Joel Lange

This morning I started my 2002 S2K and it started as it normally would with no issues. It was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit here (no snow or salt yet don't worry) this morning. I backed out of my garage and the car died at the end of the driveway when I went to shift to first. I may have killed it, I am not sure honestly. After this, the car would not start. I cranked it over and over to no avail. I pushed the car back into my driveway and let it sit for about an hour and a half then it started, but just barely and I had to rev a bit to get the idle to stabilize. What could the issues be here? I am thinking fuel pump but I'm not sure why it would have started fine the first time. Also, I replaced my fuel pressure regulator once already and I would hope that it didn't fail again but if so, I wonder what would cause that as well. I have an aftermarket intake manifold, intake, and am not turbo. Let me know what you guys think, thanks!

Car Analogy

What comes to mind is something that would confuse ecu about temperature. When cold, and engine needs an especially rich mixture. Back in the day that was accomplished with a choke, that would literally choke out the air into carb, so there would be less air, more fuel. With fuel injection, ecu just adds more fuel (longer injector duty cycle).

But ecu only knows to do that if it sees engine temp is dead cold. So I'm thinking what if temp sensor isn't seeing that engine starts to warm up, so doesn't know to taper off the extra fuel.

Back in the day if choke stuck on or if manual choke and you didn't taper off as engine warmed up, it would stall, and not want to start again. Similar to your symptoms.

So as engine cooled off again sitting in driveway for over an hour, it would start again. But maybe engine temp sensor this time gave a still wrong reading, so engine stumbled.

Try looking up procedure for verifying engine temp sensor. Probably involves comparing a resistance reading using an ohmmeter to engine temp in a chart or something.

PS, Summer tires at 20F are very dangerous. Be careful. If not using summer tires, I hope you are just swapping wheels to your winter tires, as this car on all season tires is like running an Americas Cup racing sailboat in a small pond.

zze86

Start by checking simple things first. Considering you have aftermarket intake and manifold I'd do visual checks of the MAP or AIT sensor first. Check battery. Check voltage. Let run for a bit and check for CEL.

Proceed to fuel if things check out above. Then sensor testing.