2004 V70 2.4NA Sluggish then died, engine seems flooded

[kidbiz]

I have been taking my sweet time on fixing this over a number of weeks and I have nearly exhausted my poor throw parts at it repair strategy.

I have about 125K miles on this vehicle and experienced the following:

On the way home one evening the car was really hesitant to accelerate until the tach hit about 2K, then it would pick up. I only noticed this on secondary roads. At highway speed I didn't notice any issue. This may or may not be related, but I filled up the gas tank prior to this occuring.

The following morning I headed out as normal and about a mile down the road during one of the moments of sluggishness the car died. That was 18.1 miles after refueling the prior night. The car would not start again. It turns over but will not start.

I had my wife push me home with our other car and I have been using my inadequate tools and test procedures to try to get it running since.

My first thought was a fuel pump failure. I replaced the fuel pump and the condition remained the same. I should have actually tested the pump before replacing it, but I'm an idiot and don't have the right gear. After replacing it I picked up a tire pressure gauge and did a dirty test that reported about 50PSI after the initial prime.

My second thought was a crank/cam sensor. I don't have the gear to test this and I never bothered check for spark at this point, but I replaced those anyway and the condition remained the same.

I then pulled the plug wires and did a spark test. There is spark.

Knowing that I had spark and fuel to the rail I bounced my situation off the local car parts store guy. His immediate thought was bad gas, which had not occurred to me. He suggested some Heet as a first option and draining the tank as a second option. I tried the heet with no change. Then I drained the tank by hooking a line to the schrader valve on the rail and pumping it out.

I refilled the tank with about 5 gallons of fresh fuel. The car still will not start.

I then pulled the pump relay and cranked. I found that the car will sputter and perhaps run for 1/2 - 1 second after 5-10 seconds of cranking with the pump relay pulled. Then if I plug the relay back in and try to start it will catch almost immediately and run for a second and then die again. This suggests to me that too much fuel is being delivered and the engine is in a constantly flooded state. Fully depressing the gas pedal does not have an impact on this behavior.

As I am in danger of missing hunting season, being down to one car, I figure I ought to get this fixed.

Does anyone have any suggestion as to what my next steps should be here and what could cause a continual flooded condition? Or perhaps I am way off base.

Thanks in advance for sharing your expertise. This site has been a great resource.

[abscate]

Good job isolating fuel from spark.

I don't think you know you have a flooded condition yet - have you pulled the plugs to see if they are wet with fuel? After you take a pic, put some oil in each cylinder, replace plugs, and give it a try.

Try a 1 second shot of starter fluid (ether) into the air cleaner to see if that lights up.

An engine that runs for 1 seconds sounds like a possible immobilizer fault ,too.

Unlike a carb car, the gas pedal just sends a signal to the ECU that you are requesting a certain power level- you cannot unload a flooded car like you could on your fathers Buick.