my wife flooded the car and now it won't start
 

Although our 1989 Corvette (TPI) had been working well, yesterday while I was out my wife decided to give a friend a little tour in the car. We only bought the car this winter so she was not experienced and it seems she flooded the car by pressing (she's admitted to doing this at least 2-3 times during this episode) gas ... I left it overnite, hoping it would start today but it is turning over but still won't start ... help? advice to a newbee couple please!

The first thing I would do would be to take the spark plugs out and let them dry out. If they could use replacing anyway...replace them.

Also, pull your dipstick out and smell it. If it smells like gas, change your oil before you fire it up. If it was flooded that bad, you may have a lot of gas that was mixed in with your oil. You may want to change your oil just to be on the safe side, regardless if you smell gas or not.

Pumping the gas pedal on a fuel injected car has no effect like flooding an older car with a carb.

Not saying it still can't be flooded. Just that pushing the gas pedal down is not what caused it. :thumbs:

If you floor the accelerator and crank the engine, this keeps the injectors turned off and will dry out the plugs. Then try a normal start. A normal start only requires cranking the engine WITHOUT touching the accelerator, the ECM (engine computer) operates the engine controls perfectly for a start. Explain this to your wife. You shouldn't be able to, "flood", the engine with gasoline in a fuel injected car. You can with a carburetted engine.

I guess I have no advice for OP, but I do have a question. If a FI car can't be flooded by depressing the accelerator, then why is it flooded? Or why won't an FI car start sometimes AFTER the accelerator has been depressed?

....and how do you know the engine is flooded with gas? Because a poster says so? Show us some investigation where liquid gas was found. Engines don't start for a lot of reasons. The ECM adjusts the injector pulse width according to the accelerator position AND the air flow. During cranking there isn't much air flow, therefore, not much fuel flow through the injectors EITHER!

Well, as jfb pointed out we really don't know for sure the engine is flooded. But to answer your question as to why depressing the accelerator will not flood an FI car:

Carburetors had an accelerator pump on them (a little plunger type pump that would actually pump raw fuel into the venturi) thus giving you an extra shot of fuel when stepping on the gas pedal. This was needed in order to compensate for the slight lag in the airflow speeding up to automatically draw in more fuel.

So, if you pumped the gas pedal on an engine with a carburetor you would actually pump quite a bit of fuel into it. If the engine wasn't already running, this would flood it just about every time. Of course on a really cold morning a little pumping was sometimes needed, but you still had to be careful with it.

Fuel injected cars don't have this feature, as the computer controls the fuel delivery. You can pump all you want on the gas pedal, with no ill effect. :thumbs:

But if you think the engine is flooded, by holding the gas pedal all the way down and cranking you are allowing a lot more air into the system (throttle blades wide open) which will allow for easier starting.

Since you suspect flood condition, follow the advice to clear it.

If that fails, remove the cap from the Schraeder valve on the RH side of the fuel rail and carefully depress the valve core to see if the fuel rail is primed. Here you will need to turn the key On for a few seconds for the fuel pump to prime the fuel rail, if all is well with the pump.

If fuel seems ok, clip a timing light onto #1 plug and watch for flashes as you/she cranks the engine.

If that looks ok you will need to go deeper into diagnostics.