just come to start my escos, fual pump runs idle valve clicks adn then i turn it over, cranks and cranks but no firing. arm and disarm again and the moment i turn the key to click 2 an enormous BANG with fire pops out the exhaust

fook me, leave it 5 mins, try again and an even bigger bang with a jet of flame and soot/ash bits after , and this is before the car has even turned over.

what on earth can cause this...?
bear in mind, nothing has changed on the car since it ran perfectly the day before, and the only issue with it at the moment id the rev counter issue with the secs coilpack driver.

 

maybe temp sensor??

probs chucking in too much fuel.

happend to mine.

it is the small blue sensor and also the cheapest at only 17 quid i think.

worth a try??

 

at the ecu though its reading the right resistance for ambient,


ive left if for a couple of hours, tryed again, it turns over, then goes tight and tries to fire up, but hen another HUGE BANG!!! and flame out of the exhaust

dont really want to try it again in case it gonna damage something.
any more ideas..?

 

have you got an aftermarket alarm/immob on it ? is it wired into the ign system ? this would let the fuel pump prime ( if its not wired to fuel) and when you crank the injectors will inject but there will be no spark , then if you happen to get a miss/spare spurious spark then it will ignite the fookin lot


justa possiblity

 

possibble... when the imbobilser is active, the fuel pump doesnt run and thre is no ignition, when you are at click 2 then disarm the imobilser, you get a woof sound out of teh exhaust as if the coilpack initialise is igniting something, but how can it be if the fuel pump hasnt been running since it was switched off.?


ive just whipped the plugs out and to say it is flooded is anunderstatement, wet through and the tops of all the pistons are soaked in fuel.

where has this come from if the car hasnt been running, maybe 1 injector sticking open, but not all 4? surely..?

 

MAP sensor?

Phasing errors?

 

but now it wont even run, if the map sensor had failed, it would run, albeit like a bag of spanners...

how can so much fuel have got into the engine while its not been running though...?

can all the injectors stick open? is this possibel?

 

For the injectors remove the rail and switch on you'll see if they are open... (15min to do the job) but it sounds like ignition timing to me, could you try another ECU without the coil pack? (if I'm not wrong it has to be modified so no easy way back for the coil pack driver)

 

this may be what happened dave,
when you cranked the car th first time the injectors were opening but there was no spark while cranking and hence all the cylinders and exhaust filled up with fuel.
the second time you only turned the ignition on the there was a flame show.now as far as i can recall the p8 ecu and maybe the l8 as well give the coil trigger an initial blip with the ignition only switched on and this causes the coil to fire and spark the plug nearest the rotar if at all, (it may be just an ecu self test?)
now because you running a coil pack i think it works on the wasted spark system where more than 1 plug fires at once (i think its 2) and so by your defo going to get a spark in one or more cyls and if the exhaust valves ore open you will get flames.
what you may have is the initial spark with ignition on and none when cranking.
you could try by disconnecting the injectors to stop more fuel going in,then pull out the plug leads and put a spark plug in each one and earth them all.then turn on the ignition and see if you get a spark on any or all of them.then crank the engine and check for all of them to spark
if they are its possible you have a timming problem,if not then you have a triggering problem
hope this is of some help and not full of errors

 

cheers, guys, velocity, that does sound like it could be what is happeneing,

ive also been thinking... on saturday morning, it was nice and warm and the sun had been on the garage door all morning making the inside of the garage hot and also the back of the car where the petrol tank is. Say for example if the carbon canister solenoid had failed and stuck open( the one bolted ot the inner wing near the fuel pipe connectors in the engione bay, could the heat of the sun make the fuel in the tank warm enough to be purged up the breather pipes from the tank through the failed open solenoid and into the engine breather/inlet manifold pipework - filling the engine with lots of petrol/vapour, and then when the igniton is turned on and the test spark ignites the lot and BANG!!

ill pull the breather pipe off and try it 2nite with the plugs out and the injectors disconnected, to prove there is a spark when its being cranked and that no petrol is coming out of the injectors just due to the pressure in teh fuel rail.

 

yep its looks pretty poorly,

left it with the plugs out all day to dry out a bit, sapn it over with no ht leads or injectors connected to clear the fumes out, connectd it all back up, and it spins over then BANG again

tried it with the plugs out sitting on the cam cover and they only seem to fire every couple of seconds with it spinning over on the starter.

 

i think you need to get the coil pack arangement checked out if possible if only to eliminate it from the trouble shooting.
the other way is pop in a spare ecu and go back to original, i know its messy but it could tell u once and for all

 

+1

 

dave, mine does that every now again since had the coil pack set up.

 

my ecu is on its way back to msd...

stu is going to test it in his car to se hwether it is the ecu or my car that is the problem, the new version of the driver is going to be fitted if that is the problem which hopefully will eliminate the rev counter probelm at teh same time, fingers crossed..

 

Let us know. I quite intersted to go for a coil pack as well. (I can't belive I still have a distributor in my car..) But I want something reliable

 

like me an stu were discussing last night, hopefully these are literally theething problems as you will always get in the first production run as opposed to using a prototype. im still confident

 

Yep!

 

hows it going with the testing of my ecu stu ?

 

ecu back from msd today , 1 day turnround

plugged it and and first turn away she went

it now actually starts better than before, the old ht system must have been well on its way out as it used to crank a bit before firing, even with the rev 1 coilpack driver, but now, it fires up almost as soon as the engine has turned over - wicked, rev counter appears to work ok now aswell,

will test its on boost behaiviour when i nip out her later

good work stu, kenny and secs

 

what were the findings dave

 

glad youve sorted it dave you seem to be haveing a bit of trouble lately

 

why was it that it wasnt working mate?
was deffo coil pack driver probs??

 

well, it wouldnt run with the old one installed, ne wone come back and runs spot on, some maybe a dud board as mine was one of the very first batch, perhaps there were some gremlins which until the boards have been tested in a variety of applications and installtions you cant guarntee exacting standard untill it has been.

overall though, stu has stuck to his word and has turned my ecu round in just 1 day and im now back on the road im booked it at msd for a closed loop stg 3 setup a week on tuesday - unleash the horses

 

I was right so...
Good news if your car is working well again!