K series running issues / possible misfire?

[Jonathan Kay]

Morning, Andrew. I though that we were both a bit slow on the brake lights!

 

Jonathan

[revilla]

We're slipping.

[Smithy77]

Quoting revilla: 

If you want to get new ones, parts numbered 4 and 6 here are what you want but to be honest if it were my car and the eBay ones worked and looked to be in good condition I'd probably just keep using them.

 

Cool, thank you! Rimmer looks like a good website - is this considered the best/cheapest place for genuine k-series parts?

[Smithy77]

Quoting revilla: 

Edited to add that the ODBII scanner will probably have a feature to allow you to reset any error codes. It might be worth doing this as there may be all sorts of historical errors logged to confuse the issue, then take it for a drive and scan it again when you get back to see what new error codes have popped up again.

How long a drive would you say is required to create new fault codes?

[revilla]

Don't know the definitive answer but not long, especially if you are getting the problem whilst driving. When the cam sensor was playing up (i.e. wired in reverse!) on my spare engine it was logged by the ECU in seconds.

[oldbutnotslow]

This really does sound like the plugs have become flooded with water and as a result the coil packs have become corroded inside the big rubber bits to use the non technical term.

Ive seen several cars that have had similar problems all of which have been traced back to the owner having washed the car with the bonnet on the car.

Washing the car with the bonnet on is a real no no!

 

One other thing to just check.

Replecement non OE HT leads vary in quality this is particularly so on the EU2 HT lead set (I know yours is an EU3) but it still can apply to the EU3 non coil pack leads.

 

On the non coil pack plug leads try fitting the plug to the lead with the plug out of the engine. You are checking to see that the metal plug cap fits into the HT lead with a click. Sometimes the HT lead moves upward in the rubber holder so that it may only just touch or may even have a slight gap both of which will cause poor running problems. This combined with the plug / lead sitting in effect in lake of water will cause the metal end on the plug lead to corrode.

 

Best advice I would suggest is to replace them as has been suggested.

[Smithy77]

Quoting oldbutnotslow: 

This really does sound like the plugs have become flooded with water and as a result the coil packs have become corroded inside the big rubber bits to use the non technical term.

Ive seen several cars that have had similar problems all of which have been traced back to the owner having washed the car with the bonnet on the car.

Washing the car with the bonnet on is a real no no!

 

I'm starting to think I am the victim of my own doing here. I did give it a quick wash a few days after picking her up after driving in the wet weather we had. I didn't know I should have removed the bonnet! I just thought I should be careful not to flood water through the bonnet vents, my thinking being, "some water must get in there when it rains???".

 

It would explain why it ran sweet for the first few day and has deteriorated since. We live and learn I suppose...

 

I have ordered a second hand set of coils and leads off eBay for £18. Hopefully that solves it.

[Fil M]

Hello Smiffy ... I have a k series with the caterham R upgrade (cams, barrells etc) . On the question of washing the car with the bonnett on. Provided you are carefull and do it when the engine is hot from use any ingress will evaporate. Have always done it this way with rain water from the butt and two buckets.

 

I have the means to check the balance of the throttle bodies and the recommended setting for the TPS with a voltmeter thingy if you want to try it. I am happy to buzz around to do the checking/ show you the ropes.

 

If all else fails give 'New Techniques' at Bishops Waltham a ring. Tom New is very familiar with Caterhams including K series. He owns a Caterham and is active in motor sport. They service, fix and modify / upgrade a few Caterhams in our area.

 

Mine pops and bangs a bit on overrun at certain revs and gears and runs on a bit when cooking hot. Might be worth a blat out with me to seperate what is 'typical K' behaviour from other symptoms.

 

BM me if I can help...cheers....

[Smithy77]

Hi Fil YHM

 

Unfortunately during my wash it was before going out with the engine cold, although I did go out after a quick chamois.

 

I've already been recommended Tom New for any local professional work on the Caterham (cheers Daz ).

 

I'm hopeful of getting this fixed by Good Friday. Banking on a combination of new spark plugs and replacement leads and coils will do the trick

 

Edited by - Smiffy7 on 14 Apr 2014 22:12:39

[Fil M]

Have mailed you back Smiffy ... if you get it sorted for the weekend with your new parts that would be great news and a problem solved. The sun being out is a nice bonus. Have fun

[AntonyH]

Quoting Smiffy7: 

7) When switching off the engine it will continue to run for approx 2secs after turning the key. This has happened since buying the car but thought nothing of it

 

Is the radiator fan running? If so, when you turn off, the still-spinning fan motor becomes a generator and sustains the ignition for a second or two.

