Help...how to capture a dying car..
Thread Starter
Teching In
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 48
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Help...how to capture a dying car.. I have a buddy with a firebird that has a V6 in it. This darn thing will intermittently die on him. I am talking engine instantly shuts off and everything goes dead.....not running out of fuel....but instantly dead. He will wait about 30 seconds and boom....it runs again like normal.
He has had it to the dealer and they say no codes are being recorded and can't find the problem. He has a laptop computer, and I was thinking there must be a way for him to connect his laptop to his car to record what happens when it dies so that he can figure out what is causing the problem.
Is there software out there for free that can be loaded into his laptop to do such a thing? My feeling is since the engine dies instantly, whatever is causing the problem is not being recorded by the computer......
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks...........
He has had it to the dealer and they say no codes are being recorded and can't find the problem. He has a laptop computer, and I was thinking there must be a way for him to connect his laptop to his car to record what happens when it dies so that he can figure out what is causing the problem.
Is there software out there for free that can be loaded into his laptop to do such a thing? My feeling is since the engine dies instantly, whatever is causing the problem is not being recorded by the computer......
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks...........
See what he has droping out first then go from there. GMM on the power and grounds to the ecm, injectors, ref volts, etc and see what is dropping out first. I normally will jump on these with the above, a fuel pressure gauge, scanner and scope on sec. ign and go for a test drive. Really fast and easy to narrow down then.
Once you know what is happening then you can attack that porblem and fix it.
Or play the "my car did the same thing and this fixed it" game or guess like so many do....
Once you know what is happening then you can attack that porblem and fix it.
Or play the "my car did the same thing and this fixed it" game or guess like so many do....
Dead in its tracks.... Alot of the late model GMs have a seperate power wire for pcm at the + batt terminal, make sure theres good connection at the terminal. I usually see this problem w/ aftermarket power hookups(stereos) made at this point and then dying problems occur.
Thread Starter
Teching In
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 48
Likes: 0
thanks for the feedback.......I will try to help him out with this. Will a real cheap scanner from Autozone work for this diagnosis? I will check the pcm power wire at the battery terminal first.....thanks for your help........
