Technical Kangarooing Abarth [variator?]

[ScottyP]

My car (Schui) is going in to try and get it sorted.
The car is dangerous when cold. The garage have a record of the engine 'misfires' on the computer. the system is saying that No.2 cylinder is misfiring. The garage tells me that the spark plug has low resistence and are going to change it.
From cold it is BAD, I blip the throttle before moving off and keep the revs up and it is bearable. If I get it wrong it misfires badly and the dash lights up, telling me to switch off.
When it first started, I changed to higher octane fuel and thought it was sorted, car was so smooth. But it came back (still worth it though, car is better on the good fuel). I have noticed though that when the tank gets low it gets worse. I don't know if it has the same gimmick as Audi of misfiring when running out of fuel?
Buggers are charging me for the diagnostics test......! I haven't paid yet, if it isn't the plugs I'm not paying. I must go and have a look at what the warranty covers.

 

[ScottyP]

The garage changed the plugs (£80+ bill) when they took them out they found faults with injectors and have replaced them (warranty) after the plugs were changed, the car was better, but not perfect. The injectors have been changed and it is a different car, much better. I will see what it is like in the cold as it is quite warm up here today.
I will let you know how it goes.

 

[phil j]

Mines done 69k on original coils still. no probs yet or have i just jinxed myself :devil:

 

[ScottyP]

Car started misfiring again after a couple of days.
15000 miles, coil 4 faulty. Replaced now car runs well (for now).

 

[Greggers]

Well, ignoring Billywick's rather negative view on the problem , here are my top things to check, in order (of ease and cost), to possibly fix the kangarooing Selespeed issue. I went through it and mine has definitely improved... alot:

1) Sparkplugs - I can't emphasize enough how important good plugs and the correct plug gap is. Check the condition of the plug for the classic symptoms. Is it white, black, coked up etc. The correct gap size is 0.8mm for standard plugs and 0.9mm for iridium plugs etc. I've got Denso Iridium's in mine and I really like them...

2) Coils - Check to see if you've got a coil either failed or on the way out. To test for a failed coil, unplug each in turn and the coil that doesn't change the engine note, is the failed coil. To test to see if a coil is possibly failing, you can do the resistance check. Put a multimeter across the outer pins of the coil and measure the resistance. You should see 0.75 to 0.81 ohm of resistance. Then check the resistance between either side terminal and the center high tension terminal. The reading should be 10,000 to 11,000 ohms. I found this on the internet and haven't actually tried it yet as I know my coils are fine. Hopefully it's accurate for the Stilo coils. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

3) Examiner - Get the car hooked up to an Examiner and have them run the Selespeed "End of Line" tests. This recalibrated the gearbox and clutch and massively improved the gearchange on my Selespeed. It used to be really clunky going between 2nd and 3rd and now... it's like butter.

Basically, a combination of all three of these really improved the Selespeed in my Abarth and now it's a pleasure to drive, whether cold, hot, auto or manual

Good luck!

 

[Dogspods]

...3) Examiner - Get the car hooked up to an Examiner and have them run the Selespeed "End of Line" tests. This recalibrated the gearbox and clutch and massively improved the gearchange on my Selespeed. It used to be really clunky going between 2nd and 3rd and now... it's like butter. ...

Greggers, did this make that much of a difference? It may be just me but as of late I "think" my gear change has got clunky. The examiner would be a trip to local dealer and one hours labour??

 

[Greggers]

Greggers, did this make that much of a difference? It may be just me but as of late I "think" my gear change has got clunky. The examiner would be a trip to local dealer and one hours labour??

Hey Dogs. It really made a difference to mine and I can't recommend it highly enough . The gearchange was quite clunky before (to the point where I was starting to think I had a gearbox issue) but ALOT smoother and quieter afterwards. It's especially noticeable when driving in auto. TBH, I'd expect you to get the same results.

I think it only takes about 15-20 minutes so I reckon you should be able to knock them down to 30mins of Examiner time if they're a decent friendly Fiat garage. Have you got an Italian independent near you? If so, give them a go.

G

 

[Geoff]

I had the gearbox calibration test (passed with no problems), Is this the same as 'end of line test'?, As this made no difference to the kangarooing.

Geoff

 

[Greggers]

I had the gearbox calibration test (passed with no problems), Is this the same as 'end of line test'?, As this made no difference to the kangarooing.

Geoff

It might be worth making them do a couple of clutch bleeds as well. Sorry, I forgot to put this on my little guide and now I can't edit it. I had that done as well as the end-of-line/calibration and it really helped me.

 

[Greggers]

It might be worth making them do a couple of clutch bleeds as well. Sorry, I forgot to put this on my little guide and now I can't edit it. I had that done as well as the end-of-line/calibration and it really helped me.

Well... I spoke too soon. The jerky pull off (fnar fnar ) is back again, despite my best efforts to correct it. It's absolutely fine if I disconnect the battery for an hour or so to reset the ECU and drives smoothly for a few days. But it then learns the new positions or fuel mixture etc and the jerky pull off returns. Very strange.

Might have a look at the air inlet control valve to see what that looks like...

 

[Superlight3]

Hi Team.

Newby here needing help!

