car dead, need answers

[southerncross]

ok, had a little problem with the pro last night:

(this is on my 92 lx)
the car has had a problem (not a bad one, but noticeable) surging a little when you take off from a stop. i wasnt sure what it was. . . i thought maybe it was just me having a hard time going from my wifes car's clutch to mine at first. that had been going on for about a week. anyway tonight i was driving home from a friend's house and the car just kind of died on me. it will restart and run for about 5 seconds and then die. trying to give it gas to keep it running makes keeps it running a little longer but it still dies. i tried but could not drive it by feathering the gas. . . once you put a load on it, it just dies.

this is my only mode of transportation right now, and im having to borrow my buddy's minivan to get to work this week. does anybody have any suggestions or has this happened to anybody before?

the only things i can think of are fuel pump relay, fuel pump, or something else that is fuel related. its got spark, the timing is fine as far as the belt goes, the distributor hasnt moved. . . somebody help.

[Marc93lx]

Check the VAF for loose connections and also the intake pipe for cracks or holes. If the intake pipe has a bad crack in it, then when you accelerate the jarring of the engine can open up the crack causing a vacuum leak. This happened on my MX3....I fixed it with duct tape . It is possible that if you had a crack, it has completely opened up now causing the car to not start. A car starting and then dieing immediately is generally indicative of an air leak or bad MAF/VAF in my past experiences.

[jumpncrash]

Yeah, thats what I'd say to look at first

[southerncross]

ok, ill check that. hopefully its just a loose connection. i already have the intake hardpiped so im pretty sure its not that, but it very well could be a bad vaf or something. thanks.

im still open to other suggestions as well.

[Turpro]

Yep, vaf issues. I forgot to plug my vaf in 1 time and it will stay running if you feather the gas. If its plugged in then it just might be bad.

[Marc93lx]

What did you find out?

[southerncross]

you guys were right. i had a coupler on my intake pipe that gave up. had a tear in it which was causing some mild jumpiness when you started off in 1st gear, but after that had no problems. when the car cut off that night i had just downshifted into second to make a left hand turn and i guess the braking/downshift was enough to finally make it rip completely. wasnt anything i could see right off the bat, but once i fixed the coupler it ran fine. been driving it a week, no problems since.

the car's for sale by the way, check out the classifieds if anybody is interested.

and thanks for the help guys.

[Marc93lx]

+1 for Marc, mwahaha