Symptoms of incorrect timing

[Beaniemoo]

What are the most likely things i'd notice if the cam belt timing on my engine was wrong and is it likely to change with engine temparature?

 

[mini-valver]

It wouldn't be temprature dependant. Timing being out would cause bad idle, non starting, severe missfire.

Whats the problem mate?

 

[Beaniemoo]

The car is trying to put me in early grave!!!!! Basically When you start the car it runs pretty much lovely if a bit fast and but pretty much the moment the car reaches running temparature it cuts out dead. It then really struggles to restart "popping and bacfireing" and once running ticks over at around 3k. The revs also take a long time to resettle after being reved. I had another 172 valver come over today to help out and we swapped every sensor etc including the ecu between cars and nothing improved it leading me to believe that if the problem isn't with the fueling it must be with the timing.

It's really starting to wear me down

 

[ditz]

sounds like an air leak to me.... somewhere in the inlet manifold.

temp dependant as it all expands when its hot

you swapped the crank sensor yeah?

 

[Beaniemoo]

Yeah we fitted a new crank sensor, might be worth spraying a bit of brake cleaner about to try to find if there's an air leak.

 

[sideways danny]

could be something to do with the ECU temp sensor. Have you installed the diagnostic plug?

 

[mini-valver]

Coolant temp sensor sounds likely....

 

[Beaniemoo]

Coolant temp sensor is a new one annoyingly and the fella who popped over today also had a decoded ecu so we fitted that and it made no difference at all this is why i'm at my wits end i'm pretty much all out of ideas.

 

[mini-valver]

Is the wiring damaged going to it?

 

[sideways danny]

Think you're about 5 minutes from me. Can come over with a fresh pair of eyes if you want

 

[Beaniemoo]

That crossed my mind tonight so i'm gonna check it over tomorrow evening. Thing is it's so clinical you can pretty much tell exactly when it's gonna do it on the temp guage.

 

[Beaniemoo]

Think you're about 5 minutes from me. Can come over with a fresh pair of eyes if you want

Now there's a tempting offer sir!!! I'm planning on really investigating it next weekend if your out and about.

 

[sideways danny]

yeah just drop me a PM at some point and we'll organise it

 

[jablitt]

i've had a problem like this with a car a while ago, it turned out it was the spark plugs. faulty spark plugs would explain all the problems you've described. not saying its a definate but a possibility. hope you get it sorted mate.

 

[stan*]

Did you try swapping coil packs mate?

 

[Russ_16v]

also the idle control valve, mine was doing the same, replaced that and was fine

 

[Jay Payne]

For referance when i discovered my cambelt timing was out the car actually idled Better than the very slghtly lumpy idle that they normaly have. Ran perfectly smoothly through out but was down on power by 20-30bhp

As said does sound coolant temp sensor related, especialy if it happens at an exact point in the warm up. But with sensors and engine management you never know. It could be So many things. Idle speed control valve, air leak, or even map sensor maybe

 

[Gray]

Probably not the cause... but I had very similar problems when my throttle cable was on its way out!!

high idle, bogging down/jerking once warm, revs felt really slow and it was only once the car had warmed up?!!?

After fitting a new one the car felt completely different, much more eager and all the rev/idle related problems where cured

Only £18 for a new cable, did you fit new when installing the engine?

 

[Beaniemoo]

Cheers for all the help fella's I really want to get to the bottom of all this so i can get back to the shiny exciting bits of the project and stuff worth posting on the thread. Noone seems to think it's down to the timing and as it's so clinical and temperature related i think the first port of call could be to take a serious look at the way we wired in the temperature guage and see if it might be interfering with the ecu's signal.

 

[sideways danny]

when i come over I'll grab a temp sensor and see if we have an idle control valve, just to try.