Ran Out Of Gas, Now Car Wont Start

[240dreams]

First of all I have a S1 RB25DET in a 89 S13.

I was tinkering with it the other day then suddenly, it started to stumble and die. My gas light was on and the gas level was so low that it got stuck on the plastic cover. So I automatically assumed that I ran out of gas. No big deal.

I let it sit for a few days before trying to start it again. Now today, I filled maybe 2.5 gallons of gas into the car. As I went to start it, it didn't start. I tried numerous times.

Things I know:

- I have spark

- The fuel pump primes on "key on"

- After cranking, I checked plugs 1 and 2 and they were dry. No fuel on them. I was expecting them to be wet and fouled from all of the starting attempts

- The car ran perfectly before it died. I was setting timing and idle and it drove great at that time.

- I pulled the fuel pump out and the sock looked kinda dirty. I also noticed some rust flakes/dirt in the tank.

- The fuel pump and filter are brand new. Is it possible that the fuel pump sock or filter is clogged because I ran the gas so low causing it to pick up dirt at the bottom of the tank?

That's about all that I can think of right now. As I find out more information, I'll notify you guys. Thanks in advance for any help.

[MANWHOR3]

not very likely. maybe you just sucked the thing dry.

how much is 2.5 gallons? fill it right up (just in case if your tank can't suck to the bottom.

try and start it a couple more times so that the lines actually get some fuel in them. you should be right. i've done it a few times on various cars and they all recovered.

[240dreams]

2.5 gallons is 9.46 liters. Sorry I'm from the US.

I've tried starting it lots of times. Maybe too many times at this point. My fuel pump was submerged in fuel when I pulled it out. I'm pretty positive that I'm lacking fuel and or fuel pressure. I don't smell fuel at all during cranking and the plugs stay dry. I'll have to check my fuel pressure to confirm this.

[AlexCim]

well, pull of a fuel line at the engine and put into a bottle, prime it and see if you have fuel pressure at least.

[warpz0r]

did you accidently put the return + feed lines on the wrong way?

pull out the fuel line near the engine and see when the pump primes if fuel comes out there

[240dreams]

My fuel lines are not crossed.

Tomorrow I'll check to see if I have fuel by pulling a line off and priming it. Thanks for the tips guys.

[Duncan]

When you say the fuel filter is brand new, do you mean before or after you ran out of fuel? I would change it you have probably clogged it suckign the crap out of the bottom of the tank. wierd that you are not getting any fuel though

[240dreams]

When you say the fuel filter is brand new, do you mean before or after you ran out of fuel? I would change it you have probably clogged it suckign the crap out of the bottom of the tank. wierd that you are not getting any fuel though

The fuel filter was new before I ran out of gas.

I just realized that I might have another issue. I didn't have my fans on when I was setting timing and my idle speeds. And I think I remembered seeing my water temp gauge hit "H". So I'm sure I was overheating and running out of fuel at the same time. I had the car idling at the time. Can overheating at idle cause my car not to start? I didn't notice any audible knock, boiling coolant, or anything out of the ordinary.

[Duncan]

well start with a new filter.

Its very unlikely you cooked the motor causing to not start, not impossible but you would have to be pretty unlucky.

Remember all you need to start the motor is fuel, spark and compression......unlikely to be compression but you can always test it.

[240dreams]

Found the problem!

First I checked to see if I had fuel coming out of the feed and return lines off of the rail using the bottle and prime method. It turned out that I did have fuel going to the rail. But I swore that I wasn't getting fuel to the engine. So I disconnected the CAS to disable ignition and tried to start the car. I did this to see if my pugs would get soaked in fuel or not. Sure enough, there were dry. So right then and there I knew my problem was in the injectors. I originally bought the car as an unfinished project and I had to redo the wiring because I wasn't comfortable with crimp connections that the original owner used. I double checked my injector circuit and I found that there was an open in the injector power source (grey wire) where the original owner used a splice crimp thingy. So I closed the connection and bam she fired. So I guess I did run out of gas after all. Thanks for those who helped.