Well, the car (79 245 with supercharged B230FX running LH2.4) let us down this week. Wayne was taking it down to his mum’s and it wouldn’t start, so I reached my hand up behind the glove box and fiddled with the fuel pump relay and it finally started (coincidentally I believe)...he made it down there and the car sat for a couple hours (ran fine on the trip). Then I get a call “car won’t start” to which I replied “time to buy a Tesla”...anyway, next day we drove down and I did some troubleshooting. First pulled the codes (LH2.4) and got only one - 2-3-2 “Fuel trim (lambda control) too lean or too rich at idle fuel mix out of spec rich/lean at idle”. I tried to start it and on the first crank it fired up but then died almost immediately. Tried cranking again and nothing. Strong petrol smell out the tailpipe (which Wayne also reported from the previous days’ starting efforts), so I pulled the plugs and they were wet with fuel. I pulled the fuel injection/pump fuses and cranked it a bit with no plugs and we let it sit for a bit, and dried plugs. Reinstalled everything and finally got it started but ran very rough until it finally cleared. Oil smells a bit of petrol as well so time for oil change. The car drove home fine. Just thinking what it might be, and my plan is:
1) check ECU coolant temp resistance at ECU...note it is a new temp sensor so odd that would fail.
2) check fuel pressure. Vintage 1993 B230FX fuel pressure regulator; no fuel coming out vacuum/boost reference hose.
3) wondering whether the injectors I used are too high flow rate, causing flooding at low ambient temp? I have had a little trouble starting it when cold previously and it seemed to run rough/rich for a bit. Note they’re only a tad higher flow rate than the original B230FT injectors that would have been used with these turbo ECU/EZKs.
4) swap spark plugs out for a set of NGK BPR7ES that my dad sent over. I think the original plugs should be BPR6ES...but the 7 may be OK for testing? The plugs I have in there are NGK Iridium...you’d think they would be OK. New cap, rotor and plug wires when I did the engine install FWIW. Also had a new O2 sensor when I did the engine install.
Any other thoughts/suggestions? Just procrastinating going out to the shed at the moment as it’s too cold! Wishing we hadn’t sold the C30 quite so soon as it was nice to have at least one car we can count on LOL!