My engine is really ****ing me off now....
Discussion
Fixed in post 61
So, I've started a new thread to fully explain what's going on and what I've tried so far.
My little Chim 400 has always been very reliable, up until the point where I moved house and left her to sit with very little use for about a year. The damp got under the cover, the dash peeled and turned rusty and my hood has started to rot. Completely my own fault and I take full responsibility blah, blah, blah.
Now, I take you back to about nine months ago, I'd finally moved the TVR from my old house (uncles gaff) to my new house. This is when the issue first raised it's ugly head...
The symptoms are... a stutter when accelerating from low revs. Rarely I also get a sudden and unexpected loss of power for a very short amount of time (couple of seconds) followed by a very violent resumption in power. A faintly noticeable loss of power occasionally when cruising.
Once I'm over the initial stutter, the engine will pull like a train. And as long as I keep the revs up it seems fine (apart from the sudden loss of power bit on occasion).
On first noticing this I cleaned the stepper (a job I do regularly anyway) and replaced all the ignition bits. Rotor Arm, Dizzy cap, Leads, extenders and Coil. All with parts from known TVR suppliers (Racetech, ACT etc) no ebay jobbies. This seemed to cure it for a while, but I didn't really use the car a great deal.
Then I took it out back in January and it started doing the same thing again. I left it as I had to work on the house and had little time/money. I then read on here about replacing the water coolant temp sensor. I found a replacement part, admittedly not a Lucas part but a decent quality replacement, brass bodied etc from here:
http://www.autoelectricalspares.co.uk/temperature-...
That also seemed to do the trick for a little while.
A couple of weeks ago I thought I'd found it to be the plug extenders. It needed a service anyway so I dropped it at Topcats Racing in Aylesbury for a service. They fitted new plugs and put the extenders back on and said everything was fine, and it was for a couple of days.
Now it's back. It failed on Saturday driving to my mates house about 40 miles away. Managed to get there with a stutter and lumpy engine, parked up and got drunk. The following morning the car wouldn't start, I turned it over and over and it was almost firing, but not quite. Eventually I ran out of electricity and had to call the AA.
The AA man said I'd flooded the engine and hooked up his booster pack. We managed to fire it up by pulling the fuel pump relay, turning it over until all the fuel had burnt out and then popped the relay back in. Took a couple of attempts, but then it started, albeit with the lumpiness and stutter again. The AA man said he thought it as running rich and hence why it flooded.
I drove it home at high revs, it was ok apart from a very scary incident overtaking a lorry in the rain (lots of spray) where it did the instant power loss trick again, except this time it came right back in with a jolt and a twitch of the back end...
It's really frustrating that I can't fix this stupid issue, it makes me not want to drive the car.
I'm open to all suggestions, if the weather holds out I'll be under it all weekend if I have to. I want my car running properly again. I'm now in the process of getting her back in ship shape, I just had the service, full geo set up on her and replacement dash. Next on the cards is carpets, hood and fixing all the leaks.
Please throw any suggestions you can at me. I'll be very grateful.
Many thanks, Chris
So, I've started a new thread to fully explain what's going on and what I've tried so far.
My little Chim 400 has always been very reliable, up until the point where I moved house and left her to sit with very little use for about a year. The damp got under the cover, the dash peeled and turned rusty and my hood has started to rot. Completely my own fault and I take full responsibility blah, blah, blah.
Now, I take you back to about nine months ago, I'd finally moved the TVR from my old house (uncles gaff) to my new house. This is when the issue first raised it's ugly head...
The symptoms are... a stutter when accelerating from low revs. Rarely I also get a sudden and unexpected loss of power for a very short amount of time (couple of seconds) followed by a very violent resumption in power. A faintly noticeable loss of power occasionally when cruising.
Once I'm over the initial stutter, the engine will pull like a train. And as long as I keep the revs up it seems fine (apart from the sudden loss of power bit on occasion).
On first noticing this I cleaned the stepper (a job I do regularly anyway) and replaced all the ignition bits. Rotor Arm, Dizzy cap, Leads, extenders and Coil. All with parts from known TVR suppliers (Racetech, ACT etc) no ebay jobbies. This seemed to cure it for a while, but I didn't really use the car a great deal.
