I'm just assuming it is flooding itself. This has been going on for two weeks. If the car is left alone for more than eight hours, the next time it is started it will act normally until almost warmed up (two miles, five minutes of city driving) it'll start sputtering on take-off. Shortly thereafter, at almost the same intersection every morning, it'll die when I'm waiting at the light and then refuse to start until enough time has passed or I push-start it on a slight incline. Unfortunately the battery is not healthy and won't crank the car for long, if it could I could do more troubleshooting. But after starting back up, it'll act fine, and provided I drive the car again before eight hours has passed, it won't do it again. Only once did this happen at night, and I noticed the dash lights dimming as I floored it trying to get it going, lights brightening as the RPMs rose high enough for him to run happily.

The fuel pump, which I've wired to be flipped on manually if need be, continues to spin happily throughout. I had a spare ICM but it acts the same with either one in there. This kind of behavior seems typical of worn-out capacitors and batteries, and whereas it seems a bit odd that a crappy old car battery could cause this problem, I've been meaning to replace that anyway. Hopefully it is not some electronic component to the fuel system with which I have no familiarity.

If this seems familiar to any of you, I'll put off the new battery for a little longer, I have restricted funds.

One more clue/red herring: This is Seattle and the heavy autumn rains have begun, but it did do it once during the sunshine.

 

that 78 is a K-Jet aka CIS system, isn't it ? hardly anyone knows how to troubleshoot those anymore. :-/

we have a k-jet benz (a 1990 260E), it was having erratic running problems, which turned out to be a faulty EHA, which is the electric module on the side of the fuel distributor. expensive part ;(