RoadWarrior222
07-13-2008, 07:46 PM
Hi folks,
This is driving me nuts, when the outside temperature is over 20C or when the motor has been run warm but left sitting for maybe half hour to 2 hours, in cooler temps, but usually not less than 15C... it takes a lot of cranking to start. Like 3-5 seconds worth, and coughs out gassy smelling white smoke. The first kick or two when you're cranking it, it won't catch on if you let go the key, you have to wait until you hear the first rumble out of the exhaust.
In cooler temps, 15C or lower, it always just takes 1 sec of cranking, sometimes catches on the first turn, click-VROOM, particularly when colder than about 10C. Also catches pretty much right away when restarted less than half an hour after turning off.
I would suspect injector leakage, but am puzzled as to why it takes over half an hour for this to occur and also puzzled as to why it happens when I haven't run it for 24 hours, go out in the middle of the afternoon at around 25C and it does it. Most things I read about injector leakage problems suggest that it happens within about 5 mins of shutoff, and takes maybe half an hour of sitting to clear up by itself from evaporation. You'd think that if the injectors did leak, that with it baking in the sun all morning that fuel would have evaporated. You'd think that with it sitting overnight the fuel rail would have no pressure left for the injectors to leak anything when the sun warmed it up through the middle of next day...
I'm getting no codes come through, just get a 55, which seems a little odd by itself because I thought it was meant to count key-ons and flash the count, either since reset or since last fault.
I know when I start it in cooler weather, and it starts right away, it goes to high idle for a little while, whereas when it's having this problem, it doesn't go to high idle at all. That seems wierd because you'd have thunk there was more fuel going in at high idle and it was the attempt to high idle that was flooding it or something. Unless of course, it's actually too lean to start at first, but the cranking just puddles fuel in there until it catches and then the puddle makes the cloud of smoke.
I was thinking maybe it wasn't picking up the cranking signal from the optical tone wheel in the diz or something, but why the hell would it only do that when it's "medium warm" and not cold or just turned off hot. Likewise I suspected plug fouling for a little while but again, why only do it while "medium warm" and not cold or full hot.
I was wondering if it's possible that it actually tries to start in closed loop mode when it's "medium warm" but the O2 is nowhere near hot enough, whereas when it's full hot it is, but when it's cold it goes into open loop first. Only this doesn't seem quite right, because it takes 5 mins of highway driving and more deflection of the temp gauge for the TC lockup to kick in, which I take as it going into closed loop, whether it was a difficult medium warm start or a cold one.
I've tried a couple of different approaches when I know it's the right conditions for it to happen, neither gives any improvement, first is leaving the key full off until ready to start and just throwing it straight over to start, second is turning it to run, waiting to hear the pump prime then waiting a few seconds for the SMEC to get it's baro reading or whatever, then cranking it.
So, any hints would be good, really doesn't seem to fit "normal" behaviour for typical suspects like IAT failure, MAP sensor failure, etc and it hasn't got a hall effect sensor.
thanks,
RW222
This is driving me nuts, when the outside temperature is over 20C or when the motor has been run warm but left sitting for maybe half hour to 2 hours, in cooler temps, but usually not less than 15C... it takes a lot of cranking to start. Like 3-5 seconds worth, and coughs out gassy smelling white smoke. The first kick or two when you're cranking it, it won't catch on if you let go the key, you have to wait until you hear the first rumble out of the exhaust.
In cooler temps, 15C or lower, it always just takes 1 sec of cranking, sometimes catches on the first turn, click-VROOM, particularly when colder than about 10C. Also catches pretty much right away when restarted less than half an hour after turning off.
I would suspect injector leakage, but am puzzled as to why it takes over half an hour for this to occur and also puzzled as to why it happens when I haven't run it for 24 hours, go out in the middle of the afternoon at around 25C and it does it. Most things I read about injector leakage problems suggest that it happens within about 5 mins of shutoff, and takes maybe half an hour of sitting to clear up by itself from evaporation. You'd think that if the injectors did leak, that with it baking in the sun all morning that fuel would have evaporated. You'd think that with it sitting overnight the fuel rail would have no pressure left for the injectors to leak anything when the sun warmed it up through the middle of next day...
I'm getting no codes come through, just get a 55, which seems a little odd by itself because I thought it was meant to count key-ons and flash the count, either since reset or since last fault.
I know when I start it in cooler weather, and it starts right away, it goes to high idle for a little while, whereas when it's having this problem, it doesn't go to high idle at all. That seems wierd because you'd have thunk there was more fuel going in at high idle and it was the attempt to high idle that was flooding it or something. Unless of course, it's actually too lean to start at first, but the cranking just puddles fuel in there until it catches and then the puddle makes the cloud of smoke.
I was thinking maybe it wasn't picking up the cranking signal from the optical tone wheel in the diz or something, but why the hell would it only do that when it's "medium warm" and not cold or just turned off hot. Likewise I suspected plug fouling for a little while but again, why only do it while "medium warm" and not cold or full hot.
I was wondering if it's possible that it actually tries to start in closed loop mode when it's "medium warm" but the O2 is nowhere near hot enough, whereas when it's full hot it is, but when it's cold it goes into open loop first. Only this doesn't seem quite right, because it takes 5 mins of highway driving and more deflection of the temp gauge for the TC lockup to kick in, which I take as it going into closed loop, whether it was a difficult medium warm start or a cold one.
I've tried a couple of different approaches when I know it's the right conditions for it to happen, neither gives any improvement, first is leaving the key full off until ready to start and just throwing it straight over to start, second is turning it to run, waiting to hear the pump prime then waiting a few seconds for the SMEC to get it's baro reading or whatever, then cranking it.
So, any hints would be good, really doesn't seem to fit "normal" behaviour for typical suspects like IAT failure, MAP sensor failure, etc and it hasn't got a hall effect sensor.
thanks,
RW222