Yet another rv8 rich idle headache..

Yet another rv8 rich idle headache..

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Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Tuesday 2nd February 2021
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Just a quick update-
I didn’t get as much done on the car as I’d hoped as the weather was horrible and the car continued to fall apart around me..
Lifting the boot carpet to attack the fuel pump I noticed a rust scab on the inner wing thatnid replaced 12 years ago, poking it with a finger produced a two inch hole in the panel! Looks like water has been hiding under the underlay and got to work on the old girl yet again! I completely rebuilt the body 12 years ago but it seems the paint and steel used in some areas wasn’t as good as I’d hoped.
Anyhow. Attempted to swap fuel pump, my spare had an incorrect wiring plug and when I tried to pull off the bottom cover to check its internals that also fell apart.
I swapped the fuel rail in the hopes of the regulator being good on that rail and checked pressure. I still only have 26 psi while priming and if I clamp the return hose the guage only flickers up by 1psi or so and nowhere near the 35psi it should have. I Assume the pump is poorly. Tried to run car and it was worse and displayed typical faulty isv symptoms with wildly fluctuating idle/ stalling.
I checked the current LT wiring and it passes checks but as it’s the remote amp kit I may just out of interest swap it all back to dizzy mounted for testing purposes.
No further forward with finding a cause of the misfire problem as yet..

Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Tuesday 9th February 2021
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Just a minor update as there’s still no good news yet..
I decided the fuel pump was iffy so fitted a new Bearmach one. That has improved things as with the fuel line clamped shut the new pump seems able to supply 41psi to the rail but I still only had 26psi at any other time either pump priming and idling with vac pipe connected or pulled off. At this point it was with a spare fuel rail and injector set from the spares box.
To add to the hassle the fuel system that had been holding pressure perfectly without any drop for 24hours decided to dump all its pressure overnight. I but the bullet and bought a new genuine pressure regulator and while fitting it tonight also noticed that two of the injectors were wet on their tips, my fault for taking out the injectors I had tested last week!.
I swapped in the injectors I know don’t leak and I still only have 26psi in the fuel line.
It was dark by then so I didn’t have time to take the rail back out and re do the fuel delivery and injector dribble tests.
I’ve also stripped, checked and fitted a spare dissy that I know worked faultlessly in its previous engine albeit from a 3.9 but I haven’t got near trying to run the car again yet until I figure out the fuel pressure problem.

blitzracing

6,387 posts

220 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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Just clamp off the fuel return line from the regulator and check the fuel pressure will rise further. sounds odd you have replaced all the parts to do with fuel pressure and its still low. Suspect gauge? A weeping injector wont cause this fault as the fuel pump has to be man enough to supply the engine running with all the injectors opening.

Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Wednesday 10th February 2021
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With the fuel return pipe clamped off as it exits the regulator the guage shows 41psi when I turn the key and prime the pump but with clamp removed and pump priming I only have 26 psi when it should be 35ish?

I’m going to check if the fuel pressure has dropped overnight and treble check the fuel lines for leaks although im sure they are all good but other than that it can only be either a duff new regulator or a leak on the delivery side?
Any idea what kind of psi a new fuel pump should be able to provide? There’s no testing data I can find other than the 35psi primed or running with vac removed and 26psi at idle.

Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Saturday 13th February 2021
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Further minor update with no fixed it news as yet.
I decided my year old fuel pressure tester might be giving erroneous readings so ordered another. Seems to have been a good call. Having left the old guage attached for a few weeks while doing these tests it seems to have killed it so a word of warning to take heed of instructions on fuel gauges that say not for permanent fitting..

The new tester shows 60psi with fuel pump priming with fuel return hose clamped off (good head of pressure?)
36psi with clamp removed and pump priming (also good)
I couldn’t try it engine running with or without vac pipe removed properly as the fuel rail is not yet back in but I did replicate a 14hg vacuum onto the vac pipe/ regulator and pressure drops to 26 psi with vacuum applied.
So in general the fuel pressures now seem pretty good. The only error in the tests is that it’s not holding full pressure from either end when the pump stops priming. From the regulator end it very slowly loses a psi or two over ten mins but there’s is not a single drop from injectors so it must be the regulator letting a very small amount past.
From the feed end when the pump stops running the pressure immediately drops from 36 to 30 then slowly drops to 20 psi where it holds so I can only assume the one way valve in the new pump isn’t great, I’ll take a decision on whether to get it replaced once I’ve double checked the pressures with the engine running soon.

Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Monday 19th April 2021
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Long time, no update and still no good news on my cars issues.
I spoke to the local engineer who did the heads for me who said the 14cux is junk and I should megasquirt it.
I spoke to real steel who said it might be lifter preload/ valves not closing fully. (Now has adjustable pushrods with preload set at 1mm)
And I spoke to Rob at V8developments who had no part in the engine build but offered some advice nonetheless. He said (as did the engineer) that it sounds like it’s over fuelling but the local rolling road he suggested to check out the fuelling wasn’t interested.

So..
I drained the fuel saturated running in oil out (been in 300 miles) it was perfectly clean with no bits or worrying particles/ metal but it smelt like unloved oil from a high miler..
I have yet again gone through all the basic ecu checks with a dvm, all fine except the cts under reads by a few degrees, swapped for good spare.
Been through the lucas ignition checklist, all fine except I have 12v between coil -ve and battery + with key off but it’s been like that for the last 12 years I’ve owned it.
Plugged in roverguage, all seems ok to my untrained eye.
To do some basic analysis I put the car on the no cat tune to keep things simple and the symptoms are still the same. Noticeable misfire for up to 1 minute then settles to a less noticeable but still there miss even once hot and stinky high hc fumes with whisps of black carbon smoke out the tailpipe.
Thinking if it’s overfuelling I tried unplugging the cts so that it thinks the coolant is 30 degrees from cold start, made zero difference to misfire. Also tried allowing an increasing small amount of additional air in via the vac port to see if that leaned it out but it ran worse.

So. With nothing left to test/ rectify I’m stumped..
Either I’ve missed something, both ecus are junk or there’s a problem with cam or valves?.
I’ve asked around but can’t find anyone local who knows the old rv8 or is happy to stick it on a gas anylizer and see if they can help pinpoint the issue.

I’ve never been beaten by a machine before but I’m now out of ideas and patience so any takers for seeing if they can help me beat this problem?
Recommendations/ proposals gladly accepted!

I’m likely to pull it all apart and change the cam/ heads in the blind hope it solves it as there seems no fault elsewhere and I’m fed up with the car sat on my drive with terrible emissions/ no mot.

davep

1,143 posts

284 months

Monday 19th April 2021
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It's just an observation, and may or may not be the cause for overfuelling, but after checking the code listings for all fuel maps in R3116 LR (Limp Home, 2, 3, 4 and 5) they are all the same! Which means all fuelling in R3116 LR is based on Limp Home values.

Your RoverGauge screen shots for the various maps (3.9 Map 2, 4.2 Map 4 ?) seem to confirm this.

Also the max rev limit for Map 2 in R3116 LR should be 8561 RPM.

I think you should try a different EPROM in your ECU, try one of SteveSprints Land Rover OEM Bins, see here http://www.remap-14cux.uk/bins/

.

Edited by davep on Monday 19th April 09:41

Penelope Stopit

11,209 posts

109 months

Monday 19th April 2021
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Unlucky48 said:
Been through the lucas ignition checklist, all fine except I have 12v between coil -ve and battery + with key off but it’s been like that for the last 12 years I’ve owned it
This is more often than not the case, no matter what the vehicle is

The above shouldn't be listed as part of any test

The meter is reading a voltage between battery positve, through the ignition coil, onwards through all ignition controlled circuits to negative

It's like that, it's just the way it is

Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Monday 19th April 2021
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Thank you guys!
Penelope- phew! It’s bugged me for years and I’m glad you’ve put my mind at rest.


Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Monday 19th April 2021
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Thank you Dave
The map data side of things I don’t have a clue about..
very interesting if you are correct as I’ll jever get it to run right if it’s in limp!.
The EPROMs are soldered I’m on my Land Rover ecus. I do have another spare 4.2 one which I tried some time ago to no avail and a 1992 3.9 one I can try. I’ll swap them both in tonight and see what numbers come up.

