Hyundai Repair: 2001 Accent no start, air intake hose, camshaft timing

Question
I was having trouble with poor acceleration and bogging down in my 2001 Accent. 1.5L SOHC  I disconnected the battery in an attempt to reset the computer to see if it helped. Now the car will not start at all. One mechanic thought maybe timing so I took it back to where I had the belt changed. The timing is in line and they diagnosed it as a faulty fuel pump. Since they wanted $400 to change it I bought one and changed it myself. Unfortunately it made no difference. The car still turns over but stalls immediately. On top of that, after cranking it for about the 15th attempt I heard a pop and some plastic box that hung down from the air intake hose blew apart. I am at a loss and running out of money quickly and getting no place. Any ideas?

Answer
Presuming the engine never starts (the language "stalls immediately" causes some concern that the engine may start running very briefly and then stop again), you should start by checking to see what type of problem you have.

Do you have fuel pressure when you crank the engine?

Do you have spark when you crank the engine?

Is the camshaft timed correctly?


The cause of the air box blowing apart is that there was a backfire through the intake.  This could be caused by an out of time camshaft or by a crank sensor working intermittently and confusing the engine control module (ECM) regarding the position of the crankshaft.

You should not spend your money at this point making guesses.  You should be certain there's a problem and correct the problem you've found.  If you're unable to do these diagnoses yourself, you should take the car to a good driveability shop or the dealer.  Anybody that would say "maybe it's the timing" didn't bother checking or didn't know how to check.  It's a simple matter of removing the upper timing cover to check the camshaft timing.  Similarly, in regard to the shop that said the fuel pump was bad, how did they reach that conclusion?  I would hope there was at least a fuel pressure check.