PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

i have a 01 with the 3800 in it and I went to start it yesterday. when i turned the key it never even turned over but it did make a loud boom and blew the plenum to pieces and blew out the injectors! first thing is i have no idea why it blew up. second thing is i had a friend come over he brought a new plenum and injectors we replaces those. We were trying to see if it would turn over and now it wont start or turnover. it clicks at the fuse box but will do nothing else all my lights are on. we did jump the starter and got it to turn over but neither of my keys will make a difference. any help will be very appreciated.


Brandon

The explosion was probably caused by a faulty fuel pressure regulator.

I know faulty fuel pressure regulators are the main cause of this happening. But there must be other reasons to why this happens. Because the car I have has had this happen to it. It still has the original fuel pressure regulator and I vacume tested it to work perfectly fine. I even got down and sucked on it my self to see if fuel would come out. Perhaps leaky or stuck open injectors cause this too.

Explosion was likely due to a bad FPR. Did you have the key on, putting fuel pressure to it? That's the only way to see if it's leaking, when there's 50 PSI of fuel on it. Could it be a sticking injector? Maybe, but I've never heard of it.

Sounds like your starter solenoid took a crap, jumping it with a screwdriver or whatever bypasses the solenoid.

You had you plenum explode due to a bad FPR.
When you put the new fuel rail/plenum on did you pull the spark plugs and try to turn the engine over to make sure there was no coolant/fuel in any of the cylinders(?), followed by changing the oil?

Remove the spark plugs, manually turn the crankshaft 2 revolutions, watch for any spewage from cylinders. Look at the tailpipe. Black soot in the pipes on the bumper? The 3.8l don't usually explode from just too much fuel. Spark or valve timing problems are needed to ignite your engine into little plastic bits. Check the basics first.

We were trying to turn the engine over to check for coolant but we can not get the engine to turn over. That is where our problem lies we have power to the fuses but not at the starter.