nagging problem I simply cannot cure...

I got an 87 firebird for my son to drive to school while we restore his 66 chevy II. its not a show car by any stretch, only cost me 1200 bucks initially. it has run great until very recently, all of a sudden on day it just stopped running on him.

I went out to where he had left it, started it right back up and drove it home. it happened again to him, this time I couldnt get it started and had it towed home. a couple of days pass and I am gonna work on it, but it starts right up! he drives it for a week or two and it dies again. this time I have it towed to a shop.

the shop changes something in the distributor, not sure what it was called. car again drives a few weeks and dies, I have it towed back to the same shop. this time he replaces the fuel pump. car drives a few weeks, stops running.

now we are on yesterday. car fires right up. dies after about 10 minutes of idling. we change the computer brain thingamajiggy, car fires right up and idles for a good half an hour or so. we think all is well, kid goes out this morning to go to school and the car dies about 6 feet into the trip, after warmup of course.

I go out to help him because he is blocking the street, the car starts right up for me, I drive it down the street and back, only on the way back it dies again and I just park it.

its a 6 cyl, automatic version. anyone have any problem like this before that can shed some light on what the hell the problem might be?

parts replaced already: distributor (piece inside, not sure what it was)
fuel pump
computer controller module (brain)

no one has any ideas at all?


and the piece in the distributor was the ignition module.

I by no means know much of nething as far as working on a motor. But when its simple I could probably fix it. But you could trying changing spark plugs, wires, or try a new distributer. I would of course go cheapest first and shoot for new plugs.

Good luck

Does the car have an ignition kill security feature? If so get that thing outta there.

maybe 02s sensors? Does that year even have em?

maybe a fuel filter, or could be a fuel line .... that's my bet. :Popcorn:

check the fuel pump relay. I had similar problems in my 3rd gen every time it died i would smack the relay and it fired right up. good luck!

my guess is its fuel feed problem, change the filter and flush out the lines. Could be a blockage some where. I ve a had a piece of rust block the line out of the tank, mind you the car is from 1964. Just a thought.

i have a 5.0 and the same thing was happening to my car, turns out it was my tachometer the was connected to the coil was causing some type shortage and killing my car instantly. i dont know if this is any help to you but i thought i would just throw it out there just incase. i hated thinking my car was fixed only to go drive out some place and have it die. sometimes i got lucky and it would die close to my house.

Coil. If memory serves me correctly, and its been 10 yrs since we owned a 3rd gen, there's more than one ignition component inside that distributor cap. The symptoms you describe are typical of a coil that is overheating and shutting down, then cooling off and working again for a few minutes.