I was on my way home last night, doing about 60mph. I came to a bend in the road let go of the gas and the engine backfired like a machine gun about 5 times. Gave it a little gas through the bend and got about 10 feet from my drive way and check gauges light came on, started turning right into the drive way, and the engine just cut completely off. Noticed my gas gauge was leaning towards E and we all know how the gauges blow in these cars, so I called my g/f and had her bring some gas and jumper cables. Poured some gas in the car, hooked up the jumper cables and tried started it and it just cranked. As it was trying to crank the car seemed like the battery was dead, and all the lights would dim to almost off. Pulled the jumper cables off, tried started it a few times. Hooked my scanner to it and pulled code 16 low resolution pulse, gave up and pulled it the rest of the way home. This morning I got up hooked the battery charger to it and waited about 10 minutes and tried to start it, and it did the same thing it was doing last night. I pulled the PCM, let the battery charge for about 30 minutes than tried to start it up. It ended up starting, and stumbled horribly, backfired and fell on it's face again. I put a fuel pressure gauge on it, turned the key on and had ~40psi. Had my g/f try to start the car and had about ~50psi while cranking. I than put a spark tester on, cranked the key and the light lit up, with about a 1-2 second delay. I rescanned the car, and found no codes this time. For the hell off it, I ran through the diag chart I pulled from ALLDATA, and tested the PCM side of the opti harness and had 5 volts. Tested the opti harness it self, also 5 volts. The diag chart leads to faulty Opti connector or faulty distributor. The only problem I'm having with this is that the code is no longer being thrown so I suspect code 16 was thrown because the battery was pretty well drained the night before. I'm kind of leaning towards the timing chain jumping or breaking. When I go to start the car, it backfires really bad, which leaves me to believe the timiing is off, and the plugs are firing after TDC and when the exhaust valves are opened. Hoping I can catch some opinions on here so I know what to rip off my car tomorrow and get some parts ordered.

Sorry for such a long post, was trying to be as descriptive as possible

 

you need an opti...

 

A reason why you think that would be great

 

Because you set the low res code, it doesn't throw that for the hell of it some times it won't repeat or throw the code at all, just pop and backfire or just spin over and over.. sometimes stumbling trying to start , I Can guarantee you didnt break your timing chain nore did it skip...that's just retarded ,c'mon it's not like a wimpy belt on a honda for Christ sake.. It's actually very well constructed.. Mine has 193,000 miles ... If you had broke it, it would have shut down immediatly with banging like a bomb went off all at once..would not have been backfireing ..would have several bent valves and or a cracked timing cover and a big Ol' oil leak .And a complete teardown would be in order
Tell us more about the car? Mods? Miles? I also think you should check the opti harness and connections for damage and/or corrosion.

 

About 114000, mods in sig. Only reason I was doubting the opti was because after trying to get to car to start for about 20 minutes my batterys voltage was pretty low and I had read this from another site.

You can and will throw a code 16 when voltage drops REALLY low. Meaning if you leave your lights on, and your car almost doesn't start you probably triggered a code 16. But it won't make your light come on.


Havn't thrown code 16 since I recharged my battery. I had the car running after a couple tries, but it ran like complete ****, and from my understanding code 16 doesn't allow the car to run period.

 

hey did your t/a die on 295? i saw one sitting there around 1pm?

 

Opti is bad..... low res code... time to change opti. Low voltage does not cause random opti codes pr any codes for that matter

 

lol no that wasn't me.

I pulled the opti out today and heard some things rattling inside of it, so I'm thinking the screw backed out of the rotor.... I'll pull it apart just to double check tomorrow. Already have one shipped, so hopefully will have her running again in a few days :]

 

"screws" as in two , plural... Very common, locktite them bolt it back on at see if it fires up!! Mine and many before me have done this .. Maybe get your money back on the new one, if you do keep the new one .. Locktite the screw in it and rtv the cap for
Added insurance

 

The only problem I have with doing that, is I don't think it's ever been replaced. On top of the my intake manifold is leaking bad, and noticed a ton of oil come out of the optispark itself. It's probably best to just replace it, and not have to worry about it for a while. Is there anything I could do to prevent oil from getting into the optispark for about a week until I can pull the intake off?

 

Ehhhh... Oil & water don't do an opti good..