Penelope Stopit

11,209 posts

109 months

Monday 19th April 2021
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Unlucky48 said:
Thank you guys!
Penelope- phew! It’s bugged me for years and I’m glad you’ve put my mind at rest.
Damn

You should have asked me about it years agosmile

davep

1,143 posts

284 months

Monday 19th April 2021
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Just to confirm, it appears if you run an ECU which has the R3116 LR tune the management system will run with the Limp Home fuel map and main fuel scaler irrespective of the tune resistor value (all five maps are the same), so changing tune resistors will have no effect on basic fuelling:



Why Land Rover did this, who knows?

Compare the above with Map 0 (Limp Home) and the differences in Map 2 (non-cat) both for the latter R3383 tune (3.9 1994 Range Rover Classic):





You can also see that the Main Scaler for R3116 (fm0 factor) is a much higher value than R3383 (26,000 rather than 21,725). therefore probably more fuel, or as Joolz puts it "more microseconds of fuel squirted per bit".

As I said before all this is just an observation.

Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Monday 19th April 2021
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I wish I had penolope! Ha

I can’t pretend to really understand the fuelling scale stuff, I’m just a simple carpenter and any form of tech makes my eyes glaze over but I did look at the little boxes on roverguage while it’s connected to the car and I noticed that all the numbers seem to be the same?.

The car previously ran spot on with this ecu and that was with an incorrect 3.9 engine in it, confused.

I have another identical 4.2 ecu which will no doubt have the same number tune and an older 3.9 one which might hopefully have different maps but I’m not sure what tune resistor that ecu will need as I believe it’s different between 3.9/ 4.2 i used it once when I got the car stuck in a four foot deep river, luckily I had the spare ecu in a bag in the boot and it got me home just fine..

davep

1,143 posts

284 months

Tuesday 20th April 2021
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Unlucky48 said:
..... what tune resistor that ecu will need as I believe it’s different between 3.9/ 4.2
The tune resistor map selection convention is the same for all 14CUX ECUs, as follows:

Resistance Colour Catalyzer Map Map Number Market and Engine Variant
<180 Ohms Error Yes Map 0 Limp Home Map
180 Ohms Red No Map 1 Australia and "the rest of the world."
470 Ohms Green No Map 2 UK and European vehicles without catalytic converters, 3.9 or 3.5 Discovery, pre-cat TVRs
910 Ohms Yellow No Map 3 Saudi 3.9 vehicles (without catalytic converters), or UK and Europe 4.2
1800 Ohms Blue Yes Map 4 Saudi 3.9 vehicles (with catalytic converters), or UK and Europe 4.2
3900 Ohms White Yes Map 5 USA, UK and European 3.9, or 3.5 Discovery vehicles, TVRs with catalytic converters
> 3900 Ohms Error Yes Map 0 Limp Home Map


Assuming your car and engine is UK sourced you would expect to use a Green resistor to select Map 2, or a White resistor to select Map 5. But R3116 appears to buck this convention, where any resistance value will select the Limp Home Map, which is a catalyzer map, strange!


Edited by davep on Wednesday 21st April 13:13

Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Wednesday 21st April 2021
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Thanks again Dave,
I’m all ears to other people’s knowledge on this.
I went back through my notes and the 3.9 ecu I have has R2666 in it and when I tried it briefly with a green cat tune resistor previously the roverguage screen looked reasonable, short term trims at -14% & -20% but as with everything I’ve tried once fully hot the idle valve shows as only open by a few percent like 1-10% and the misfire/ emissions remained.
I don’t know why but my land rover parts manual quotes different colours for the 4.2 ecu than most people say is correct as it states a blue resistor as U.K. cat for the 4.2 and that’s what was in my car when I bought it donkeys years ago.
I’ve owned and driven this car for so many years that I can usually tell what’s up with the old girl just by ear and feel and I’m just not sure it’s a control system fault unless it’s some weird loom fault that passes all inspection. I have had to repair/ replace idle valve and bits over the years but it’s always been a pretty straightforward diagnosis. I don’t want to pull the motor apart again unnecessarily but for something to fool closed loop control with a new fuel system and bang on ignition it just keeps whispering to me to pull the heads off, see what’s happening inside and change the cam to something trusted (although I don’t know what as choice is rather limited..)

