Hello! I have a 1996 Firebird LT1, I know this is a Camaro forum but you guys are a lot more active here and it’s practically the same car. 110K miles, I’ve owned the car for a few months and I don’t exactly baby it while driving.
One day after it snowed (I don’t have garage space to store it unfortunately) it would crank but not start. Tried jumping it but no luck. It sounds like it wants to start, and started a little bit, but died immediately. It’s been snowed on before and survived just fine, could my starter have gone out? It usually started on the third crank pretty consistently before this.
Could snow have gotten on the ignition ground? Or maybe the harmonic balancer got so bad the car just doesn’t want to start? It’s gotten progressively worse as I’ve owned it.
Any thoughts and inputs are appreciated, thank you!

 

scan for trouble codes. I believe the 96 has crank sensor under the balancer, that may be combining with bad opti. scan should show a code to shine some light on issues.

 

I think step one would be to determine if its cranking speed, fuel or spark. Crank speed you should be able to tell by sound.

Does the cranking sound right? Storing a car in snow should not get in the motor area unless you drove into snow that was deep. but cold thicken the oil and if you have a weak starter in could cause a no start. As you know a weak battery can do the same thing. Any scan tool will show you if the PCM thinks the motor is turning and how fast.

No fuel: You could pull a plug and see if it is wet at all or even flooded. you could also try starting fluid. If you are cranking too slow starter fluid may help also.
No Spark: Agg Step one without a check engine light on is a spark tester. The video asked for ST125 but just about all parts store and online stores have them these days. You should search some yourtube video for some DYI Opti Diagnoses videos.