General Hi all, new 1.4ie owner w/rough running issue :)

[fourteenhundred]

First off let me say hi, looks a great forum & hopefully I may be able to contribute as well as find help here.

OK my new baby is a '95 M-plate 1.4ie s, which I paid £200 for the pleasure of owning just a coupla days back from a salvage yard since it seems some little scrote or scrotes tried (unsuccessfully! hahaha) to steal her. They got as far as bending the passenger front door & breaking the steering lock (resulting for some reason in the horn buttons shorting when the wheel is turned, but thats another story for another day)

Anyway the car is really rather nice, well cared for & low (77,000) mileage so I'm happy
The only problem right now is one of rough tickover & hesitation on blipping the throttle, also she's rather down on power & has a nasty flat spot if you floor it (which you currently have to to accelerate in line with the rest of the traffic). This occurs hot or cold, although the first maybe 20 seconds after a cold start the idle is not bad...

Firstly I thought this was due to the air filter being AWOL but I've remedied that (and with EFI believe really it should correct for that anyway) and still she splutters hesitates and ticks over badly. I've got my suspicions on the CTS & lambda sensor at the moment but if anyone knows anything else that could cause these symptoms I'd appreciate a little guidance. Also if you could supply values to test the CTS and lambda that would be brilliant (looked at CTS warm yesterday and iirc it was reading 318k and rising as it cooled, but without values to work from that means nothing except it works to a certain degree)

Many thanks for any help, Dan.

 

[varesecrazy]

First off let me say hi, looks a great forum & hopefully I may be able to contribute as well as find help here.

Also if you could supply values to test the CTS and lambda that would be brilliant (looked at CTS warm yesterday and iirc it was reading 318k and rising as it cooled, but without values to work from that means nothing except it works to a certain degree)

Many thanks for any help, Dan.

Hi ,
I liked the Tipo's had a few,
Diesels though apart from an early carbed 1.4,
too heavy for a 1.4 so don't expect performance.. or fuel economy as you REALLY have to work the 1.4. and it's gear down for nippy ' ish acceleration.

I've got the Lindsay Porter Manual so let me know what you want me to look -up ,
Charlie

 

[fourteenhundred]

Hi & thanks for the reply, yeah I'm not expecting her to set the world on fire (and being my stand-in while I fund a new turbo, afm & injectors for the supra, I could be over sensitive to the sluggishness due to coming down from 350+ bhp), but there is a definite fault either way (another 1.4 singlepoint car I looked at in the yard was a citroen ZX and that revved much more willingly, ran cleanly with no flatspot, in fact the only reason I avoided that was it was a tatty old hound and the head gasket looked to be on the way out)!

Anyway, I strongly suspect the lambda sensor to be switching slowly since if you hold the revs steady you can hear the engine note rise and fall in about 5second cycles (digital multimeter showed heater to be working fine & sensor output varying between 0.3 and 0.8v although with the digital meter's refresh rate it was hard to ascertain the actual speed of voltage flux)

If the manual quotes test values in k/ohms for the TPS, intake air temp sensor, coolant temp sensor, lambda sensor (believe 0.2-09v 1-2sec is spec for that?), crank sensor, injector etc that would be brilliant.

So far I've not had time to check out much apart from the lambda values but the air temp read 2.69k before starting the engine earlier (ambient @ about 17c)...

Thanks again for the reply.

P.S. fixed the horn fault, the moulded in ring in which which the steering lock engages (or rather, used to engage!) was fractured and the loose fragment was shorting the slip ring to the column... (on a side note, I pulled the battery for half an hour before removing the wheel due to the airbag only to find it's inertia, not electronically, activated & thus explains one worry I had of no airbag light!)

 

[bluejohn125]

It may well be worth getting the ECU diagnosed to point at any faults, and maybe a compression test? There will be a few sensors here and there (temp, crank position, etc) that could play up with age, also the idle control valve can give issues with hunting up and down etc. They are fairly simple reliable cars and though not powerful or revvy they pull very well. With that age things can deteriorate, breather pipes can block and of course an old cat could fail or collapse. All things to check, as well as the cambelt.

