Ok been having bit of trouble with the car as of late. The car for those not in the know is a 1242cc spi low booster turbo.

Last week on a trip home the car lost power. Had my foot on the throttle, had revs and turbo was wooshing but no boost or power. AA truck got me home and I noticed a sooty exhaust tip. Took out plugs and also noted that they have blackened ends.

This suggests the engine is running too rich and maybe it’s getting so much fuel it's causing the misfire/flooding the engine? It has a lumpy idle and jerky power delivery before boost but seems ok after.

When home I have it a service, reduced fuel pressure by one turn on standard injector, new oil and fuel filter and reset the ECU (I did try and turn down the fuel pressure by 2 turns but that’s caused the car to die near on immediately on starting – not sure how sensitive it is). A 30 mile test drive seemed to have the car running back to normal. The trip back from surrey to Worcester had me at a speed to keep it on boost back home so used just over half a tank doing 120 miles :x .

However once I got off motorway the car was back to spluttering with a very low idle and low power deliver/no boost. The AA man reckoned it might be the CAT is blocked, a possible cause? Am going to get it removed so cross fingers that will free up its breathing up but there's still the running rich issue.

Any other possible causes?

Bad luck mate

Presume the Turbo fueling is by MF2 is that working? is the map sensor OK if you have a fcd is it putting out the right voltage? air filter flowing free? post turbo fuel hoses in tact?

Do you have a 3 bar FRP? is it getting proper vac?

just for a start

Fuel pump is standard as its low boost. there's never been any know problems. Vac line to standard MAP is clear. Hoses are all airtight. Turbos good, FCD is good as far as i can tell as the car injector light doesn't come on which it did before in the testing stages when fitting the turbo kit.

Was RR'd without any problems a month ago. However was on the way home with Aaron and a pipe to the Van Aaken MF2 MAP blew off. The MF2 I have is Van Aaken with a built in Map sensor. We adjusted the standard fuel pressure to compensate as we didn't spot this at first.

I then refitted the pipe but didn't turn down the pressure on the standard injector. Have now tried to turn it back down but any lower and the car cuts out, much higher doesn't really change things, still stinks of fuel.

the manifold vac line also feeds the MF2 as well as the Map sensor, also the dump valve if you have one so check carefully

if it is massivly overfueling check the lights in the MF2 to ensure it is not seeing boost when it isn't there.

Stock FPR's are quite reliable so i'd say that is the last place to look. also check that the fuel return is returning

Ok i've done a compression test and it reads 14 bar across all cylinders so that seems good. The spark plugs are not fouled with soot like they were but still got idling problems. I've disconnected the 2nd injector just to reestablish stock running for now.

Ok, so I disconnected the old lambda thinking it was that and ran the car but the car still struggled a couple of seconds after start-up and finally cut out as usual. I then took off the old lambda completely. Here's what it looks like:



I've got no idea what it's meant to look like, any thoughts? With the lambda out thought I’d tried to see if the car would run without the lambda. This is the video showing the run.



My hand is covering the open ended pipe on the throttle body that the MF2 map line used. You can see the blue MF2 map hose flapping bout near my wrist. The car is still rough and borderline cutting out and stinks a bit of fuel when low speed but it did run.

This might suggest further that it might be a blocked cat and the open lambda holes letting the engine breather a tiny bit better? Either that or might have to try new coils and map sensor if fitting this new lambda doesn't work out :-(.

does it run OK without the bob in place? it sounds as though it's starved of Air or maybe fuel?

Have you got fuel comming through OK (ie fuel filter not blocked)

if it was a blocked cat you would normally expect a gradual deteriation on power rather than a sudden failure if the cat has collapsed you can usualy hear it if you give the cat can a bash with your hand

I've got a spare std cinq cat in the garage if your stuck for one your welcome to try it

Testing senders by replacement only makes sense if you've a supply of known good ones: almost all the nominal values are over there on ClubCento, posted by rallycinq.

For the CAT, IIRC, Emma's car suffered something like a 10% or more power loss when the CAT collapsed, but I don't think there were any other symptoms (check with Aaron and Emma).

has it sounded at all like a bolts being thrown around near the exhaust section? check your earths mate aswell can make it seem like ur cats blocked.

undo the exhaust rear the cat u only need some 13mm spanners and then try, but sounds to me like the timin has jumpd a tooth na only jokin lol

check your FCD sounds like its puttin it in limp home mode

I fitted the new lambda probe and it still conks out . The car had a new fuel filter fitted recently just in case it was that but no. I cannot inspect the CAT as the down pipe is custom and is welded up against but I will give it a bash to listen for loose material. It's all one piece from the down pipe back to the back box.

There is a 2nd lambda point I used for the rolling road tuning that I can remove to see if the engine breaths easier but from the video the car did just about run with the lambda removed so it might be the exhaust and the cars trying to expel gas out the lambda hole.

I will try sucking on the map hose and removing the bob but it seems that’s clutching at straws somewhat. Hmm might be an earth and maybe dodgy coils but have nearly lost patience with this car. It's not exactly the most complicated car in the world dammit!

Fcd

My guess will be a faulty MAP-sensor running the SPi unit.
Either the vaccumhose is blocked/cracked or the sensor is broken from running boost.
A MAP-sensor is a ceramicplate and this will be damaged if filled with fuel or soot.

Sorry, thread hijack!

Hey, tricker, can you enlarge my 16v 1242 TB? You've not replied to my email!

Hmm interesting, I took the map hose off the inlet manifold and the car engine came up to a high idle.

However, after, after a few seconds the car started to run rich as I could see smoke coming from around the exhaust and smelt fuel (probably hairline between turbo and exhaust manifold) but kept it's high idle.

I could feel a jet of air coming from the inlet manifold map connector point, I thought it was meant to be sucking air in not out hense the need for a vacuum?

Sucked on the map sensor line which tasted of fuel but was dry and the engine revs dropped slightly from the high revs.

As soon as i placed the pipe back onto the inlet manifold the engine reves dropped back down to a crawl like in the video and kept running [just].

Gave it a blip of the throttle and and response seemed ok but the revs then came down and it died. So a duff map sensor then?

Could be. Put a test meter on it (use rallycinq's nominals) before buying a new one (unless there's one you can rob).

if you think the sensor is duff, pm me your address and i'll post you one of the spares i've got kicking about. they're no use to me anymore!

Whoops my bad, me and my rushed testing doh!. The map point IS sucking air in as it should. I start the engine and it idles at high rpm and is almost normal apart from the whiff of fuel. The second I put the map hose back onto the inlet manifold it slows to a crawl and dies so yeah I guess either a duff map sensor or an air leak perhaps? Ohh might take up that offer Arc cheers matey .