Dear mid-60s Buick caregivers,
One of my ongoing struggles in my three ringed circus life of mine was trying to solve a strange hot-starting problem my trusty wagon was having. She has a
FAST XFI Sportsman electronic fuel injection system that is described on
this thread. The ECU also controls the ignition using an
E6 controller box. After a moderate run on the freeway and having her sit on the driveway a few minutes to unload, she would turn over but not start. The first time this happened to me, I opened the hood hoping it was some sort of overheating issue, and sure enough, after 15-30 minutes she was back to normal. Ever since this problem has started I suspected this was some sort of overheating issue, but I could never nail it down definitively.
All this started back in the Spring but this problem had gone to back burner because of oil leaks and other issues. With the leaks fixed, yesterday I took her out on an extended freeway run to get the engine good and hot before trying to capture the hot start problem on my laptop when I got home.
Well, I finally did get home all right, but by then there was no need for logging. About 1 mile from home the engine abruptly -
quit! I was on a busy access road at the time and just barely was able to make it onto a side street before rolling to a halt. Up went the hood and the emergency flashers were turned on.
It was a strange experience! All of a sudden a number of people stopped and offered to help. Normally suburbia is so impersonal. It was an excuse for people to admire my wagon and she got a lot of complements. Still she was a very difficult spot on a side road with some traffic. As soon as I could I managed to start her again, but she only was able to travel about a 1/4 mile before stalling again. This wasn't a good spot either, but I managed to get to street with even less traffic. So there she sat for another 20 minutes:
Finally the faulty part appears to have cooled off enough that I was able to drive the rest of the way home. I posted a question about the incident on the
FAST technical support forum and the only replies thus far suggest that the E6 controller box is faulty and will have to be replaced. Fortunately, it should still be under warranty. However, I'm not entirely sure the box is defective. The instructions recommended placing this box in the passenger cabin if at all possible because it does have the potential of overheating. The engine bay in my wagon can get really warm. I have observed hot start logs with the intake air temperature over 150? when the ambient air temperature was not above 70? - with the hood open!
I don't know how much heat these boxes can take, so I'll need to find that before deciding what to do next.
Never a dull moment when you own a classic car!
Cheers, Edouard