Then I took it out back in January and it started doing the same thing again. I left it as I had to work on the house and had little time/money. I then read on here about replacing the water coolant temp sensor. I found a replacement part, admittedly not a Lucas part but a decent quality replacement, brass bodied etc from here:
http://www.autoelectricalspares.co.uk/temperature-...
That also seemed to do the trick for a little while.
A couple of weeks ago I thought I'd found it to be the plug extenders. It needed a service anyway so I dropped it at Topcats Racing in Aylesbury for a service. They fitted new plugs and put the extenders back on and said everything was fine, and it was for a couple of days.
Now it's back. It failed on Saturday driving to my mates house about 40 miles away. Managed to get there with a stutter and lumpy engine, parked up and got drunk. The following morning the car wouldn't start, I turned it over and over and it was almost firing, but not quite. Eventually I ran out of electricity and had to call the AA.
The AA man said I'd flooded the engine and hooked up his booster pack. We managed to fire it up by pulling the fuel pump relay, turning it over until all the fuel had burnt out and then popped the relay back in. Took a couple of attempts, but then it started, albeit with the lumpiness and stutter again. The AA man said he thought it as running rich and hence why it flooded.
I drove it home at high revs, it was ok apart from a very scary incident overtaking a lorry in the rain (lots of spray) where it did the instant power loss trick again, except this time it came right back in with a jolt and a twitch of the back end...
It's really frustrating that I can't fix this stupid issue, it makes me not want to drive the car.
I'm open to all suggestions, if the weather holds out I'll be under it all weekend if I have to. I want my car running properly again. I'm now in the process of getting her back in ship shape, I just had the service, full geo set up on her and replacement dash. Next on the cards is carpets, hood and fixing all the leaks.
Please throw any suggestions you can at me. I'll be very grateful.
Many thanks, Chris
Edited by ButtonIt on Monday 9th June 08:28
Edited by ButtonIt on Monday 9th June 08:29
I've a similar issue that I will be investigating shortly but it's linked to the cooling fans kicking in, the revs/power drop when the fans start up but it's only momentarily. While they are running there's no problem and whe they turn off there's no problem either. I suspect a poor earth somewhere.
Not sure if you are seeing a similar issue but it doesn't sound the same.
Might be worth hooking up roverguage if you have it and turning on logging to see if anything shows up. If it is spark related you will not see fault codes directly related to the issue, but it would at least rule out the fueling side.
One component it could be is the ignition amo, the symptoms you describe sound like its is failing. Ultimately it will fail completely and the the engine wil not run. Not aware of any way of testing except by substitution.
Not sure if you are seeing a similar issue but it doesn't sound the same.
Might be worth hooking up roverguage if you have it and turning on logging to see if anything shows up. If it is spark related you will not see fault codes directly related to the issue, but it would at least rule out the fueling side.
One component it could be is the ignition amo, the symptoms you describe sound like its is failing. Ultimately it will fail completely and the the engine wil not run. Not aware of any way of testing except by substitution.
Edited by Colin RedGriff on Tuesday 27th May 14:04
Chris, do you have the Rovergauge cable and software or Ecumate? If not I would recommend getting hold of them so that you can try to identify what's happening when it starts misbehaving as it should throw a fault code in the ECU. It could be many things causing your symptoms so it's difficult to analyse on here.
This could be soooo many things, feel for you.
For engine completely shutting off when going I've had something this before separately with the ignition amp & the king lead of the magnicors popping off the dis. cap whenever it likes. Another instance was the passenger kicking the electrics disengaging the hot start relay I had added. I've also had low power & stuttering at high revs from a bad earth (from behind the drivers wheel to engine block), but it does not feel like the engine shuts off.
When it shuts off can you still hear the fuel pump?
It's hard to diagnose as it can be anything form the ignition barrel, immobiliser, relays, ecu to a loose connection somewhere.
edited to add that I have added a 2nd earth to my fuel pump as it was randomly shutting off from a poor earth connection (which is hard to get to), which was notable when pressing on and running out of fuel temporarily.
For engine completely shutting off when going I've had something this before separately with the ignition amp & the king lead of the magnicors popping off the dis. cap whenever it likes. Another instance was the passenger kicking the electrics disengaging the hot start relay I had added. I've also had low power & stuttering at high revs from a bad earth (from behind the drivers wheel to engine block), but it does not feel like the engine shuts off.
When it shuts off can you still hear the fuel pump?
