it was probably close to a year that it took me to do the swap.

I did install an overflow tank, but I think I may have located it in a poor spot because I've seen some water in the line but I've never seen the amount budge in the coolant tank itself. Plus, the tank has pure water in it and it hasn't changed shade once. Coolant seems to be going somewhere. The oil level seems to be low (I have a few leaks to seal up that I know of) but I don't see oil in the coolant. It seems like I can let the car sit for a day, open the radiator and top off the tank as it'll be down at least a good inch. If I top it off again, it'll drop right back down (just about immediately). Do it again, right back down. This is without even running the car and I don't think the thermostat is leaking or I'm sure the coolant would have balanced out by now. Plus, the coolant doesn't seem to drop THAT low.

As far as the car dying, it could be a plugged filter somewhere. My setup is the stock pickup from a 69 camaro (3/8 out and 1/4 in I think) with the stock pickup filter. Then it goes into a little carburetor inline filter (which I was told I couldn't use), but it doesn't look like it has collapsed. From there, it hits the inline pump and then the final filter before hitting the fuel rail. The fuel rail has a return line that I took advantage of the stock Nova fuel line then ran into the 1/4 vent tube in the camaro pickup. The only thing that I could think would be plugged would be the carb filter that I'm using as a pre-filter. I'll check it this weekend. Other than that maybe it's an issue with the return line being too small?

I'll head outside and snap a photo. Let's see if I can figure out how to post one....

Thanks everyone for the help!
Mike

 

Ok, I think I got them uploaded. They're cell phone pictures so I apologize up front. The oil on the dipstick looks good tonight. Almost new. The other day it was darker and cloudier with some bubbles. I didn't fire it up tonight, I thought it would stay mixed (in case you can't tell, I've never dealt with this before. This whole thing has been new to me). It didn't smell sweet. The other one is a photo of the radiator from the cap. Coolant in it now is a little higher than it was the other day after the drive. But it currently goes down about an inch and a half from the base of the radiator cap. Like I said, if I top it off it'll go right back to that spot. So assuming the overflow tank isn't working for whatever reason, where is the coolant going?

Thanks again!
Mike