2002 4.8 silverado won't stay running

[brewsterbaker]

I am looking for ideas on my 4.8 2002 silverado. It died today, out of the blue. It will restart and run real rough for up to 10 seconds as long as you are feathering the throttle, but then it just dies again. Also, it will back fire up through the engine while it is sputtering around. Running fine up until this point. Probably put about 40 miles on a new tank of gas before having this trouble. Had to have it towed home. no type of messages in the message center.

UPDATE: Changed the fuel filter. While I had the fuel lines disconnected from the filter, I turned on the key and heared the whir of the fule pump and fluid pumped out of the line for a couple of seconds. I did this twice. Put new filter on and hooked everything up and same deal. Started fine, reved up good and then sputtering and dies. Turn key off, starts up again and same deal. Could a fuel pump be bad and still work somewhat just not at 100%?

 

[Off Road King]

it almost sounds like your timing could be thrown off... if the fuel pump was bad 9 times out of 10 it wont start all all