please help !

[lukeva]

OK I need some help finding out what's wrong with my car.
I have a 99 cougar 2.0L , manual transmition Dual Overhead Camsm,
Electronic Fuel Injection and Inline Style Engine.
A few days ago I was traveling to richmond, VA and I completly ran out of gas. The odometer still said I had about 7 miles of gas, I tried to start the car several times because it stall in a intersection and I had to move it but I had no luck, I eneded up pushing it to the side of the road. Some nice people stopped by and got us some gas and after that we filled up, The car was running a little funny after I filled it up , sometimes I would feel the gas being cut while my foot was still on the gas. I made it to richmond ok but every since I ran out of gas the check engine light has come up and
whenever I come to a complete stop and the engine idles, it almost dies. I cannot turn the a/c on now because the car will stall if in a complete stop. \
If I make a really tight turn and turn the steering wheel all the way over to one side it'll also stall.
It drives ok most of the time , except sometimes when I start it it makes a deep sound , like the air exhaust isn't working.
I have no idea what's wrong with it...
could it be damaged fuel pump ?
please help , thanks

[wadespencer99]

First, I'd get the car somewhere and have that CEL read. I don't think running out of gas could make it come on.

[TrackCat]

Bad gas. But sounds like you need to check the engine

[lukeva]

I don't think it's bad gas.
I sounds like my intake is not working at all , it might be the MAF sensor
the cooling fans for the engine keeps turning on and off even if the car has been on for a short period of time (5 - 10 mins )
any suggestions ?
I unpluged the maf and started the car, it ran the same as if there was no maf

[Dat1BlueCat]

How many miles do you have on that car?? I was looking to buy a camaro once, it felt like what you described and when i turned the steering wheel all the way, the engine died....It said it had 49k miles LOL, apparently it was 249k miles as a result... i would go check the engine

[Yofavcracka]

this happened to me dude, its your fuel pump, Mine would start acting up at about half a tank tho....it was bad. When i turned far left it would feel like my car began to die. Go to a dealer and explain it to them, its most likely a fuel pump issue, but dont worry, its a recall item so its free, it cost me 80 bucks for labor.

[Yofavcracka]

I don't think it's bad gas.
I sounds like my intake is not working at all , it might be the MAF sensor
the cooling fans for the engine keeps turning on and off even if the car has been on for a short period of time (5 - 10 mins )
any suggestions ?
I unpluged the maf and started the car, it ran the same as if there was no maf
also try resetting your ECU, unplug both battery terminals for 20 minutes, then re attach them. it might help

[lukeva]

thanks for all the replies, I think it's the fuel pump.
This is what happens, when the engine idles it's suppost to stay at 1 rpm, it does for a little bit and then it starts dropping a bit and it comes back, it just doesn't stop. It started happening after I ran out of gas , I tried to start it several times and I felt the same symptoms then, I think I damaged the fuel pump by letting it run out of gas and by trying to start it with no gas....
I had a oldsmobile alero and I had the same problem. except i didn't run out of gas. I bought it off an auction and it came with the problem.
only $ 2,000 later the mechanic found out it was the fuel pump.
thanks again, i'll get it checked out.

[arskiracer]

I wouldn't think it's a bad fuel pump. Typically you would notice a bad fuel pump at higher rpm and higher throttle position because the fuel pump has to work harder in those conditions.

About the running out of gas...
Usually it takes a while for the last bit of fuel to get used up in the fuel line before the car actually stops running, so the ecu was probably seeing a very lean condition for a short while before it actually quit on you. If that is the case then the engine light is probably going to read a bank one or two (or both) lean code. Because of the lean condition the ECU may have bad information in its adaptive learning table. That may have caused the ECU to richen up the mixture to copensate, possibly throwing a bank one or two running rich code. A rich condition will cause your idle to be all screwed up. From my experiences, you will not notice a slight rich condition as much in the driving rpm range as you would at the idle rpm. The way to get rid of the bad information in the adaptive learning table is to simply unplug the battery cable for a few minutes to reset everything (as yofav... said).

If that doesn't work, then it could be a number of other possible problems.

[arskiracer]

man, I'm going to have to get back up to date with the forums. I didn't even know there was a tuning and calibration section