 

[Smithy77]

Quoting AntonyH: 

Quoting Smiffy7: 

7) When switching off the engine it will continue to run for approx 2secs after turning the key. This has happened since buying the car but thought nothing of it

 

Is the radiator fan running? If so, when you turn off, the still-spinning fan motor becomes a generator and sustains the ignition for a second or two.

 

 

Not that I've noticed. I'll check this out though

[Smithy77]

Right chaps, my OBD scanner arrived today so I gave it a whirl this evening. It was straight forward enough to get the fault codes, but to get the inspection and maintenance readings less so; I will come onto that in a minute.

 

So I plugged it in and switched the ignition on to reveal just 3 faults (I was expecting more!):

1. N/A

2. P0195 - Engine oil temp sensor circuit malfunction

3. P0135 - O2 sensor heater circuit malfunction (Bank 1 Sensor 1)

 

I then cleared the faults, started the engine for 5 mins, switched off and rescanned to reveal the same 3 faults. So, the questions I have are:

 

- Other then realising that the faults relate to the oil temp and O2 sensor circuits, that's about as much as I can glean from the descriptions. Can anyone more familiar with diagnostics be any more specific??

 

- Considering that there are generic fault codes in the instructions specifically described as "Cylinder X misfire detected", and the fact that I didn't get one of these come up, does this mean that there definitely is not a misfire? I thought based on the symptoms I have that a misfire was pretty evident??

 

I then started the engine again to try out the I/M monitor status' but the scanner seemed less straight forward. There are 2 buttons on the device, ENTER and SCROLL. I hit the scroll button until I got to IM in the menu and hit enter. At this point the instructions give definitions of a series words:

MIL light off = All monitors can be tested

MIL light on = At least one monitor has not completed testing

READY = shows that a monitor being checked has completed its testing

NOT RDY = shows that a monitor being tested has not completed its testing

N/A = The monitor is not supported on that vehicle

> = additional information is available on the next screen

...READY (hit scroll)

FUEL... > ...READY (hit scroll)

CCM... > ...READY (hit scroll)

CAT... > ...NOT READY (hit scroll)

HCM... > ...N/A (hit scroll)

EVAP... > ...N/A (hit scroll)

2AIR... > ...N/A (hit scroll)

A/C... > ...N/A (hit scroll)

O2S... > ...NOT READY (hit scroll)

HO2S... > ...NOT READY (hit scroll)

EGR... > ...N/A (hit scroll)

MIL....OFF (the same list would then repeat/scroll as previous)

 

The problem I found was that although with each monitor it had an arrow (>) symbol suggesting there was additional information on the next page (presumably the monitor reading?!?), I couldn't seem to find it! It just went straight to the next monitor as above I also tried the same procedure with the engine off but ignition on and the only difference was that it read MIL... ON, which is the only bit that makes sense!

 

Does anyone know how one might get the readings from the various monitors?

 

Quoting Smiffy7: 

Quoting AntonyH: 

Quoting Smiffy7: 

7) When switching off the engine it will continue to run for approx 2secs after turning the key. This has happened since buying the car but thought nothing of it

Is the radiator fan running? If so, when you turn off, the still-spinning fan motor becomes a generator and sustains the ignition for a second or two.

Not that I've noticed. I'll check this out though

 

I took notice of the above and the one time I tried it with the fan off it didn't seem to run on! Seems odd though as I was sure it did it more often then not, if not all the time

 

Edited by - Smiffy7 on 15 Apr 2014 21:45:21

 

Edited by - Smiffy7 on 15 Apr 2014 21:48:46

[Jonathan Kay]

I wouldn't spend any time on the running-on issue until you've cracked the bigger problems.

 

What's the make and model of the scanner? Does it have a support forum?

 

I assume the "O2 sensor" is the same thing as a lambda sensor. There's a fair bit of experience with those around and in the archives. Could anyone advise on how much of the problem could be caused by a fault in that (or the associated wiring) and a sensible approach to debugging it?

 

Jonathan

[Smithy77]

It's a U480 Universal Scanner manufactured by someone somewhere in China 😬

 

here

[revilla]

Smiffy,

 

To the best of my knowledge only the VVC engines actually have an oil temperature sensor (the VVC mechanism is operated hydraulically using the engine oil, controlled by two solenoid valves, and the ECU uses the oil temperature to indicate the oil viscosity and therefore the speed at which the VVC mechanisms will move wen the solenoids operate). Your engine probably doesn't have one, in which case P0195 is basically just reporting that it's not there and can be ignored.

