I hope to all that is holy that someone here can help me on this one: I have the factory service manual and Chilton's manual and a few years automotive tinkering experience. I have a 97 Contour V6 with 5-speed manual, and I recently (June) bought another car, so I put the Contour "up" in the garage, and it didn't have hardly any fuel in it. Went to start it a few weeks later and it wouldn't start... I started trouble-shooting:
Put more fuel in it: that didn't help.
Replaced spark plugs and spark plug wires.
Checked resistance between coil towers and pins
Bought a spark tester and verified spark on at least three cylinders
Cleaned almost all sensors (other than camshaft and crankshaft pos. sensors and ECT sensor) with electronic cleaner...sprayed off a lot of connectors and things with that.
I started taking apart my intake and said what the hell, I've had upper/lower manifold gaskets sitting around for a while...maybe I'll just go ahead and rebuild the intake...
Discovered in this process the EGR passages caked in HEAVY carbon deposits... dipped/soaked both upper and lower manifolds in chem-dip for a few days and sprayed off...as well as picking out EGR passages with wire brush... nice and clean now.
ΓΆβ?¬ΒΆ Replaced IAC valve and EGR valve and gaskets along with this project... put in new gaskets and when putting everything back together I did the "Throttle Body optimization" as described in the How-To's. I don't know if I reassembled the throttle springs correctly, as it's much less...erm...springy than before...not as much tension as there should be I think... but I don't think that would cause a no-start.
While I was down there I also replaced the upstream bank 1 O2 sensor that I had been meaning to do for a while... that makes four fairly new O2 sensors.
In the process of troubleshooting all this the battery discharged beyond its ability to crank the engine, so I had to recharge it. Put it back in the car as well as putting in a new air filter, and after ALL of that work, it still won't start. I checked almost all fuses with a voltage tester... not sure how to check relays. But I can hear the fuel pump priming and I have pressure at the fuel rail.
I had to take everything back apart twice because I forgot to put in a component, so I am 100% sure everything is in its correct spot at the correct torque (bought a torque wrench that does inch-lbs just for this project).
I hope someone can help me with this...sorry for the novel. I'm going to ask my automotive engine teacher at my community college for help as well, but maybe someone here has insight into this... in the back of my mind I'm thinking crankshaft position sensor, because I've heard other people talking about this as a no-start culprit, but I don't know how to check to see if it's bad, and I've spent enough money on this project already. Thanks a lot.
