Hello.

Thanks to everyone who posts on here - your questions and answers have been incredibly helpful during the last year and a half of my owning this vehicle.

I have a 1996 Z24, and on the way to work in the rain it stalled while going down the road. It cranks, and a few cylinders fire, but it dies immediately. I let it sit all day and tried it again about 10 hours later, and it started right up. I drove it home, (2 miles), sprayed water all over the engine, and had no issues. I drove it around the block twice, and it died again, and now still won't start after a weekend of sitting. Same exact thing. It will crank, it fires, but dies immediately. . sometimes it'll stumble for a few seconds, appearing to run on 1 cylinder or so. It's also firing erratically, or sounds like it is, where I hear a "poof" or similar noise near the intake (me sitting in the car - it seems to be coming from the intake), and also some noises from the exhaust.

I pulled the spark plugs - they look fine.
I pulled the coils & module out, let them spark against the camshaft-covers, and I've got spark on all 4 terminals. (Module & Coils OK I assume?)

I read the codes, and I've got a P0335 set, which is "Crankshaft Position Sensor A Circuit Malfunction", but after reading the service manual for the '96 J-Body, it says that this code can also be set after attempting to start the engine more than 15 times without turning the ignition switch to the "off" position. I'm fairly certain that I tried more than 15 times, so I'm assuming that the code is there because of my repeated starting attempts. I'm going to try resetting it, and starting it a few times to see if it comes back.

I'm pushing plenty of unburned gas through the exhaust, so I know I'm getting fuel.

I haven't read the service manual in detail yet, but does someone know - Does the engine look at the crank sensor only during start, then after it reaches XXX rpms it begins to look at both the cam & crank sensors? Since all the other ignition components seem good, I'm leaning toward one of those sensors as the problem.

Thanks in advance for any help guys!
Dave McGlynn

So tonight I disconnected the camshaft sensor, and there was no change in starting. It still turns over and fires a couple cylinders, but dies out after a few misfires.

I tried to wiggle the crankshaft sensor wires as best I could sticking my hand up in there from underneath, but it had no effect that I could see.

AS I mentioned in the previous post, I know the coils are getting the signal to spark, so does this mean that the crankshaft sensor is doing it's job? I suppose just because it's sparking doesn't mean that it's sparking with the correct timing, like the sensor is faulty?

Has anyone else seen anything similar?

Thanks,
Dave

Just in case someone searches the forums for a similar issue:

I went to look at the computer and found that my entire computer / evap canister was loose and being held on top by a single steel fuel line, and on bottom by the horn / plastic spash-guarding.

As sad as it is to say, that wasn't the issue.

I found that the aluminum case of the computer had corroded so much over the past 14 years that the split down the center where the two halves bolt together was pushing itself apart, leaving a nice big gap where water, aluminum dust, and other crap could get in. I pulled it all out, cleaned up the boards, and just plugged the computer back into the wiring harness, and it started RIGHT up.

So now I'm going to sand-blast the computer-case and seal it up real nice, and re-attach my computer / evap canister to the frame, and hopefully enjoy a few more trouble-free months until something else wears out

Dave

Replace the sensor. If that does nothing, then its probably bad wiring. I had a similar issue with my girls old 96 sunfire with the 2.2. It would run fine on nice days, rainy days it would just not run, it would crank and somties fire, then die right away. I would say replace the sensor since that seems to be the one throwing the code, and go from there.