Got fuel, got spark why won't the blasted thing start

Maintenance/Repairs
1

Tom and Ray,

I have a 1992, Chevrolet Cavalier recently as my wife was heading to work it made a slight noise from the rear of the vehicle like a soft knock on a hollow core door. I towed it back to my house and checked all the points I could for fuel flow including pulling a plug to see if it was making it past the injectors. It was. The spark plug I pulled was, up untill time of removal, in good condition; no residues, carbon or resins. I thought it might be the ignition coil pack so I checked the spark from the wire and it was giving a good strong spark on all four wires. All the fluids are at proper levels except coolant which is only slightly low (bout a quart or two not uncommon with this beast)and the engine is not siezed (as evidenced by the strong engagement of the starter to a very responsive flywheel).SO WHY WON’T THE BLASTED THING START? is there some switch somewhere that if malfunctioning will keep the vehicle from even starting perhaps some sort of low limit switch? HELP!!! I’ve worked on my own vehicles for over fifteen years and this is confounding any logic or test that I know to apply.

2

Do you have compression?

3

I’m unsure how pulling a sparkplug would allow for you to check fuel pressure. What I would do is get a fuel pressure tester and check your fuel pressure. On the 1.8 and 2.0 liter engines it shows it should be 28-36 psi. Got this inf here:

http://www.autozone.com/az/cds/en_us/0900823d/80/0f/07/b6/0900823d800f07b6/repairInfoPages.htm

This shows that you also have a fuel pump/oil pressure switch/ sending unit on the 2.2 liter engine that will shutdown your fuel pump if you have low oil pressure.

http://www.autozone.com/images/cds/gif/large/0900823d800f0c74.gif

Got this info from here:

http://www.autozone.com/az/cds/en_us/0900823d/80/0f/0c/3e/0900823d800f0c3e/repairInfoPages.htm

4

check the timing belt (or chain) that drives the camshaft.

5

With your ignition switch turned to on,do you hear the fuel pump come on for a few seconds ? If not try a know good fuel-pump relay switch ! Chances are, and I have seen this many times on cavaliers it is the crankshaft position sensor . Greg…

6

You don’t know for sure the engine has proper time, now. That “pop” your wife heard, could have been a misfire as the timing slipped. Check the timing.

7

Got fuel . . got spark . . . what else? Timing, compression and air. Timing OK? Easy enmough to check, seems like you can do it . . . air intake clear, again . . . easy to check & fix . . . compression . . . you can pull a plug out and turn it over. If it were my car, I’d go over thsoe simple things one more time. Rocketman