Have bought 2001 Sei with mpi, 82K miles, to accompany my existing (but more ancient Sei)
-What great little cars these are!!

However my newer purchase runs on 3 at startup from cold, but only for around 10 -20 sec, then the 4th cuts in and engine runs absolutely perfectly from then on.

Have put in new ign leads, and new spark plugs, (which made slight improvement) also have swapped HT coils from my other Sei but latter made no difference..

No sign of head gasket ..ie engine oil remains pristine -(no sign of mayo), and no coolant loss.

Looking at other correspondence seems the ICU might be favourite here? It is bit difficult for me to get the car analysed, but guess I may have to...

Any suggestions appreciated..

Wont be ECU (let alone ICU ).

Try to discover which cylinder is misfiring and/or swapping round coils (which can go bad on one circuit -- yes folks, it has been proven here).

I'd not rule out HG: they can blow between 2 cylinders, completely (albeit, not for long) missing oil and water passageways. Compression test.

Many thanks your reply fingers99 --Yes I did mean ICU!!
If coils = HT coils then have substituted both with the ok ones on my other Sei with no joy.

Accept could be head gasket but have run the car quite a bit now and does not seem get any worse. When the 4th cuts back in it is like it just like someone throws a small switch there is no faltering it just comes back in..
As car is fully usable will probably run it for a bit and see what develops.

Many thanks again...!

One thing that seems to happen to the MPI cars is that the injector (one injector of the 4) gets damaged by the connector. Worth a check to see that there's not a hairline crack.

Thanks for that, will isolate which injector check it out and post results.

cheiron said:

Many thanks your reply fingers99 --Yes I did mean ICU!!

Click to expand...

if you did mean ICU then what are you on about?? ICU to me stands for Intensive Care Unit

Your right I did say ICU again...! Probably something to do with being in NHS too long... ECU