Sooty plugs

[drew.h]

My Chimaera had been running well until Monday, when it started running rough and almost stalling. On Monday morning I had to fight the car all the way to work and back, checked it in the evening but it idled fine, thought it could have been damp, so left the WD40 in the car for morning.

Tuesday was worse than Monday, WD40 didn't help, so I took the plugs out and cleaned them. They where black apart from the tips of the electrodes which where shiny, so I know I'm getting a strong spark.

Chimera ran fine after, but today I checked the plugs and they are starting to soot up again.

Another symptom is as soon as I touch the throttle the engine dies, ready for stalling, but add a little more throttle and its fine. Idling is smooth, but a little faster than usual. Not sure if it is relevant, but I was stuck in a lot of traffic in Carnforth and Morecambe on Sunday(every one else had the same idea).

[Boosted LS1]

I'd check connections to the MAF and other sensors on the engine. Also check the fuel pressure regulator pipe is connected. It must be something simple

[blitzracing]

Id borrow a fault code reader to start with. The ECU can overfuel with a wrong sensor input, but this should bring up a fault code, as the lambda probes will be showing a rich mixture when they should not be. Excessively high fuel pressure (like 10 + psi too high) can foul the plugs, but the ECU will try its best to correct it and the car becomes a pig to drive with all the mixture correction. If it goes too far out, it will throw up a fault code saying the lambdas are faulty, but this is because they are out of range and stop switching. The ECU will also overfuel if the engine is mis firing, because the lambda probes see unburnt mixture as a lean mixture due to the oxygen content, so the ECU richens the mixture for the wrong reason. Each bank is fuelled independently, so if both banks are sooty, it rules out individual plug leads, and plug caps.

[Boosted LS1]

Halfords sell code readers for about £20 a guy on the 'S' forums bought one for his v6 and it sorted his problems in seconds. Need somewhere to plug it in though, I've never used one? Not all harnesses have a diagnostics socket.

[blitzracing]

You need the correct one for the RV8 ecu, as its to old for the modern dianostic readers. You can get them from any Range Rover breaker in the USA as all cars had them fitted as standard, (try ebay.com) and normally go for around £30. Search for things like Range Rover OBD or PRC17EM. You can get copys in this country for around £100. They plug into a 4 pin square socket in the ECU loom in the footwell.

http://www.bespokeintelligentsystems.co.uk

Mark