Cranks but no start, no injector pulse - 1993 Volvo 850 GLT Topic is solved

[XavierEduardo99]

Hey everyone, I recently bought a 1993 Volvo 850, and almost right away I started having trouble getting it to start. I think it’s important to mention that as soon as I got the car, I had the fuel pump relay and water pump replaced, and attempted to replace the timing belt and tensioners. However, not knowing about engine numbers, I accidentally bought the wrong kit.

Anyway, after that, every time I tried to start the car, it would crank just fine but wouldn’t fire up. After enough attempts, it would eventually start and then run normally — no stalling or any strange behavior while driving. I checked the fuel pressure in the rail and it seemed to be healthy, since it sprayed everywhere. That is why I suspected the main relay (the one by the radiator) might be going bad; since after all, it was the original, ergo, 33 years old. So I ordered a new one from Pelican Parts, along with a new crankshaft position sensor (from eBay — A-Premium brand) just to test if it might improve things, even temporarily. I installed both (Last Thursday), but the issue persisted.

Yesterday, it finally stalled on me in the middle of the street and wouldn’t start again. I had an electromechanical engineer check it out, and they confirmed the car has no injector pulse, although there is spark coming from the distributor. This guy also said that the CKP and the relay were properly installed and seemed to be working ok.

I’m turning to the community to see if anyone has run into something similar with these early 850s, or has any pointers on where to look next. As of today, I’ve been wondering whether the timing belt may have skipped, putting the engine out of time — and if that could be why the injectors aren’t getting power. But honestly, I’m just not sure.

Any insight would be massively appreciated.

[misha]

What about cam position sensor?
Did you checked the stored codes?
It's easy with early 850 since they have built in obdI tool under the hood,in front of ecu box.
All you need is a piece of paper and pencil to read the codes and write them down.

Read the codes from A2 and A6 ports.
A2 is Ecu module and A6 is ignition module.