Why can't I get fuel from fuelrail to piston

Tiny
WICKTADEN
  • MEMBER
  • 1991 OLDSMOBILE CIERA
I have power to the injectors but cant get fuel to the pistons to run
Friday, March 23rd, 2012 AT 11:24 PM

3 Replies

Tiny
SATURNTECH9
  • MECHANIC
  • 30,869 POSTS
Whats your actual fuel pressure?Also do you have a injector pluse?You can have power to the injector but if you dont have a ground injector pluse the fuel injector wont deliver fuel.
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Saturday, March 24th, 2012 AT 12:02 AM
Tiny
CUT213
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  • 57 POSTS
I had the same problem on my 89 Ciera. My engine is the 2.8L MPFI. In the beginning of the problem my engine first began to stall and would restart maybe minutes later, long story short, each inkrestart cycle took longer and longer until it no longer start and it ended up where you're now. I spent lots of time checking out all kinds of stuff and advice. So I cut to the chase. Ask yourself what does it need to run? SPARK, FUEL, AIR. What is not working. Let's skip the AIR for now. Are you sure you have spark? OR is this a fuel issue? A very quick and easy test. Let's confirm the spark first. Rather than dismantle half the car, let's do a very simple test. Remove the air hoses to the throttle body and have someone use the key and spin the engine over, and confirm a no start issue. Next let's spray a small amount of Berrymens B12 into the throttle body. While the engine is spinning over. If it starts and runs while being sprayed, you now know for sure the ignition system is not at fault. So that confirms SPARK. Now know we are dealing with some sort of FUEL issue. So can you confirm fuelrail pressure is good and normal at the fuelrail? Yes or No. Assuming you can confirm correct fuelrail pressure and the pressure holds steadily, now I suspect the injectors could be at fault. If you have at least two injectors, one on both sides of the engine, you can have a total shutdown of electrical pulses to ALL the injectors at the same time, cause by the two injectors with faulty OHM specs. On my car 89 Ciera, the left and right sides of the injectors electrical system has separate grounds. Nowww. If you have a single injector on. Let's say the leftside of the engine, that is out of OHM spec, that one faulty injector CAN affect the other two injectors on the same side. Now if by chance you have the same issue on rightside it can affect ALL the injectors at the same time. The ECM now becomes overwhelming conflicted with false and erratic information and shutdown all injector impulses at the same time. Thus fuelrail has pressure but no electrical pulse to ALL the injectors at the same time. CONFIRMED fuel problem. This actually happened to me on my car!
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Wednesday, January 28th, 2026 AT 4:59 PM
Tiny
CUT213
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The service technician is correct. The ground circuit can be interrupted by a faulty injector that is out of OHM spec. And that one injector can effect the other two injectors on that same circuit. See. These cars have separated ground circuits for the left side and the right side for the injector pulses. One faulty OHM reading can effect the other injectors on the same circuit. So now you can have problems with all three injectors on the same electrical circuit, let's say #1 injector is truly faulty for being out of correct OHM range. Well now it's affecting #3 and #5 injectors too. Now imagine the same problem on the other side. Now all six injectors are affected. What happens now is the ECM is conflicted with wild readings outside the normal parameters, it is totally overwhelmed. So it shuts down the pulses needed for the injectors to function. Thus no pluse signals are sent, injectors can not open, engine can't get fuel needed to run/start. This issue actually happened to me. It's a real issue though it sounds unlikely to happen. I believe it happens quite a bit. I got a simple test. If you know you have valid fuelrail pressure. Then spray Berrymens B12 onto the intake. I bet it will start. If it does perform an OHM test on all six injectors. Any injectors outside of spec needs to be replaced.
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Wednesday, January 28th, 2026 AT 5:41 PM

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