BMW Repair: BMW 318I 1984, throttle position sensor, fuel pressure regulator

Question
My 84 318i stalls right after it starts. It runs for 2-3 seconds and then cuts out. When it 1st happened i noticed the fuel accumulator was leaking so i replaced it. Nothing changed. I replaced the fuel pressure regulator and nothing really changed. I did get it running once with the new regulator and when it started it ran fine (i drove it 5 or so miles). But when i tried to start it the next day it went back to the same old stalling. i've tried many times to get it going but with no luck. What should i do next? Thanks for your help. Eric

Answer
check your fuel pressure with a gauge, if it's below spec, you could have clogged lines (fuel filter or bend in tubeing)  what puzzles me is that it ran fine for a while but only once.  This to me seems to be more of a computer malfunction,  does the coil get power for the 2-3 secconds it runs?  hows the vacuum? within spec?  look at your plugs to determine what fuel mixture your car is running.  what brought on the problem? what recent maintence/upgrades have been done to the car?  You must determine if the problem is spark, mixture or timeing related.  their are a lot of things to consider such as the throttle position sensor (connected to the bottom of the flapper door that is connected to the end of the accelerator cable on the intake manifold) coolant temp sensor,   reference sensor, bad ground bad coil ect.

let me know more about what the cars doing and I can help you more.
-cheers
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