My 81 X1/9 left me stranded today

I drove out to sell some stuff to someone about 60 miles from home today. The intermittent high rpm/high load miss was still there, but but car was cruizing fine. I was about 10 miles on my way home and the car died while doing 65mph on the highway.

She wasn't getting spark. This is with new wires, dizzy cap, rotor, and coil. I picked up a GM style ignition module (listed as compatible at O'Reilly's) with 4 prongs and plugged it in. But still nothing out of coil. I put the original coil in and the car started and ran buttery smooth for about 45 seconds.

The she died and wouldn't start again.

This time I'm getting spark, but no fuel. I verified connections at the coil. Fuel pump is running and pressurizing the fuel lines.

I'm printing the FI trouble shooting guide and will go out tomorrow morning and try to get it going. Hopefully the issue is not with the Double Relay or the L-Jet computer, as I don't know how or where I could possibly find either local on a Sunday.

-matthew x-less in San Antonio, TX

intermitten fuel pump? Something along the lines of..it gets hot and quits. Let it cool down and the electrics find the will to live, yet again.

Car sat for 7 hours. Fuel pump was working whole time.

I think it is going to end up being either the ECU, DoubleRelay, or wiring somewhere.

I bought my second Exxie with FI and tranny issues, it had all kinds of goofy things happening which made me say 'WTF'? That big ol' relay you refer to appeared to be the problem, since it had signs of having been immersed in water. It's under the plastic 'grille' between the engine cover and the 'sail' on the right side, BTW. Those damn things are ~$300.

So I dug the thing out and opened it up, it looked perfect inside. Huh? I started looking further, probed the wiring to the FI computer (it's at the top of the spare tire compartment) no power. Hmmm. So I started tracing wiring back, the 'ignition hot' wire was not getting any power which would explain why nothing else was. It turned out that (and this was not on the wiring diagram) that the 'ignition hot' wire for the FI computer and the relay is connected to the '+' terminal of the ignition coil. It had some sort of funky Italian connector which looked fine and showed power with the ignition switched on but would not stay tight. So I used a nut and a couple of loop terminals to repair the connection, it fired right up. Never gave another moment's problem.

I had a similar problem with my X-1/9, found that pin #81 out of the computer had intermittant continuity. Try swapping another computer in (temporarily) to see if it goes away.

Dan

I've worked on a few fiats before..

I vote we retitle the thread, "Thing that i knew would happen, happened, and I'm not all that surprised."

And now I realize why Connie's Bertone has been sitting for 3-4 years. OTOH, would one of these make a good $200X chalange entry?

Check all your grounds. I was having these same sort of troubles on the GTV6 and after replacing and checking (unfortunately sometimes in that order) pretty much everything I found it was a dirty/loose ground.

Go through all of them!

My '87 would intermittently shut down everything electrical at random times, when hot. The problem was eventually traced to a faulty ignition switch, as the coil showed power but when in the crank position it would have nothing.

also you can remove the air filter and move the air meter flap and the pump should run. There is a switch to control the fuelpump inside the airflow meter, which is triggered by the vacuum created by the engine turning upon startup.