engine cutting out

[arthur dent]

i have a 95 griff that runs fine for five to ten minutes then just cuts out when idle or driving.this problem started as a very intermitent one and has got worse.the car will turn over but won't start for a few minutes then will run as if noting wrong again for another five to ten minutes then engine just cuts out again.I have changed the coil but still the same.I would be greatful for any help thanks

[Leadfoot]

Ignition amplifier?

[russ]

sounds like another bloody dirty stepper moter

[GreenV8S]

From these symptoms I think you can rule out stepper motor, fusible link and so on. It sounds as if you have total failure in eitehr the fuel or ignition system. If you're lucky, it will quickly become terminal so you can track it down and fix it. If you're unlucky it will stay intermittant in which case the only way to find out what it is will be by carefull detective work.

Planning for the worst, I suggest you need to start the detective work by finding out whether it is a fuel or ignition problem. Does the fuel pump still prime when the problem occurs?

[arthur dent]

thanks for all the quick replys. yes when the engine won't start i can still hear the fuel pump which was why i thought it was the coil.like you say it would be easier to find if it stoped working altogether. oh well looks like next weekend will be spent in the garage with alot of head scratching going on. thanks again for the help.

[HarryW]

For what its worth the L/H & R/H banks fire seperately from the ECU, however they do share a comon 0v/earth return which I think goes via one o the relays. I would have thought a dealer/garage will find this fault quickly, the difficult ones are the niggly little faults that take an age to find.

Harry

[siwes]

coil amplifier breaking down
simon

[jigs]

I think HarryW is on the right track - check that earth and relay - they're common to both banks of injectors.

[greenv8s]

I suggest the next step is to get a passive strobe inline in one of the HT leads, and see whether you're getting a spark. You can get special 'spark trace' plug caps with these built in, but I find an ordinary cheapo timing strobe light does just as well (and is easier to see from the driver's seat). Also look around for a NOID test kit. This is basically a test lamp that you put in series with the injector that tells you whether the injector is being triggered. Most good motorfactors will sell them, or there are a couple on Ebay at the mo for about £16.

Together, these tests will show which system is at fault. If the problem is easy to reproduce, it should be easy to track it down from there.

[arthur dent]

i will be unable to do anything to the car until the weekend,work commitments. but i will let you all know how things go.if i can't get it running properly this weekend i think i will get a mechanic to have a look as i am sick of my pride and joy sitting in my garage while i drive around in a rusty old metro

[arthur dent]

well i managed to get today off.just having a look aroud the car i noticed the air filter was covered in sludge where it pokes out the nose of the car. so scraped it off and went for a drive.now no stalling while driving but when idleing until engine gets hot engine revs rise to 12-13 hundred for a second then it would die.i turned the air filter around so a clean bit was at the front and now when it gets hot engine revs rise like before it struggles a bit then dies. could this be the air flow sensor? if so is there any way of testing it? by the way the car was seviced at christmas by a main dealer and only done a thousand miles since so i don't know how the filter got blocked.

[red griff 500]

It doesn't sound like an air filter problem to me. I believe that the foam bit of the filter which you can see from the front of the nose cone is supposed to be oily and sticky to prevent foreign bodied entering e.g. dust particles and the odd pheasant.

If its any consolation, I'm having very similar fun and games with Griff - I've changed the coil (it was leaking oil , so needed changing anyway), fitted a new coolant temp sensor (if this is wrong it screws up the ECU controlled mixture) and I'm now suspicious about the Ignition Amp (I started a new thread on this this morning, but no responses yet). I'm going to try to test this with the engine running using an oscillascope (I believe that a normal DVM wouldn't respond fast enough to give a sensible reading).

Hope this help with moral support if nothing else.

Steve

[wixer]

From what I've been told, the ignition amplifier tends to just pack up and doesn't generally break down over a period of time. I also believe, that should your airflow meter break down, the software within the ignition/injection system, goes into a sort of safe/get you home mode. I stand to be corrected on this one though.