Pain and frustration

[427james]

Fortunately my car has now decided to start running like a bag of nails again.

The symptoms are as follows:

Started her up on Saturday. Initially both exhausts showed white smoke. Tick over at 1100 rpm. Then the white smoke stopped, normal exhaust came from the right hand bank, not the left (nothing out of that one). Tick over rose to 1700 rpm. A little while later, both banks were producing smoke (normal colour).

When you drive it it feels OK until you get to full throttle where it develops a nasty missfire.

I have changed the lambda on the left side, HT leads, and throttle pots, all to no avail. I am beginning to despair.

Any one got any thoughts? I have a set of plugs ordered, but the old plugs only have 2000 miles on them!

Any help gratefully appreciated. I am reaching the "sod it and sell" point of view with it now, having spent £6k in 5 months of ownership and only having it run right for about 800 miles.

James.

[jensena]

Get hold of the Diagnostic software and hook it up to a laptop, that will show what is wrong.

[Steve_T]

White smoke is sometimes just condensation in the exhaust, but not always, so is it smoke or just steam? It may (hopefully) be unrelated to the mis-fire. OTOH, a friend had white smoke pouring out of his chim and it turned out to be a cracked head, so be careful. Personally, I'd get it to an expert pronto, unless you can handle this yourself, just to minimise any damage that may happen.

Steve.

[427james]

I have already hooked it up. Everything seems fine except the lambda on the left bank goes crazy when it feels like its missfiring.

Replaced lambda and HT leads to no avail. Wondered if anyone else had suffered the same torture.

James.

[Steve_T]

Perhaps a fault in the loom?

[Duke Thrust]

I had a similar problem, check for water inside the ECU connector

[mars]

Swap lambdas and cables over to eliminate anything wrong with them. If the same bank still exhibits problems, whilst the other does not, you can rule that out.

[427james]

Cheers guys. Given the terrible leak to the passenger footwell, the ECU is the next port of call.

james

[427james]

Duke, what did you do to the ECU to sort it?

[kojak]

Fortunately!!! Dont you mean Unfortunately.

[jesfirth]

have you checked the coil packs. Due to their frankly crap location deep in the vee of the engine they overheat and crack underneath causing problems. When I replaced mine I had them moved to in front of the engine to prevent future probelms and inprove airflow through the vee to the starter motor.

[marcus1970]

Mine was like this recently. Jumping/kangarooing all over the place, lack of acceleration etc. Had throttle pots adjusted to proper settings again and now runs sweet as a nut - couple of hours labour was the cost...

MB

[jbvipercerb]

Not wanting to look on the bad side but does your car use coolant water, if it does or the level's gone down alot then it could be head gasket as Steve T has said. If water is getting into the exhaust via the engine it will send the lambda readings haywire and run rough, the plug gets wet, especially when cold.
Lambda is a calculation of oxygen in the exhaust gas and where theres water theres oxygen!

[427James]

Cheers guys,

It is losing water, but I hope it isnt head gasket. I only replaced them 1500 miles ago.

[Duke Thrust]

427james said:

Duke, what did you do to the ECU to sort it?

I undid the connector and then used a hair dryer to blast out the water and dry it out. Took about 10 minutes, wish I'd done it before changing the lambda - doh!

[medieval]

James, if the head gasket has gone,particularly at this time of year when anti freeze is in the water, you will certainly smell the burnt chemicals at the exhaust end.

Good luck though

[Duke Thrust]

Any joy James?

[427James]

Sorry Duke, its a job for this weekend!

There is no mayonnaise in the oil or persistent white smoke, so I dont think its head gasket (and I only put new ones on recently).

My ECU has become un- velcroed as well and is flapping about, not helpful, so I am going to stick it back in at the weekend.

Cheers guys.