My wife was driving the car and said it started loosing power and did not want to go so she went to pull over and the car died and would not start. We found some oil in the spark plug wells and replaced the wires, tried to get new plugs at this point too but the auto parts store gave us boat plugs. With the new wires in place the car still would not start so we towed it home. Changed the spark plugs, checked the timing fixed the oil leak and made sure we had spark and fuel to the engine. got the car to start but it was making a low poping sound from the exhaust when in gear. My wife's friend repalced the air filter and pcv valve and the poping went away so she tried to test drive it. when she got about 100 yards from the house the poping sound returned and the car died before she could make the block to come back to the house. Pushed the car home and had a mechanic look at it. First mechanic said it was bad gas, but another actually tried to diagnose it properly. He checked the compression and found 130+ psi in all 4 cylinders. Checked the timing with a timing gun and found it to be correct. checked all 4 plugs for spark and it was good. checked the injectors and found that they were working but not pulsing correctly. the check engine light comes on and goes off correctly but went ahead and checked the codes from the computer and found a code 7 and a code 9. the code 7 being the throttle position sensor and 9 being #1 cylinder positions sensor. replaced the distributor and checked timing again to be sure its still correct but still won't start. checked codes again and now getting a code 8 for top dead center sensor which is new because its in the distributor. Also found pressure coming out of the air filter side of the intake manifold. It appears to be gas back pressuring into the intake manifold. checked the egr valve and it seems to be in good working order. checked to make sure there is not a signal loss going into the distributor and found all the wires to working correctly. Currently when you turn the key the starter engages but you never have any of the cylinders fire. the mechanic tried putting a small amount of oil into the cylinder to increase compression in case the gas in the cylinder caused a compression loss and got the first 2 cylinders to fire before it went back to its normal crank but nothing else. when we pull the plugs they are soaked in gas every time. The mechanic is stumped to why the car won't start and so am I.

 

What did you mechanic find when the injectors were not pulsing correctly?

Also, when you replaced your distributor, did you have a new ignitor, coil, distributor cap, distributor rotor come with it?

One item that can cause strange things to happen is the main ground (G101) in the engine bay. It is bolted to the thermostat housing. I would remove that bolt, then clean the bolt and eyelet with a wire brush. Tighten it back down and see what happens when you try to start it.

 

The mechanic thought the injector pulse issue was caused by the cylinder position sensor failing. He still feels that the issue is caused by whatever is making the tdc sensor to show a code.

I only replaced the distributor cap and everything in it due to the failed sensor, I didn't replace the coil or ignitor because it was still testing fine and I was getting spark at the correct timing.

As far as the ground under the thermostat we have removed and cleaned it twice just to make sure it isn't a problem. seems to be a bad place to have a ground if you ask me.

 

Each injector gets 12V from the main relay all the time. The ECU grounds the relay and creates the pulse to open each injector.

The ECU is grounded at G101, so that is why I suggested you clean that ground. Especially since you had a TPS code 7 that seems to have disappeared. You never mentioned if the TPS or the throttle body was replaced.

G101 can cause some strange unrelated problems.

If that doesn't fix the problem, turn the key to the II position (don't try to start the car). Unplug an electrical connector to one of the injectors. Check that one of the two pins (the pin with the same wire color on all four injectors) has 12V to ground.

If you have 12V, then I would consider replacing the ECU. If you go to car-part.com and look up the engine computer for your car, you can find ECUs in junkyards and sort by price or distance from where you live. You may find a cheap one nearby.