 

[fourteenhundred]

Thanks but all basics been checked, the up/down fluctuation is lambda based (held off idle with screwdriver between plastic throttle quadrant & it's stop, plus the idle stepper motor is steady at tickover). Compressions all within 3psi IIRC (!) and breathers + airbox to throttle body seal all good. I had thought maybe the cat has failed but the whole exhaust system is nearly new... though if the lambda is u/s i supose it could have melted the cat in short order...

In fact the more i think about it the more I want to pull the exhaust, since it spits no water out the tailpipe that I've noticed...

 

[fourteenhundred]

Update-: Pulled the exhaust last night & although the cat is in good shape, the silencer baffles appear to have crumbled and collapsed partially blocking the exhaust. Great thinks I, and quickly knocks up a straight thru pipe from cat back to see what I expected to be an improvement...

only to find the damn thing's worse than ever now, the flat spot part way up the rev range has turned into a drop-onto-2-cylinders part way up the rev range & she feels to be running lean as hell, coughing and spluttering unless you feather the throttle and short shift (guess about 2500rpm, in the process of adapting a vitara rev counter to work with wasted spark type coil pack)

So unless there's an ECU issue (hope not) my only guess without having sensor values to test is that the cam timing may after all be off by a tooth or two, since thats about the only thing left the electronics couldn't correct for... Must check that again, though it seemed fine.

How does that sound to anyone, plausible? anybody able to supply sensor test values please to rule out any electronic gremlins? Oh, and just out of interest is this an "interference" engine i.e. could pistons & valves meet if the timing went that far?

Cheers, Dan...

(I'm seriously considering finding another daily driver now & turning this into a bit of a ratty type sleeper, reckon on banded steels, rolled arches, dropped on it's belly/extra f & r camber & less castor, with something approaching a 20v turbo depending what comes available) :devil: would still be nice to bury the 1.4ie issues first though if only to satisfy my love of a challenge (read-: complete and utter insanity)

 

[fourteenhundred]

Then again, from what I've just been reading about mono-jetronic, it's heavily dependent on the lambda sensor for correct functioning due to having no AFM or MAP sensor, which takes me back to where I originally started... the slow switching lambda...

Gentlemen, I believe we have a solution (well, I'm going to clean the other major factor in monojet running, the tracks on the TPS, before spending out, just in case)

Thanks for the suggestions anyway, will still double-double check the cam timing too.

 

[MarkThompson4]

Hey everyone needing some opinions on a problem with my 1.2 stilo, ladt week the engine light came on and it felt very underpowered like its on some limp home mode or sometthing, i checked the spart plugs and i noticed the plug on the far drivers side had oil on top and on ht connection (old black oil - changed oil 2 months ago), the exhaust is clean so i dont suspect any head gasket issues though my exhaust sounds like a steam train! My engine light flashes which ive been told means a misfire?? My engine shakes on the mounts like nobodys business i think one day the engine will just drop down clean away! I will try changing all 4 plugs/ ht leads though the oil in one plugs makes me think its only that one plug thats faulty but i may as well do them all. If this doesnt help ill report back because ill be at a dead end by then

 

[MarkThompson4]

Ok ive had a look and found that the drivers side coil is faulty, swapped it with one of the other coils and the other one worked so that eliminated the ht lead, though there was no sign of a spark from the plug when I swapped the coils, So I disconnected the relative injector wiring plug and there was no difference. I know I need to change the spark plugs and the coil but what I need to ask is this - has the ecu cut power to the injector it picked the misfire up from? Maybe when i change the plug and coil it will work again, but does the ecu do this sort of thing? And if so, will it be a garage job to reset it or will it do this itself? Thanks in advance for your input when i recieve it lol

 

[fourteenhundred]

on a bravo i looked at with a failed coil pack the ECU had indeed cut fuel to the affected cylinder (to save the cat from melting). after changing the pack it had to be reset by a mates fcr before running on that cylinder again