 

P0135 is reporting as being O2 Bank 1 Sensor 1. Bank 1 refers I believe to the two banks of cylinders in a V-engine, but a four cylinder in-line engine like the K Series only has one bank, so everything is Bank 1 (the codes are generic for use across all engines). Sensor 1 I believe is pre-catalyst, sensor 2 is post-catalyst. Sensor 2 faults can be ignored as you don't have a post-catalyst sensor but sensor 1 faults are probably telling you something meaningful, in this case that your heated lambda sensor heater circuit is faulty. Given that ECU can only really see the resistance of the wiring and the heater, this most likely means 1) a wire disconnected, 2) a short circuit or 3) the heater in the lambda sensor has burned out. I would suspect the last one of these, in which case you need to replace your lambda sensor. Have a good look at the wiring as far as you can see it before splashing out on a new sensor, the sensor is screwed into the underside of the exhaust manifold and you can trace the wire back from there looking for obvious damage.

 

If the lambda sensor is faulty, it could be giving the ECU erroneous mixture information but the fact that you are getting P0135 suggests that the ECU knows that the lambda sensor is faulty and will be running open-loop, i.e. ignoring the lambda sensor and using it's default map with no corrections. I would have thought this would have been close enough not to misfire, but I'm not 100% sure. This might just be the source of your problems, if for example your fuel pressure is off from standard calibration which would give a different injector flow rate to what the ECU was expecting, however people often suggest diagnosing lambda sensor faults by disconnecting it and seeing what happens. In your case I suspect this will tell you nothing as all it does is force the ECU to go open-loop and ignore the lambda sensor, which yours seems to be doing even when it is connected.

 

The fact that you didn't get any "Cylinder Misfire" faults probably just means that the ECU doesn't have the facilities to recognise that a cylinder is misfiring. As I mentioned before, OBDII error reporting in MEMS 3 is fairly primitive. I'm not sure how engines that do report misfires detect them, maybe through vibration picked up by the knock sensor - however they do it, I can't think of a sensor on the K Series that could possibly detect a misfiring cylinder so I think it's safe to assume that the ECU just can't detect or report it.

 

The I/M Readiness information that you then list is not what you need to be looking at. You need to be looking for "Live Data" which will give the actual values from the sensors. The I/M Readiness as I understand it, basically lists which self-tests have been performed based on the engine drive-cycle, e.g. when you first start up the catalyst will be cold and until it lights off there is no point in testing the emissions, so emissions tests will show as "Not Ready".

 

Which scanner did you buy in the end? If you can post a link I may be able to find a manual or instructions and give you some pointers where to look.

 

Edited by - revilla on 15 Apr 2014 22:11:56

[revilla]

In the description of that scanner on eBay is says

 

"Display current sensor data, including:

 

* Engine RPM

* Calculated Load Value

* Coolant Temperature

* Fuel System Status

* Vehicle Speed

* Short Term Fuel Trim

* Long Term Fuel Trim

* Intake Manifold Pressure

* Timing Advance

* Intake Air Temperature

* Air Flow Rate

* Absolute Throttle Position

* Oxygen sensor voltages/associated short term fuel trims

* Fuel System status

* Fuel Pressure"

 

So it should do it somewhere ...

[Smithy77]

Revilla,

 

Thank you, truly priceless information!

 

So are you basically saying the lambda could just be part of the problem, going by the middle section of your post talking about fuel pressure? I did try and diagnose the lambda by disconnecting it as one of the first things I tried, but it didn't make a difference. It is probably just me, but I'm struggling to understand why, if the sensor is running open loop and therefore the ECU is using it's default map, the engine would run so poorly. Or is it this that is suggesting that something else is up?

 

In any case, do you know the part number of the lambda I need (1.6 EU3) and where is the cheapest place to pick one up? I see from old posts that it can be quite expensive!

 

Regarding the scanner, I was aware of those claims on that particular eBay listing, however, doing a search around that was the only listing that stated those features. Needless to say, I followed the instructions closely and couldn't see any mention of 'live data'. I'll try and find the instruction online...

 

Edit: Instruction manual here, it is not identical to the one that came with the scanner, if anything this online version has more information in it. I still couldn't find any reference to live data though

 

Edited by - Smiffy7 on 15 Apr 2014 22:50:12

 

Edited by - Smiffy7 on 15 Apr 2014 23:01:39

[revilla]

Smiffy,

 

The DTC code suggests you have a lambda sensor problem; I'd eliminate that first and see how it goes before worrying too much about if these is another problem, although I too find it surprising that the default map would misfire. I only mentioned the fuel pressure as one example of why the default map may be off-calibration.

 

I've looked at the manual you posted and it looks to me as though the scanner doesn't do what the eBay advert says it does. I can't find live data instructions either. I'd complain and ask for your money back. Sorry if I made a duff recommendation there, I just based it on the cheapest available that said in the descriptionthat it did what you wanted.

 

If you wanted to buy a replacement lambda sensor to eliminate that as the cause of the problem, I'd go for a used eBay one like this.

