The truck under scrutiny at the moment is an 01 dodge ram 1500 318 5.2 liter 2 wheel drive. today my girlfriend and I were stopped at a stoplight and the darn thing just sputtered like it was running out of gas and just died. Wouldn't start back up. towed it home and found that it has spark and fuel pump is working. stuck a screwdriver in the shrader valve on the fuel rail and fuel spewed out fine. engine is turning fine but won't run. It acts like it doesnt even want to try to run. when I go to try to crank it and let off the ignition switch, then it wants to try to crank up for a second and it seems to have back pressure through the throttle body. Smoke even came out of the throttle body at one point. I tried spraying ether in the throttle body with absolutely no effect, like it didn't even get into the engine. The only other thing I can think of is no air getting into the cylinders or some kind of timing, I can't figure it out. This truck is my work truck and without it I can't work so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

have you tried pressing the gas pedal down while cranking? that opens the throttle plate and bypasses the IAC.

so you need spark at the plugs,
timing of the spark,
compression,
fuel and fuel injector spray and timing. (or starting fluid...)

so starting fluid didn't help...

my first guess is crank or cam position sensor.
do you have a CEL? and do you get any codes displayed by doing the key dance -
on - off - on - off - on.

 

sounds almost like a busted timing chain.. do you hear anything slapping around in there when you crank it?

check your spark too.. could be a coil..

 

i'd be surprised by a broken timing chain on an 01. not really old enough.

 

you're right.. I can't figure out what he meant when he said "when I go to try to crank it and let off the ignition switch, then it wants to try to crank up for a second"... it sounds like it has spark, but the timing is whacked... which led me to a chain as a catastrophic failure all the sudden.. I'm not really well versed on all these sensors yet.. it's been twenty years since I've really been on the engine building scene... things have changed..

 

"trying to crank" sounds like the old term of "dieseling" or "run on" - when you shut it off and it keeps trying to run in a spitting and sputtering manner.

since he has starting fluid and spark, but still no crank - i'm guessing on an out of time spark, which would be cam position sensor, aka - secondary pickup coil.

or..... catastrophic compression loss. which is unlikely.


you do have spark at the spark plugs - right ?

 

Sorry guys, it doesn't have a cel. I don't hear any slapping when trying to crank it. When I turn the ignition to key on engine on position and the engine starts turning, then I return the ignition back to ignition on engine off position it acts like it is going to start for that brief second just before the ignition switch enters the ignition on engine off.

 

it does have spark at the spark plug

 

Oh yeah, I did try depressing the pedal to the floor board to open up the butterfly valve and it didn't do anything different. It has had a problem ever since I bought it of kind of a misfire that no one has ever been able to find but hasn't really affected it's performance to the point of being unbearable. One thought I had was maybe what ever it is that has been causing that might have finally reached it's breaking point.

 

my first thought was the chain also. but my friend listened to it and determined that it's most likely ok.