Fuel Pump and Coolant Temp

[Vincent Gelinas]

Hi, Y'all!!

TIA for all your help.  It's been and will continue to be invaluable.

I stopped by my local Autozone the other day (there is a guy who works 
there that used to fix our cars, right at the end of the CIS era and the 
start of the EFI era, and owned an '88 GTI).  He said my stalling 
problem at higher RPM was lack of fuel, not too much (my original 
thought) because it jerks once and stalls, but doesn't sputter.  His 
thought is that my fuel pump is getting worn down and the impeller is 
cavitating when forced to spin faster (aka when more fuel is needed at 
higher RPM, especially when under load).

He also said (like Hew has) is that my coolant temp sensor(s) are 
probably the reason that I'm running rich down low.  The inside of my 
tailpipe is sooted to hell, and my spark plug ceramic is already turning 
brown near my center electrode and they haven't even been on a thousand 
miles.

Another thing he said is that our fuel distributors are very picky about 
pressure.  The specs he pulled up in the computer point to 88.5-94 PSI 
as being normal operating range, with even a couple PSI lower causing 
problems.

I'm wondering how accurate that info is, because I'm sooo close to 
solving my problem (the new coil was the biggest change so far - I'm not 
sure if the mods let the pic I sent come through, but the terminal of 
the old one was indeed snapped clean off.  It was bad!).

Thanks again!!

Vincent Gelinas