I've got a Stilo Abarth 2.4 on an '02 plate. Had all the symptoms of above, went to the local garage today (not a FIAT dealer) and had the thing plugged into the diognostic system, and it came up with the following:

P0100 - Air flow meter (signal not significant) [not present]

P0220 - Accellerator pedal sensor 2 (signal not significant) [not present]

P0340 - Phase sensor (signal not significant) [not present]

P1653 - Phase variator (signal not significant) [not present]

P1691 - Safety cut-off from controller [present]

Came home, looked at this thread and thought I'd found the soloution!

Brought five new coils, five new plugs, all fitted, just as bad as before.

Please, please, I'm getting to the point where It's going to the tip if I can't get this sorted soon, it's damn dangerous to drive!

Cheers.

SL3

 

[MPapps]

I would look at the phase variator fault, i think problems with the variator are the causes of a lot of kangarooing abarths!

 

[Greggers]

Right... well I thought I'd feed some information back into this. My Abarth seems to be alot worse now when cold, to the point where it's exactly like what people describe the kangarooing to be like. To the point of being dangerous when cold

So far to date, I've replaced all the sparkplugs to Denso Iridiums and replaced a couple of the coils so that are all Champions. The clutch has been calibrated and an end-of-line service carried out. No errors were present in the Selespeed ECU.

I'll be honest, I don't think the coils are an issue as all seem to be fine with them and I doubt the plugs are an issue either... although, I am going to do some swapping around to see if it helps at all.

I spoke to my Italian car specialist who carried out the last Selespeed work for me and they don't believe that there's any issue in the Selespeed system as no errors were present and the fact that it's sweet when warm. They believe that the issue is more likely to lie more with the Air Flow Meter or a lazy Lambda probe. They say the only way to tell will be to hook it up to Examiner and run a full battery of tests... in the meantime, I'm going to do my own tests with the plugs and coils to rule them out.

Just an update for you all...

 

[Greggers]

Some more feedback on the kangarooing issue... I think i might have fixed mine and it is something that none of us has mentioned before. The variator! I was playing around with my code reader (another story!) and I found the code P1653 in the ECU, which made me think "I wonder if this has anything to do with the kangarooing?". So I did some searching on the internet and found that the variator actuator is often the cause of variator issues and given that the variator alters the timing of the valves and can affect how well the engine runs when cold, I figured, why not?!

I carried out the test detailed below on my variator actuator and guess what? My last two pull aways from cold starts since doing the fix on the variator actuator have been as smooth as butter, just like when it's hot I admit, I need to do more cold start tests to see if it's really fixed but it's looking good so far! Give it a go as it only takes 5 minutes and see how you get on... you never know, it may fix your problems!

"I If you've got a variator in your Stilo and you're wondering if it's got an issue with it, remember, it might not actually be the variator itself, it could be the variator actuator. Both these items fall under the error code P1653, so the fault could lie with either... one is easy to test though, here's how

To rule out the variator actuator as being the fault rahter than the variator itself, take off your engine coil cover and get your trusty multimeter out...

What you're trying to do is to test the variator solenoid, and it's easy to diagnose, just put your multimeter across the 2 terminals of the solenoid (the blobs on the top, not the plug connectors) and check for continuity, if there's none (eg. you've got some resistance there) then undo the 2 philips screws on the top of it and remove the cap (pull it off, don't twist), connect the multimeter to the 2 spikes on the solenoid and check for continuity again, I bet you get it this time. if you do then it's the cap at fault, what you need to do is drop little balls of solder into the 2 holes for the spikes in the cap and then fit it back on, then you should have your continuity back accross the plug terminals.

Once you've done this, then you can be reasonably sure that your actuator should be okay and the problem lies with the variator itself... bad luck

If you didn't have continuity across the cap and the actuator pins, then the actuator is probably at fault and you'll need to get it replaced. At least it's cheaper than the variator though!

I hope this helps anyone who's concerned about their variator "

 

[Greggers]

Still no kangarooing, so looking like the variator fix has cured it! It's so nice just being able to jump in the car and go without looking like you drive using a pogo stick...

 

[Barry_M2]

Where abouts on the engine is the variator solenoid mate?

 

[Greggers]

Where abouts on the engine is the variator solenoid mate?

If you take the engine cover off, you'll have your 5 coils layed out along the bottom as you look at the top of the engine. Above that, you'll have the oil filler and then the 5 green injectors. Roughly vertically in line with the oil filler, you should see something that looks similar to the coils but is in the same plane as the injectors. That's your variator actuator solenoid

There's a connector that goes into it (push down on the metal bar to pull the plug off), and the cap has two philips screws on the top as well as the two blobs of solder. Put a multimeter across the blobs to test for continuity

 

[Barry_M2]

Cheers for that. Good description

Mine isn't bad at low rev's but does feel a little juddery when you first pull off when cold, and I'd rather check it over now than wait til it get worse. .

Will check it over the weekend in between downpours!!!

 

[Greggers]

Cheers for that. Good description

Mine isn't bad at low rev's but does feel a little juddery when you first pull off when cold, and I'd rather check it over now than wait til it get worse. .

Will check it over the weekend in between downpours!!!

Hey, no worries. I'll just be pleased if this cheap and easy fix is all that's required to cure the kanagrooing that all Selespeed owners encounter at some point in their ownership!

I love my car even more than normal now... going to splash out on some new suspension and having the alloys refurbed

 

[Greggers]

Just noticed MPapps post in this thread and have to give him his dues. He mentioned the variator as being a possible cause for kangarooing before I did and I missed it, so apologies and a big thanks as this might have been where i got the idea from on the first place!