Gas odor, flashing check engine light no codes

[pragmatic]

Short story, drive 180 miles fill up drive another 80 miles no problems. Car sits 2 days with a constant moist snow falling. Start it up and there is an obvious miss and noticeable gas odor. Figuring it may be moisture in the coil I drive away. Check engine light flashes for the next 15 miles and the miss continues. People following me say they can smell gasoline whenever I pull away from a light or accelerate hard.

Not wanting to stop I depress the clutch while driving at 50mph and shut off engine. Let it glide for 4-5 seconds are restart with the starter. Problem instantly clears and the check engine light goes off. Got home (after driving 100 miles in heavy snow and then heavy rain). Car ran fine the whole way home. Checking the codes today there are no active and no stored codes.

Car is a 2000 LS6 with 5 speed manual.

Whats your theory?

Mine is that the computer was confused and/or the fuel transfer pump was confused and overfilled one of the tanks causing fuel to overflow into the charcoal canister causing the odor making the computer under fuel the engine causing the miss.

 

[nearlyhalfamile]

The blinking light usually means that the computer is adjusting the fuel trim. I would say that perhaps you had an injector that was stuck open or closed. Both would result in the computer having to adjust the fuel trim and for there to be a misfire.

 

[beaups]

moisture in the coil wells. flashing c/e = misfire. big enough misfire = too much unburned gas and hence the gas smell. or could be a really bad inject.

 

[pragmatic]

moisture in the coil wells. flashing c/e = misfire. big enough misfire = too much unburned gas and hence the gas smell. or could be a really bad inject.

At 70,000 I had moisture in the coil wells and the engine stored a code and the check engine light stayed on after the misfire cleared. Also why did shutting the engine down for 4-5 seconds while moving at 50 mph clear the problem. Moisture or a bad injector should either gradually fix themselves as the engine warms. But this problem was as bad just before I shut down as when I started and there are no codes stored.