96 Suburuban hard start - bogs down

[russjones007]

This week my '96 Suburban with a 350 became very hard to start. It will turnover fine, but has a hard time firing up. Every now and then the engine "catches" and when this happens sometimes I can get to run. This is different compared to its recent behavior when it would start within just few cranks. Once it's running the idle is fine. However on the road it bogs down when accelearting. Put the accelerator down and it just doesn't want to go.

Any ideas

[amac209]

sounds like a fuel pressure problem. get it tested

[DDotson]

Like he said check the fuel pressure. It is well known about the fuel pump problems on our burbs. It is not uncommon to sometimes start and run fine till you get to your destination and try to start again with no running of the beast. You might even be able to go out and fire it up at a later time. But eventually she wont start at all.

[russjones007]

Thanks for the advice.

I put a pressure gauge on it Sunday. Turned the Key and heard the pump run for a couple of seconds - read 54 psi. Haynes says spec is 56 to 62, so not too bad. Cranked right up - that was different from the previous few days. Ran poorly on the road again, came home and stopped it - couldn't get pump to work again - nada on pressure. Just to be sure replaced fuel filter (less than 10k with this filter) and pump relay. No change.

Bought fuel pump parts today. Will replace sometime this week and see.

[DDotson]

Yep it's the pump

[SpitAndDirt]

Over 100,000 miles? Distributor cap and rotor, they always fail with little warning. Mine lasted for about 130,000, found the center electrode burned away. Still running factory platinum plugs and wires. Good Luck -Chris 96' Z71 All Stock