I know this must have come up before, but not sure where to find it??
Here's the strange part of this: I took my well running Mera to the car wash, half way through the process it stalls, cranks but wont start, had to push it out of the car wash, and had it towed home. Dried it out, battery checks out OK, plugs OK, replaced Distb Cap & Coil, Fuel Pump OK, no blown Fuses. When it did start it ran rough and died again. Any Ideas will be appreciated, Thanks

I have seen quite a few threads about Fieros that no longer ran after a car wash. Some of those high pressure brushless washes will shoot water right into the engine through the rear deck louvers, creating problems like this:

1. Water in the distributor cap.
2. Water in the ignition coil connectors
3. Water in the spark plug wires.
4. Water in the ICM connectors.

If the car will run rough and you have replaced 1 & 2, I suspect you have old cracked spark plug wires.

The rear deck lid on a Mera is wide open. I would never take a Mera in a car wash. I put a large piece of roofing rubber on my engine/trans so all the water goes into the corners of the engine compartment and misses everything possible. I only wash my 88 Mera at home by hand with the rubber cover in place. I also try to limit the amount of water that goes on the rear deck lid even with the rubber sheet in place.

------------------
Rodney Dickman

Fiero Parts And Acc's Web Page:
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Here's something funny.... Not quite sure since my 308 replica has a SBC - but is there a module in your distributor or is everything controlled by the ECM?

( I had an 84 MSE Trans-am with the functional air induction hood). The back flap would sometimes stay open and after / during a heavy rain, the car would stall (or not start) and it turned out to be the ignition module in the HEI that was fried). Happened about 3 times until I finally figured out what was going on. The weird thing..... it wasn't really "soaking wet" in the engine compartment. Wet? Yes. but not really soaked... I guess just wet enough in the right spot to short something out and "pop the ignition module".

I did actually have spark in a few cases but it really wasn't at the correct time / or just weak.

(and for what it's worth.... when it happened when I was driving, I always got a whiff of what I thought smelled like popcorn ! No Lie... I could never figure out why it wasn't an electronic smell. (Maybe someone used popcorn oil instead of the module grease....!)

I also had the same issue in my first (1986) Jaguar XJS V-12. The Lucas Ignition Module had a 5 pin GM HEI tucked inside the housing that was mounted on the valve cover where it got smoking hot and often wet. Same issue with that car.

Not familiar with your engine but just thought I'd bump the thread and toss that out there.

[This message has been edited by 3084me (edited 06-04-2012).]

Wayne,

I agree with Rodney. I only hand wash my Mera because of the open decklid. Because I do drive mine quite a bit, the engine does get dusty. When I rinse it off I do so with the engine cold, using low water pressure and a mist sprayer taking care to cover the distributor and coil. Then I dry off any areas holding water, and start the engine to evaporate any remaining I might have missed.

Do you have a stock or open element air cleaner? You might have got a little water in the air cleaner assembly, or even engine itself. If not, carefully unplug connections to the distributor, coil, and throttle body and blow the out with compressed air or a blow dryer. Also, remove each wire one by one from the distributor cap and do the same thing. You may want to remove the distributor cap again and blow it, and the inside of distributor out. Since you live where there is more humidity, you may still have some residual condensation inside the cap.

Try these fixes and let me know if the problem goes away.

Rick

Nothing working yet, my gut is telling me a bad ground somewhere?
She cranks, you can smell the gas, but no start.

Have you checked the pickup coil?

quote Originally posted by Indiana_resto_guy: Have you checked the pickup coil?

Do you know how to test for spark? If the pick up coil is ok, and there is still no spark, you may need to replace the ignition coil. The coil just died on our CRV. It exhibited the same smell of gas, with no spark. I instaled a new coil and it fired right up.

Another thing that you should have tested is the module inside the base of the distributor. You can remove it and take it to an auto parts store where it can be checked. These modules tend to fail without any kind of advance warning.

[This message has been edited by Rick 88 (edited 06-14-2012).]

If you are getting gas, check for spark at the end of the plug wires. If you are not getting a spark, I would suggest troubleshooting further up.

Check the cable between the ICM & the Coil, if nothing there, you can try changing the ICM on the distributor. Check distributor cap for warring, or corrosion.

I would suspect the wires or plug cables because it happened in the car wash & potential water.

Q1 - Does the fuel pump run for 2 seconds when you turn the key on - but don't crank the engine?

Q2 - Does the fuel pump turn on again for two seconds when you just bump the starter?

Q3 - Does the tach rise to 200 rpm during cranking and then fall back to zero after?

IT'S RUNNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After all that jagging around it turns out to be the ignition coil!
The only thing is I now have a "Service Engine Soon" light on, and she stalls at idle, still an improvement.

Thanks for all the help team'o!