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Car: 2001 Chevy Cavalier, automatic, base model, no AC, nothing. 190,000 km.

Will try to make it brief as possible. Car died on me on the expressday, and wouldn't start after many attempts and even after resetting the ECU. Towed car home, hasn't started since. I preferably like to work on my own cars, mostly because I'm a broke SOB. I have spark, I have compression, and I can hear the fuel pump prime. I once ran completely out of gas during late last summer, and after I put gas in it took quite a while for it to fire up. My gas guage works and is pretty accurate from my experience and I currently have around little less than 3/8 of tank.

So it appears to be a fuel pressure issue. I'm thinking it's either the sock thing on the fuel pump (the place where it sucks fuel up) that's clogged with debris/sediment, or the fuel filter is completely clogged.

I come to ask you guys with more experience on the matter what your thoughts are...

Today it's way too cold to work on the car. Tomorrow is supposed to be better.

Next step is get a fuel pressure tester (will have to buy one, nobody rents them around here), and code reader.

Will this car throw a CEL if there is inadequate fuel pressure at the fuel rail? I read somewhere else that these cars fuel pumps don't usually die and that they don't require much fuel pressure to run (30psi and can run good even down to 20psi is what I remember reading) My CEL stays on after turning the key to ON position but it's been doing that since the EVAP system failed.

Before all of this car was running pretty good (and fire up normally)... save for a few quirks like this weird problem where it would be become a rock and the trac light would come on when it's really cold out. So basically I couldn't come to a complete stop and lose forward momentum for the first few minutes of driving until it warmed up. This is when it's really cold out. When you first put it in drive after starting it would move forward without the pedal like it's supposed to, but as soon as you come to the first stop and lose forward momentum it doesn't want to move and you can hear the RPM's roaring but the car doesn't move or only moves inches lol... but once the temp guage gets over the 1/4 mark then it works perfect. Weird...

Any input is appreciated.

(Forgot to mention that the EVAP system on this car has been faulty for quite a few months and I even managed to lose the gas cap. Of course this wouldn't cause a no start but someone did mention to me something about getting water/condensation in the tank could cause problems. Reason I didn't fix any of this is because I've been working on my TDI engine swap and was only hoping to get through the winter before I got my TDI on the road... also the rockers on this car are completely shot and there's lots of rust developing all over, interior panels are cracking, everything just seems to be **** poor quality so I said F it I'm not putting a dime into it except for oil changes.... what's also amusing is that gas prices shoot down literally the day I decide to go over to the 50mpg mk4 tdi...diesel is like 25c more per liter than gas with no explanation... )

Thanks dudes and dudettes for any guidance.