Okay... another FI Mystery !, Stalling .... huh ? Options

[wheelo]

Help,

This is a new development with my 1.7 D-jet..... she will "stall" @ odd times
Will not re-start .... trails white smoke & smells rich (while turning-over)
Engine will eventually start, run rough, then be fine, until the next "episode"
Dosen't happen all the time but enough to be a total "Drag" in traffic!
I changed the CHT sender, I do have petronix, but car runs sweet 95%
of the time... happens under load & just sitting @ idle ?

All advise welcome ( including carbs & new dizzy)

Thanks !

- M

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[ovilla]

Disconnect all FI connections and clean them well with a clean rag and electrical contact cleaner (do make sure that the battery is disconnected while you do all of this). Then to make sure they are dry hit the connections with some compressed air. Get yourself a digital multimeter and check for continuity on all wires that can be probed. I would also replace the cheap stuff (battery ground strap, tranny ground strap, bosch coil, cap, rotor, wires, spark plugs, air filter, fuel filter). All battery connections should be cleaned with a wire brush. Also, swap out the round relays in the relay board with the ones from your headlight motors since you know that those do work. Get new fuses for the relay board and clean those connections with an emory board or fine sandpaper. You can also probe the relay board for continuity to ensure that all sodered connections are fine. If possible, swap the relay board with a known working one. The relay boards were the same for all engines with just the relay board covers being different (some accommodate a threaded rod opening which allows you to place a screw on top of the board cover).
If it's the fuel pump relay for sure and swapping the round relay for a good one doesn't help, then just run a wire from any ignition activated fuse on the fuse box to the fuel pump. Probe each fuse with the ignition off and then on to see which one becomes LIVE after you turn on the car. This is just another way of bypassing the fuel pump relay and will only turn on the pump when the ignition is turned on. In case you don't know, the fuel pump only has two connections. A brown wire goes to ground and the other wire (think it's black with a stripe) is the positive wire. Just run your wire from the fuse box to the wire that is not brown on the fuel pump and you will get it to run.
A bouncing tack will let you know that the points are pretty burnt so I'd also replace those and set the timing and dwell angle. If possible, upgrade to a pertonix or compufire. These two seem to make a lot of FI issues go away. I once had a 1.8 with erratic idling and surging/stalling that just went away when I converted to a pertronix system and installed a new bosch blue coil and wires.
Lastly, I would say to just be patient and work through the problems. Test every thing that you can and take a systematic approach. Test and rule out one thing each day/night. No sense ruling anything out just because you think that it's fine. I just finished swapping out the engines in my two 914's (a 2.0 and a 1.8) and while the 2.0 fired right up the 1.8 sat in the garage for three weeks until I figured out what it was. Check this out. The car would start and promptly die. After testing the fuel pump, swapping relays, testing the relay board itself with and without relays installed, I finally decided to just try starting fluid to see if it would start and stay on. It did. At that point I knew that the car was not getting any gas through the injectors since the pump DID work. I then traced all the fuel injectors back to the FI connections on the air/fuel meter and found the bad connection (notice I did not say loose - it connects just not tight enough). Hang in there! You can and will fix it.