Hi all,
My car is a Seicento 1.1 2003 modal. I had problems with the fuel injection, so I took the car to a auto electrician and he recommend a conversion from fuel injection to carburettor, so I did that, I also had to change the fuel pump, the pressure was too high, all this happened 3 years ago. I had no problems till last week. I was in Cape Town for 7 months, and the person that was looking after it, started it once a week, he didn't ride with it. When I started the car when I get back, the engine misfire heavy...so I bought new spark plugs and new leads, I spray all the contact plugs with electrical cleaner, I sprayed carburettor cleaner in the carb, still misfire. I took out the leads one by one, my friend "swing" the engine, there is a spark from the coils to earth. Please I need help? At this stage I don't want to take it to a auto electrician, it is only a small fault, I think. There was nothing wrong when I left 7 months ago. The car wan't locked in a garage, it was parked under a shed.
Regards
Johan

Wait until its dark then try running the engine. Look for random sparks where they shouldn't be.

D

Why on earth would they suggest changing it to a carb from injection? The mind boggles!

I know! Thats crazy fitting a carb. Maybe they wanted some more regular business!

Are we sure it wasn't just a replacement throttle body fitted???

One of the Coil packs could be faulty?

pretty hard to guess the actual full setup of this... What ignition does it use? Does it still has twin coil packs or converted to distributor when converted to carb?

Gotta admit i find it hard to believe anyone would change to carb, seems utter sillyness but there oyu go, its done now.

Kammie said:

Hi all,
My car is a Seicento 1.1 2003 modal. I had problems with the fuel injection, so I took the car to a auto electrician and he recommend a conversion from fuel injection to carburettor, so I did that, I also had to change the fuel pump, the pressure was too high, all this happened 3 years ago. I had no problems till last week. I was in Cape Town for 7 months, and the person that was looking after it, started it once a week, he didn't ride with it. When I started the car when I get back, the engine misfire heavy...so I bought new spark plugs and new leads, I spray all the contact plugs with electrical cleaner, I sprayed carburettor cleaner in the carb, still misfire. I took out the leads one by one, my friend "swing" the engine, there is a spark from the coils to earth. Please I need help? At this stage I don't want to take it to a auto electrician, it is only a small fault, I think. There was nothing wrong when I left 7 months ago. The car wan't locked in a garage, it was parked under a shed.


Regards
Johan

Click to expand...

Drain the fuel tank and put fresh fuel in. then give it a good run.


Robert G8RPI.

Eklipze3k said:

Why on earth would they suggest changing it to a carb from injection? The mind boggles!

Click to expand...

You have to consider the context and country the car is in.
I'm guessing here, but it was probably single point throttle body injection A.K.A electronic carburettor. If it had an electronic fault with limited diagnostics available and expensive hard to get parts, changing to carburettor may make sense. It was probably a bolt-on job, maybe not even needing an intake manifold change. If the garage had a crashed car with the carb version of the same engine to hand it's a bit of a no brainer. No emissions test to worry about either.
You have to go to Africa to see the sort of things they do.


Robert G8RPI.

Post number 1 says MPI

:yeahthat: to convert that we are talking everything on the inlet side - possibly even full head swap. I get that in a crunch moment and you had all the bits and you needed to make it work then its perfectly doable but i still question the sense of it. From email received from OP the car still runs the stock ignition system so all the stuff to run injection must still be there just without any injectors hooked up. So as to what actually happened initially its hard to say but can only be one of a few sensors or some dodgy injectors or something.. Highly unlikely to be anything to do with the ecu itself if it still runs now how its setup.

Anyway, its kinda irrelevant now. As its running the stock ignition its could be the crank sensor, could be a coil pack, could be a bad earth, could somehow be related to how the injection was removed and the ecu throwing a wobbly. Hard to say from the limited info provided but would be looking at the crank sensor, coil packs and earths first. And would seriously consider trying to accumulate the necessary parts to return it to injection.

Eklipze3k said:

Post number 1 says MPI

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Where?
You are making assumptions. I don't know the model/year/engine combinations even for the UK, so I may be wrong, but just because it has the same model name does not mean it has the same engine. The OP is South Africa, you cannot assume models are the same. Fuels may be different (lower octane) as are emissions and support. Even then the car may have been a used import from another country.

Robert G8RPI.

2003 seicento, no matter what spec came with a 1108 mpi engine the world over, no assumptions made thats all fiat made at that time no matter where you are from, only other option is the electric one and that it clearly isn't (plus that wasnt until 2005)

Eklipze3k said:

Why on earth would they suggest changing it to a carb from injection? The mind boggles!

Click to expand...

Don't under-estimate the stupidity of man..

I did have a fella in Jo'Burg try to lever out the fuel filler restrictor on my hire car one time, because it was sleeved down to only accept an unleaded fuel pump and they didn't have any unleaded. Okay.. it was only a Toyota.. but I took it elsewhere...

Ralf S.

You don't mention that you get an overpowering petrol smell... so my money is on a blocked carburetor jet or float.

If the beast was parked up for months, the fuel would have evaporated and either jammed the float closed or blocked one of the jets with gunge.

Take the float bowl off and see whether the floats move up and down freely. They should look like a pair of dog's testicles.. so cup them in your hand and lift them up and down. Ask the car to cough while you do so..

If they floats are good, hold them in a lower position (they should be anyway, if you removed the float bowl) and crank the engine. See if fuel flows out (of the bottom of the carb, now that you have the bowl off).

Refit the carb but not the airbox.. and peep inside it with a torch (not a match). Crank the engine again and get someone to prod the throttle pedal. You should see a spray of fuel into the inlet tract. If you can't see any fuel but you are getting fuel to the carb (previous test) then the jets are blocked (will need removal and ideally ultrasonic cleaning.. although putting them in neat petrol/carb cleaner and agitating them might clear them).

It's going to be carburetor more than ignition. Ignition sounds like it's working.


Ralf S.