Tess- Having had this happen on the multiple L-Jet cars I own/have owned, my bet is on the injectors being stuck due to the fuel inside them being varnish. You can pull the injector rail and mechanically un-stick them by pushing in the needle valve. Be gentle. There's only a few thousandths of motion.
That's the first thing I'd check. I've never heard of the pump turning off by itself after a couple of seconds of running. They either work or they don't. If the fuel pump wasn't working the car wouldn't start in the first place. You're running for a couple of seconds on the cold start valve, that's all... False air? Not sure I buy that. I drove around with my '85 Alfa Spider (L-Jet) with the engine end of the intake hose completely loose and it ran just fine. The issue was under hard acceleration, the engine would die for a second, then accelerate again for a second, then die for a second, and so on. As the engine torqued and rotated, it separated the hose from the plenum for an instant. At that instant the air flow meter flap would slam shut and kill the fuel flow. That would shut the engine and it would torque back down on and re-engage the air hose to the plenum. That would get the AFM going again and it would hook up and torque the engine, pulling the plenum from the air hose again, and so on. You can imagine the bucking motion that ensued. This engine behavior baffled me for a week until I leaned on the air hose to get a peek at the injectors and felt it move. A simple glance at the hose clamp told me all I needed to know. A buddy then revved the engine as I watched the hose come off the plenum every time he revved it hard. The point is that with the intake hose clamp completely loose the car ran fine, as long as I didn't gun it enough to separate the hose from the plenum. Check if your injectors are glued shut by old gas. -Lalo Ruiz [email protected] -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