 

I'm beginning to feel a bit bad because you are running off buying things left right and centre based on what I'm telling you and I may on the wrong track! If it was my money I was spending on my engine I'd probably be going down this route but it's not my money it's yours. I've got a spare engine with a known-good (bought brand new a few months back and only run for a few hours on test) lambda sensor on it; I'm happy to whip it off and send it to you if you want to try it out. I've also got an OBDII scanner like this that does live data that you can borrow if you want. If the lambda sensor sorts out the DTC code you can either send it back and get one for yourself or just leave it fitted and send me the money to get a replacement. Same goes for the scanner to be honest, if it does the job you could get your own or keep it and send me the money to get another to save on postage, whatever you prefer.

 

Let me know if you want me to send them (BM me your address).

 

Edited by - revilla on 15 Apr 2014 23:36:23

[Smithy77]

Quoting revilla: 

I'm beginning to feel a bit bad because you are running off buying things left right and centre based on what I'm telling you and I may on the wrong track! If it was my money I was spending on my engine I'd probably be going down this route but it's not my money it's yours.

Revilla, don't take this the wrong way but... behave Sir! I have nothing but gratitude for your advice (and everyone else's for that matter!). Let's take a look then - I bought new spark plugs for £8 (probably could have done with them anyway), second hand leads/coil packs for £18 (I'm pretty sure I knackered the originals) and a OBD2 scanner for £10 (which is a handy tool to have anyway). It's hardly cost me the earth and hopefully none of it will be wasted money spent. Chill mon!

 

Quoting revilla: 

I've looked at the manual you posted and it looks to me as though the scanner doesn't do what the eBay advert says it does. I can't find live data instructions either. I'd complain and ask for your money back. Sorry if I made a duff recommendation there, I just based it on the cheapest available that said in the descriptionthat it did what you wanted.

Again, behave Sir! You didn't make a duff recommendation. It's was a good recommendation on an item with a duff description! I will indeed try and get my money back, but looking at alternative cheap options I've found the 2013 version of yours here for £15 delivered, but I'll keep my eye on this auction for a 2014 model to see what it goes for.

 

Quoting revilla: 

The DTC code suggests you have a lambda sensor problem; I'd eliminate that first and see how it goes before worrying too much about if these is another problem, although I too find it surprising that the default map would misfire. I only mentioned the fuel pressure as one example of why the default map may be off-calibration.

Back to the problem... what I was kind of alluding to was that fact that it would make sense that something else, other than the lambda, is also contributing to the problem. Your own assessment suggests this, I think! I am fairly certain the coil packs are also at fault. It has been mentioned by other members too that the symptoms point towards ignition/coils. And when someone asked about washing the car with the bonnet on... yes I had....and the engine was cold! The evidence is compelling. I'm hoping the replacements arrive today

 

Could it be possible that, assuming it was the coils causing the misfire, that this misfire then in turn has damaged the lambda?

 

P.S. I might take you up on that offer of borrowing a lambda sensor though

 

Edited by - Smiffy7 on 16 Apr 2014 10:05:45

[halstock]

Smiffy,

 

As a somewhat minor aside, I was thinking of this thread last night as I washed my car before the monthly area meeting (there are a few polishers there, mainly of exhausts judging by last night's turnout ).

 

I don't find it any problem to wash the bonnet using little enough water that it doesn't go through the vents onto the engine. I certainly don't hose it or throw a bucket of water over it. Just squeeze 80% of the water out of the sponge (+/- 5% will be fine 😬) and I don't see a problem. It seems a daft thing to even have to discuss but as you're convinced that washing your car may have caused a problem I'd hate you to get hung up on it.

 

Hope you get it sorted really soon.

 

Andy

[Smithy77]

Halstock, I'll just be washing the bonnet off the car from now own - no biggie! It also reinforces my decision to invest in a long nose shower cap.

 

Regarding a replacement lambda, I assume this is what I need? For a genuine item I'm guessing I wont be beating that price anywhere!?!

[revilla]

MHK100840 looks right - I double checked it on Rimmer to be sure. New for £30 sounds good! Just got your email with postal address, will try to get it packed up and posted in the next day or two. I checked on Rimmer that MHK100840 is right for the VVC too as mine is a 1.8 VVC - same part, so should fit fine.

[Smithy77]

Winning!

 

The leads and coil packs have just arrived on my desk! Should I be worried that they have the part no. NEC100730? Looking at Rimmer this version appears to be discontinued

[revilla]

I just looked on Rimmer too - part number NEC100730 just looks like a slightly earlier version of NEC000120 and is listed for the same applications so should be just fine. They probably changed supplier or updated some minor design detail at some point over time and changed the part number. Bearing in mind that Rover went bust back in 2005, most of the "new" parts are just new old stock of some sort.