davep

1,143 posts

284 months

Wednesday 21st April 2021
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Unlucky48 said:
Thanks again Dave,
I’m all ears to other people’s knowledge on this.
I went back through my notes and the 3.9 ecu I have has R2666 in it and when I tried it briefly with a green cat tune resistor previously the roverguage screen looked reasonable, short term trims at -14% & -20% but as with everything I’ve tried once fully hot the idle valve shows as only open by a few percent like 1-10% and the misfire/ emissions remained.
I don’t know why but my land rover parts manual quotes different colours for the 4.2 ecu than most people say is correct as it states a blue resistor as U.K. cat for the 4.2 and that’s what was in my car when I bought it donkeys years ago.
I’ve owned and driven this car for so many years that I can usually tell what’s up with the old girl just by ear and feel and I’m just not sure it’s a control system fault unless it’s some weird loom fault that passes all inspection. I have had to repair/ replace idle valve and bits over the years but it’s always been a pretty straightforward diagnosis. I don’t want to pull the motor apart again unnecessarily but for something to fool closed loop control with a new fuel system and bang on ignition it just keeps whispering to me to pull the heads off, see what’s happening inside and change the cam to something trusted (although I don’t know what as choice is rather limited..)
Unlucky48, my apologies, you are correct on the different tune resistors for 3.9 and 4.2 Range Rover engine variants, you live and learn. I've amended the table above.

Never seen a R2666 tune listing, but Green tune resistors do seem to indicate the ECU is intended for non-cat engines, therefore Open Loop fuel management and no short term trimming, etc. So either RoverGauge is wrong or the R2666 has a cat map at position Map 2. confused

Good luck with finding the cause of your engine running rich issue. Incidently LR and RR owners do post on this thread https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&... which might be worth a read.

Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Wednesday 21st April 2021
quotequote all
Thanks again, I really do appreciate anyone taking the time to offer advise with this. I’ve just kind of hit a wall with it and can’t gigure it out but I live in hope of reporting good news at some point..
I’ve dug out an r2666 shot for you to see. Like I said, trims showed taking fuel out which the other tune didn’t but it still made no difference to the problem.
I still feel that although all plugs are too rich the fact that there’s one cylinder in each bank, coincidentally next to each other in firing order that it’s got to be a mechanical issue. My limited mechanical mind says if it was rich misfire it should affect all cyls fairly equally?.

Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Wednesday 21st April 2021
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davep

1,143 posts

284 months

Wednesday 21st April 2021
quotequote all
Unlucky48 said:
Your screen shot shows Map 4 selected (your Blue tune resistor installed) and therefore the ECU running a Cat map (closed loop).

At least the fuel map is something other than the R3116 Limp Home map.

BTW at those engine temperature and idle RPM levels I would expect to see the active fuel cell in the load row above where it is showing now.

Having 'upgraded' the engine to the extent you have I would seriously think about getting the car on the rollers with an ECU running a R3384 or R3652 Operation Pride tune and get it mapped by someone with experience of 14CUX.

Unlucky48

Original Poster:

71 posts

51 months

Thursday 22nd April 2021
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Thanks again Dave,
Do you mean you’d expect the ecu to be adding less fuel in the r/guage screenshot? I’d love to have the time to get my head around the fuelling stuff!

I did contact a local rolling road who were recommended by rob at v8d but they weren’t interested. They said contact mr Adams.
I don’t know any rv8 specialists as i’ve never needed help with it before and running like it is I don’t want to be driving it too far especially as the mot is now out.
I could possibly borrow a mates trailer in order to get it to someone who knows what the are doing but I don’t know who to ask..
I know it’s all conjecture but I’d have expected if anything that the engine would run leaner than stock with the mods I’ve done and a standard fuel map not richer.