Wild Horzes

OK, my bone stock '03 Z died for no reason. I stopped to get a drink, started back up and headed down the road. I noticed a smell that I couldn't place at first. Then it came to me...it was like an LS6 running without cats. Then I noticed that my car seemed to get louder. Then I started to lose power. Then I could hardly keep it running. I could hear valve train noise like a loose rocker would make. Then finally he died. I managed to pull into a school parking lot. Tried to fire him back up. Ran a little. Lots of gas odor and really had to pump the pedal to get it run at all. So, left him there and hoofed on home which happened to be only 4 miles away. Came back with the trailer and read the codes. P0101 and P0300. MAF, crank and cam sensor codes. By the way, the check engine light came on. According to my manuals, this would mean amongst other things that I did something to the cats. That would explain the smell. Anyway, before I start spending a $100 an hour in diagnostic expense, has anyone experienced anything like this? Any ideas?

Thanks!

Gary

ZeeOSix

This part makes it sound like a possible broken valve spring. I certainly wouldn't start it up again until the valve covers are removed and the valve springs inspected for breakage.

LT1driver

loadness makes me think head gasket and I agree I would pull valve cover and check springs. How many miles on the car/engine???? Hope it is minor with no collateral damage from whatever caused it to die.

Wild Horzes

The valve spring thing did cross my mind. Car has only 12,000 miles.

Gary

Eddie 70

Only 12k miles. How were you driving the car leading up to this? Did you buy the car new? The reason I ask is I bought my car with 12k on it and so far everything seems to be okay. I will be following this thread.


Has the coolant ever been changed? This is something I need to do to mine. I don't know for a fact mine has never been changed but I am sure it needs it nevertheless.

sothpaw2

What month was your car made? A Late 2003 shouldn't have bad valve springs.

YELLOHHH

Bump for the work week crowd. Any insights are appreciated.

Twil1ght

Ok...this is absolutely amazing to me - but I'm glad that you posted it and hopefully people who need to read it will read it. Here's what should be learned from this thread:

If you smell something, feel something, hear something abnormal get the clutch in, get the engine off, and get the car off the road. This is standard practice on a race engine, and although this is a production engine - it is as close as most people will ever get. You do NOT drive the vehicle with an identified problem unless you just want to destroy it.

jerboa

My '02 died in exactly this same way with no power. Let it sit for 30 minutes, tried it again and it started and ran just fine.

A subsequent trip to the dealer revealed a dreaded column lock failure, even though the wheel never froze up. I had performed the GM service bulletin repair on the steering column locking system earlier. In the process I learned that if the column lock is triggered, there is an automatic loss of power.

Hope your problem is as easy to fix as mine was!

jimcork1

If you have MAF and CPS codes why would you not expect them to be the first place to look. I would consider replacing the CPS which I have seen fail on many other vehicles. My Lincoln failed one and apparently resulted in the timing being off with no power. The engine would idle and rev up but would not move in gear. Fortunately the engine ran, power steering worked and power brakes when this failed and I was able to steer off the road. Look at the CPS. Relatively easy the change and codes indicate this is a place to look.

Twil1ght

Yea...that sounds exactly the same...

jclarksnakes

Jerboa,
.....Exactly the same way? Did it have a "no catalytic converter" smell? Did it seem to get LOUDER? Did it start to lose power and then was hard to keep running? Did it then make a VALVE TRAIN NOISE? Did it then restart but be difficult to keep running with lots of gas odor? NONE OF THOSE SYMPTOMS IS ANYTHING LIKE THE SYMPTOMS OF A COLUMN LOCK FAILURE? The fact that you hurry to the dealership with a column lock problem shows that you have plenty to learn about these cars. If you do not install a CLB you are just waiting to have more problems. The purpose of this forum is to help people. When you post crap you provide no help at all. The person here who is providing the most important and correct help in this thread is Twilight and you just blew right past his post like it wasn't even there. The symptoms the original poster wrote up sound like his car may have broken internal parts and trying to run it before they are repaired can result in very serious further engine damage.
Thanks a bunch!
Jeff

jclarksnakes

BTW, good ideas and thoughts from everyone ELSE in this thread.
Jeff

Twil1ght

Unfortunately valve springs can break at any time. While it's not expected that they would break when new, sometimes they do. In this case, the car is a few years old even if the mileage is low, they still sat either compressed or uncompressed (depending on where the engine stopped in the cycle) for some years. Valve springs are easily replaced and should be done every few years as a routine maintenance of a high performance engine. Having said that, it's all speculation at this point. Until someone gets in there and looks, all you know is you have a problem and starting the motor again is definitely not an option. I wouldn't be surprised based on your description of the events to find a decent amount of internal damage - but again, it's all speculation until the engine is opened up.

Wild Horzes

Thanks for the comments. Just for FYI sake, I bought the car with 6K miles on it. Now I've raced a Z so I know what these motors can withstand. This one has never been on the track, never seen the rev limiter and I was cruising at about 40 MPH when the problem happened.

If the fluids (oil and coolant) don't look contaminated, I guess the plan will be to pull the covers and look at the springs. If they're good and the connections to the MAF etc are still intact, I'll explore the clogged cats idea. The manual mentions cat failure is a reason for the specific codes and the warning light coming on. Could clogged cats make this happen?

I have another set of cats attached to the basic H removed from my race car. So, maybe I'll give those a go. I know they're good.

These kinds of things make me very happy having my trailer and lift.

I'll let you know what I find.

Gary

Wild Horzes

By the way, I'm still open for suggestions.

Thanks again!

Gary

Twil1ght

I'd be pretty surprised of the cats were clogged. They do have a tendency to develop leaks at the weld points that connect them to the pipes and could perhaps even completely break loose at that joint. It would, however, not be a likely scenario for that to be the root cause of the rest of your problems.

djstylze

I'm pretty shocked you had a failure of that type at 12K miles. The car really isn't that old but I have heard of early spring failures. Let us know what you find - I'm very curious what's under the valve covers.

Glad to see you're doing all your research up front. I will never go straight to a shop with a blank check in hand.

Good luck!

jerboa

Sorry, you don't appreciate my efforts, but I really am trying to help. I would not have posted if there weren't similar symptoms. My car was driving fine when I parked it at Radio Shack. 15 minutes later the car seemed hard to crank and when it finally started, there was a complete lack of power. The car would not accept the throttle and it ran extremely rough. It stalled immediately when the clutch was engaged. The fuel smell was very strong during subsequent attempts to start. I feared the worst. There was no catalytic converter smell and no obvious noisy valves. I had none of the key or column lock symptoms reported by others here in the past

I learned that the column lock activation somehow disables the engine so that it will not develop power. After waiting for 30 minutes, the car started and ran fine. So there was a sudden and unexpected loss of power and loss of throttle response and strong gasoline odor as a result of the column lock failure. It seemed relevant here.

jclarksnakes

Jerboa,
....Your symptoms really do not seem like the typical column lock issue and it does seem like you were trying to be helpfull. I apologize for being such a horse's butt to you. You may want to look into which fix the dealership applied to your column lock. Their recall modifications for column lock problems have caused further problems. The only but very key difference between your symptoms and the OP's is the mechanical noise.
Jeff