More idle problems!!!

Thought I'd start a new one for this, rather than clogging up everyone elses threads!! Seems Ian's had problems before!!

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=16874&highlight=stalling

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=18123&highlight=stalling

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=18878&highlight=stalling

 

 

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=20539&highlight=heros

 

Can you give me a basic condensed version please Ian m8?

Read the first link, sounds like my problem, except mine's intermittent!! A while ago it started misfiring - hardly noticed while driving, but when I stopped and let it idle it idled REALLY low! But reved fine and drove ok (could notice something's wrong but not too bad), it did that about 3 times pulling away in traffic, then went perfectly normal again.

This morning started it up (very cold) and it went to 1200 for about 3 seconds, then dropped to about 350 revs, sounded nasty, inlet vacuum was at about 10 InHg instead of the usual 20!! Seems the ECU is keeping the throttle open in a desperate attempt to stop it dying! Reved ok, but always dropped to 350 ish. Let it run for a few minutes like that trying to think what was wrong, then stopped the engine for a min. Restarted and it was fine, been fine since then all the way to work.

Shame I don't have an AFR gauge really, that'd help.

Well you can sort of diagnose it with your stock narrowband sensor. When it's having a big chug, measure the voltage on pin OX1 in the diagnostic port. Compare that to when it's running OK, it should tell you rich, lean, or if it's nothing to do with fuel...

-Ian

Fault code is 14.

What do I do about that then?

Could it be the weather? Maybe I should spray some WD40 on the connectors and stuff? Is the biggest connector to the little black unit behind the fuse box in the engine bay the ignitor-ECU cable?

The first real step is to clear your fault codes and see if it comes back, otherwise you may chase after a legacy code from 12 months back or something. Diagnosing between an overly rich condition and a generic misfire should be the first step, so measure the OX1 pin after clearing the codes, then spray WD40 on the Igniter (and yes, that is the right part as you described)

-Ian

Cool, reset ECU and it's done it again a few times since then, checked codes and there aren't any! Engine warning light hasn't come on either.

Cheers Ian m8, I only hope there are more people like you around.

What now? No codes so I don't know what to do.

What would cause a really bad idle, keeps dropping to around 300 rpm, then the ECU revs it up to 700-800 to stop it stalling? It runs almost perfectly off idle, would hardly know except for the fact that I know the car pretty well by now, just when on idle it goes pants.

Also it's precisely intermittent, runs absolutely perfectly 95% of the time, then for about 2 minutes it'll go bad (almost feels like a slight misfire, then runs crap on idle), but suddenly goes back to being fine again!

Dry joints? (where?)

Sticking valve? (which one?)

Can't see it being plugs or coil packs really as it's so bizzarly intermittent!!

OK, hasn't been doing it now for a couple of months (only using it at weekends though).

Last couple of days it's doing it all the time, but only once (if that makes sense! ). What I mean is it runs ok, but when I lift off the revs drop to about 300 and then pick up, but after that single drop they level out straight away and go ok rather than keep pulsing up and down!

Does that sound like plugs to anyone else?

It hasn't actually stalled yet, and the vacuum doesn't go up as much as it did with the old problem (gets to about 16InHg instead of 10 like before).

I kind of want this to be a bigger problem so I'd have to get it sorted - at the moment it's just annoying!!!

OK then, just checked my plugs. They all looked OK but 2 and 3 had a very small gap. I've regapped to about 30 thou (OK on 1.2bar?), do I need to do an ECU reset after regapping or does it not learn things like that?