Diesel levels of soot - Poor running

[Fenderer]

Does anyone elses car do this?. A big rev, taking the car out of the garage results in diesel levels of soot being ejected out the back. It seems to be running ridiculously rich and the spark plugs are a complete sooty mess and have to clean or replace them every 500 miles to prevent horrendous misfiring.

I'm already running the hotter NGK BPR6 plugs. Lambdas have been replaced, I've replaced HT leads, ditched the extenders, new cap, new rotor arm, new coil and replaced the Coolant sensor. It's running better but feels like a rev limiter is cutting in if you try to rev over 5K or give it sudden full throttle.

I can't work out if it is sooting up because of poor ignition or I'm getting poor ignition because of the overfuelling.

What should I try next?

[tofts]

Fuel pressure too high? should be 2.5 bar.

[TV8]

Have you reset the ECu? Also, do you have a rover gauge lead?

What about basics, like checking for a good spark? Is the air in take clear from the air filter to the AFM and not squashed?

[Plan B]

I had a very rich mixture issue/sooting plugs/lumpy tickover etc. Connected Rover Gauge which showed the throttle position to be always at 100% even at tickover. It ended up being the harness connector for the TPS having dirty contacts. Separated the connector quick squirt of contact cleaner and all problems resolved.
Your problem might be similar or different but in any case Rover Gauge should be your next option.

[Chimp871]

Plan B said:

Rover Gauge should be your next option.

+1 diagnosis first before throwing more money at it. Could be something stupidly simple like a vacuum leak or electronic gremlins. But plug in 1st and post results.

[Fenderer]

Thanks all. Seems like I need to get hold of RoverGauge.

[QBee]

You will find it advertised on PH Classifieds. £35 for the ODB to USB cable, software comes with it.

[ClassicChimaera]

Fenderer said:

Thanks all. Seems like I need to get hold of RoverGauge.

Yes Rover Gauge will be your eye into what's going on with the various functions of the Lucus CUX and can lead you to many a fault if its Ecu related. Trends will give you info on how healthy your engine is too.
From the info supplied by the Ecu you can determine the likelihood of other possible problems. It's much better than just buying stuff in the hope it will cure a problem. Lambda readings are very useful as that's the exhaust gases directly out the engine so confirms how clean the engine burns etc. I never used Rover gauge but Ecu mate became quite readable, I sort of got used to the numbers and when there was a problem these numbers were different and instantly tells you something is not working properly. Stepper motor operation is an important diagnostic check, if it's out of sync or failing you'll tell because it's normal position based on numbers your seeing will again flag up warnings to you. Stepper operation alone can be a main failing for idle/ high idle/ no idle/ rough running so being able to check and operate it manually is very useful.
RoverGauge looks user friendly and if I was still on CUX I'd defo have the lead and software.

[Fenderer]

I've got RoverGauge up and running now, but not making much sense of the results.

These are a couple of screen shots at idle. The Lambda correction seems to constantly read -100 which I'm taking to mean that the ECU is trying to lean the mixture?

I'm also getting error code (23) Low fuel pressure,

Any ideas what I try next to cure the over fuelling?

[Steve_D]

What was the long term lambda showing?

Steve

[Fenderer]

I just found a split in the connection for the vacuum advance, could this cause the overfuel?

Long term Lambda shows -100 for both of them.

Edited by Fenderer on Monday 17th April 17:10

[Steve_D]

Have you used an infra red heat gun on the exhaust manifolds to see if all ports are running at about the same temperature. This will indicate if you have a misfire on each bank.

Steve