1985 Opel Manta 16V and '09 BMW E92

[ChrisT]

Feb 8, 2019 7:31:19 GMT fordperv said:

go Nodiz for the price with a plug and play loom it's a no brainer, I wish you were closer to me, if you were I'd bring my setup around and fire the car up on that to trouble shoot

It's top of the list if it turns out the ecu is at fault, would be ideal if I knew someone local with one just to test it.

[ChrisT]

Feb 8, 2019 10:17:21 GMT darrenh said:

spending out for an electronic version of a points breaker, to go inside an electronic distributor, seems false economy?

would the investment be better spent towards couple hours on a rolling road at a weber approved garage (i know one in kent) or swapping it out for a completely different 2D management system?

I figure a basic one is relatively cheap, whereas the closest rolling road with Weber knowledge is about 40miles away and I would need to trailer it there as it's not MOT'd.

[ChrisT]

Not had much chance to work on this of late, new windows fitted in dining room and subsequent redecorating taking most of my time...

Engine back together now and running much like it was before, better but still missing and shaking a lot at low revs.

Pulling the plug leads individually 1 and 2 showed no change, 3 and 4 engine started to die.

Spraying easy start in 1 and 2 made no difference, 3 and 4 dropped the revs.

Makes me think the first carb is somehow over-fuelling through the rev range, checked the float levels in both carbs and they are the same, swapped the covers over, which house the floats, just in case there was some difference - there wasn't.

In the process of swapping the carbs round, see if the problem moves to 3 and 4, hoping to sneak a couple of hours on it tomorrow afternoon...

[peteh1969]

Can you rig up a separate fuel supply to each carb, ie: put a Y connector in before the first carb then restrict the flow by clamping the pipe?

[ChrisT]

Someone else suggested something like that but I can't see that it would have any effect.
Before removing the head it ran out of petrol while running, the lower levels in the float bowls didn't seem to make any difference.

[ChrisT]

Swapping carbs over made no difference at all, still able to remove leads 1 and 2 with no obvious change.

[darrenh]

so its definitely mechanical failure, or the ecu.

[blackpopracing]

ECU.

Mechanical failure would be obvious now he's had the head off.

[peteh1969]

I think a way of checking would be to get hold of a Dizzy and take the ECU out the equation and see if it fires up properly.

[Darkspeed]

I would double check all of the earths make sure the main engine earth is really clean and good back to the battery and that voltages and wiring connections are all good plus also drop a strobe on it to see where and what the timing is doing in relation to TDC.

Gobsmacked that those valves took a smack hard enough to stop the engine dead with no damage. Is it possible that the earlier running issues could have been created by the engine slipping a tooth before the final multiple tooth slip and failure.

[darrenh]

Mar 3, 2019 0:19:50 GMT peteh1969 said:

I think a way of checking would be to get hold of a Dizzy and take the ECU out the equation and see if it fires up properly.

agree, there are off the peg systems to run a 20XE on carbs, issue is that even a stock right angle distributor needs clearancing on a manta/chevette as its rammed up against the bulkhead and heater box

[ChrisT]

Mar 3, 2019 0:41:24 GMT Darkspeed said:

Gobsmacked that those valves took a smack hard enough to stop the engine dead with no damage. Is it possible that the earlier running issues could have been created by the engine slipping a tooth before the final multiple tooth slip and failure.

I'm surprised there was no damage too, it'll always be at the back of my mind that there may have been some internal damage I couldn't see and it'll let go at some point....

Had the timing light on it before the incident and it was spot on, and checked the cam timing several times too.


Been in touch with another ECU repair company the other week, after a few emails and pictures I was told they recognize the unit and can test it
Then a few hours later got another reply saying sorry, that should of been we can't test it

After that I decided I was getting nowhere with the testing/repair side of things so I'd just have to bite the bullet and bought this the other day....



Supplied with a map to suit my engine, a very compact little unit with minimal wiring required.
Looks to have lots of extra usable features too, including a digital dash via an app on my phone

Hooked everything up and tried starting it - no spark, a little bit of investigation and switching the wires to the CAS round sorted that and engine fired up....

....Still missing though

I had to walk away from it after that.....

[Darkspeed]

The Weber Alpha units are really good and very robust - I had a set up on 1800 Zetec in a Westy running 45's and it worked faultlessly. As you have found the biggest issue these days and back then was finding anyone with the codes to get into the things.

Sorry to hear its still not playing ball.

[peteh1969]

If you have compression and spark but it still does not fire then it can only be fuel pity you cannot swap the carbs over front to back and see if the miss changes position?

If it's on say 1 & 4 it would move to 2 & 3.

[darrenh]

Mar 16, 2019 22:58:06 GMT peteh1969 said:

If you have compression and spark but it still does not fire then it can only be fuel pity you cannot swap the carbs over front to back and see if the miss changes position?

If it's on say 1 & 4 it would move to 2 & 3.

pretty sure he did, and the missfire (or rather no fire) stayed on the same cylinders

missfire due to lack of spark would take some doing on a wasted spark setup (fires two cylinders at the same time, i.e cyl1 on the power stroke, cyl4 at top of exhaust stroke)

wonder if the crank signal is dirty or getting some Electromagnetic interference

[peteh1969]

If Chris has done that the next thing would be to use a strobe timing light and move the signal pickup in turn to each plug lead, if it works on each lead then then it's not ignition to the plugs causing the problem it could be the plugs but It could also be the Cam timing I have seen vernier cam pulleys slip before the only way to check would be to set it up on TDC No:1 with both valves closed and check each cam and then to do that for each cylinder 1.5° out is all it needs to cause a problem.

[ChrisT]

As evident by my lack of posts I've not had a great deal of time to work on this of late, dining room refurb has turned into a lot bigger job than I anticipated, and mojo failing somewhat, but been grabbing an hour or so here and there.

So a quick recap of the last few months....

Got the Nodiz all set up properly, wasn't quite a plug and play as expected but not hard to figure out, setting base timing level and something else I forget.
Still didn't make any difference.

Checked over all the plugs, spark was very good on all of them, then connected up a timing gun and could see from looking at the light 1 and 2 were not firing as regularly as 3 and 4, which was confusing considering it's now on a wasted spark coil pack.

Found the old metal crank sensor that came with the engine, only swapped it out because the wire sheath was a bit melted so repaired that and thought I'd try it as they're supposed to be better.
Didn't make any difference.

Then one day I fired it up and it appeared to be running fine, only a slight miss on no.1, running so well I took it for a quick drive down the road!

Out of curiosity I quickly swapped the ignition back to the Alpha system and it ran just as well

Decided to start getting it ready for MOT but the next day it was back to normal, worse than it has been in fact, not even wanting to start, exactly the same as it was all those months ago when it broke down

Last Friday I was thinking about what had/hadn't been changed and what would cause over fueling and came to the conclusion the nitrous fuel solenoid could be the culprit, disconnected its outlet and turned on the fuel pump to see a jet of petrol coming out

That would be the problem then.

New plugs in this morning and this happened...

[blackpopracing]

Great news.
So, explain, how was fuel coming out of the nitrous solonoid?

[ChrisT]

May 8, 2019 19:01:38 GMT blackpopracing said:

Great news.
So, explain, how was fuel coming out of the nitrous solonoid?

Fuel's leaking out the fuel solenoid.

[bmwmaniac]

could this possibly have caused an hydraulic lock causing belt issues in the first place?