It's hard to diagnose as it can be anything form the ignition barrel, immobiliser, relays, ecu to a loose connection somewhere.
edited to add that I have added a 2nd earth to my fuel pump as it was randomly shutting off from a poor earth connection (which is hard to get to), which was notable when pressing on and running out of fuel temporarily.
Edited by gavgavgav on Tuesday 27th May 13:57
sapper said:
the only time ive had trouble like this its been a poor connection with the afm,,1st time it wasn't quite connected even though it looked like it was, 2nd time it was off. so worth a look as Citizen Smith said.
I agree with this. When I had this is was the air take pipe not being correctly connected.In the simplest terms it sounds like you're either losing fuel or ignition, so it makes sense to start your investigations here.
Intermittent faults like this can be very frustrating so you need to devise a method of catching the fault while you're driving the car normally over a period of time.
Going back to the fuel or ignition theory, one good way to catch what's happening is to power two bulbs one off the live side of the coil & the other off the live feed to the fuel pump.
Route the wires into the cabin taping the bulbs to the dash in your line of sight, when you have a reoccurrence of the misfire/loss of power observe which bulb goes out.
This will at least tell you where the problem is, from there you can more easily diagnose the ultimate origin of the fault.
Diagnosing faults is sometimes a process of elimination, be systematic and use logic in your approach and you'll find the culprit.
Intermittent faults like this can be very frustrating so you need to devise a method of catching the fault while you're driving the car normally over a period of time.
Going back to the fuel or ignition theory, one good way to catch what's happening is to power two bulbs one off the live side of the coil & the other off the live feed to the fuel pump.
Route the wires into the cabin taping the bulbs to the dash in your line of sight, when you have a reoccurrence of the misfire/loss of power observe which bulb goes out.
This will at least tell you where the problem is, from there you can more easily diagnose the ultimate origin of the fault.
Diagnosing faults is sometimes a process of elimination, be systematic and use logic in your approach and you'll find the culprit.
ChimpOnGas said:
Going back to the fuel or ignition theory, one good way to catch what's happening is to power two bulbs one off the live side of the coil & the other off the live feed to the fuel pump.
Route the wires into the cabin taping the bulbs to the dash in your line of sight, when you have a reoccurrence of the misfire/loss of power observe which bulb goes out.
This will at least tell you where the problem is, from there you can more easily diagnose the ultimate origin of the fault.
Diagnosing faults is sometimes a process of elimination, be systematic and use logic in your approach and you'll find the culprit.
Clever! Rover Gauge, are you listening?Route the wires into the cabin taping the bulbs to the dash in your line of sight, when you have a reoccurrence of the misfire/loss of power observe which bulb goes out.
This will at least tell you where the problem is, from there you can more easily diagnose the ultimate origin of the fault.
Diagnosing faults is sometimes a process of elimination, be systematic and use logic in your approach and you'll find the culprit.
I think this may be the same problem I was having. Worth a check at any rate.
My fuel consumption was shocking and I had lack of torque under about 2500RPM. It turned out the membrane in my fuel pressure regulator was damaged and I was losing excess fuel through the vacuum hose...straight back into the plenum chamber where it was ebing fed back into the engine. The Lambdas were working their b
ks off to try and regulate things (thanks Rover-gauge for showing me that). At full power it wasn't noticeable.
Pull the vacuum hose off the regulator and see if its pissing fuel out of it when the engines running.
My fuel consumption was shocking and I had lack of torque under about 2500RPM. It turned out the membrane in my fuel pressure regulator was damaged and I was losing excess fuel through the vacuum hose...straight back into the plenum chamber where it was ebing fed back into the engine. The Lambdas were working their b
ks off to try and regulate things (thanks Rover-gauge for showing me that). At full power it wasn't noticeable.Pull the vacuum hose off the regulator and see if its pissing fuel out of it when the engines running.
Ooooooooooooh, more suggestions.... thanks guys. I've got a new Ignition Amp on it's way so I'll try that initially and have a good look at the earth strap and Fuel Pump connections.
There's a part of me that thinks, f**k it, just take the whole engine out and rebuild it. I'd love to do a job like that, I did it on my Land Rover recently and learnt so much and had a lot of fun. Trouble is I don't have a garage...
There's a part of me that thinks, f**k it, just take the whole engine out and rebuild it. I'd love to do a job like that, I did it on my Land Rover recently and learnt so much and had a lot of fun. Trouble is I don't have a garage...
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