90 sunbird backfire/engine quit

Hey there,

Little stumped here. I have a 2 litre non turbo engine that dies when you give it a lot of gas . The car will either work good for a short time or tach will bounce all over as car sputters and backfires until it quits. it will start after it sits for 5-10 minutes. Car has new fuel filter ,plugs,and pcv valve that were put in after problem started but changed nothing. Ive been told a diagnostic may not be able to isolate anything so any info. would be appreciated.

you have one of two problems. Your pick up coil in the distributor has a broken wire inside and is shorting out when the distributor advance kicks in, or your ignintion module is overheating and quitting. Both would give the symptoms you describe. Try taking the module to Advance or Auto Zone and have them test it for you. Make sure they run the test on their machine a few times if it passes at first because yours seems to fail as it gets hot. You can test the pick up coil by checking resistance (500-1500 ohms is the acceptable range). Make sure you wiggle the wires while you test it, if the reading jumps around while you wiggle the wires, that indicates a partially broken wire inside the insulation, and you need to replace the pick up