Im lookin around aimlessly trying to find a website that carries crate engines or engine internals.. gotta 99 3.8. theres nothing TERRIBLY wrong with it, other than the fact that it doesnt start until it cranks for a good 5sec (if anybody knows what that could be from any insight would be nice), but im getting bored with it. this is my first camaro, and im trying to get used to the whole "under the dash" engine set up. i have a flomaster already installed, as well as a k&n drop in for the winter, and custom built intake for the summer now its time for the engine. if anybody knows of some good sites or parts, please let me know

 

sounds like it could be a fuel pump or fuel pressure regulator. what trany you got, a change in gears in the rearend would help, like 342's

 

Check to make sure you hear the fuel pump prime when you first turn the key on, before cranking the engine. If you don't hear it, a bad pump relay or circuit could be your long crank time problem.

 

Turn key on but do not crank the car. Wait 10 seconds then try to start it. If it fires right up it is a fuel issue like Camaro 69 described. If there is no change and it still takes a while to start it could spark related.

 

yeah the guy up at autozone was telling me that he thinks it may be the fuel pressure regulator, but hes not entirely sure (hes a subaru guy). spark related? i never thought about that, im gonna fire it up again in the morning and wait the 10sec and see what happens. thanks for the help And craby i have an auto.. unfortunately haha people tell me all the time that im in a girls car, red v6 convertible with an automatic transmission

 

o, and i have gas stains and smell on my MAF

 

Is your car back firing? You may have an injector leaking. That is the only thing that I can think of that would cause the MAF sensor to have strong smell of gas or maybe while you are cranking for the 10 seconds you are dumping fuel into the motor and you have no spark. Did you try cycling the Key on for 10 seconds before you start it?

Crank sensor harness going bad is not uncommon. There is a chance your last Crank sensor was OK and the harness was bad. When you installed the sensor you moved the wire around enough that is started working again. Now the harness is failing again. As for what can cause a crank sensor to fail? I would say there are 2 types of failure, Electrical and mechanical. mechanical failure would most likely be caused by manufactures defect or how it was installed same with the electrical. A cam sensor is a pretty hardy sensor. Anything that may “fry” a Cam sensor would most likely fry the computer also.
Forget everything the guy at AutoZone said. Every time I go to that place I hear bad info given to the customers. Once I even interrupted a conversation because what the kid was telling the guy to do would have fried his computer system. It is a very low paying job.

If someone installed an old school alternator in your car you are going to have a bunch of problems. The older designs had way too much variation in voltage and the power was very dirty. Just jump starting a car that has the old style alternators can damage your computer system.

 

Gorn i can tell you know quite a bit so i thank you for the knowledge. Yes i tried waiting 10sec before cranking it multiple times over the course of the day.. moving it out of the driveway, a couple times on the street, on my way to work then on the way home from work. And it seems to be VERY picky as to when it wants to start up. Since it is a convertible, and i live in Ohio with the wonderful Ohio weather, I dont drive it in the snow/sleet. So I covered it up last week while we had a little sprawl of weather then when the weather passed, uncovered it and started it up. After those couple days of sitting.. boom, started right up no hesitation whatsoever. But after the first couple times of flawless cranking, it started cranking and cranking again. I bought the car back in August and it was doing it then too. I'll have to check the crank sensor, I completely forgot about those things.. And its kind of ironic you would mention an alternator because I am on my SECOND battery with this car, in 3 months. The current one is either dying or it is because of a bad alternator, this battery is quite a bit larger than the factory Delco battery though, at 850cca and 1000ca. It came out of an F350. Ill look into the crank sensor on Monday, when im off work and hope i find some sort of closure to this. Other than this little problem, at 120,500 theres nothing else wrong with it