- Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:26 pm
#293293
Originally I was gonna post this in his thread, but It got to long and while similar I don't wanna thread jack or fill up his thread, so lets get started, motor is a D15B8, which has been ran hard and not very well maintained.
I've been having a problem similar to his which has switched up a little on me. I thought it was the fuel pump, but that isn't what it seems to be, as I always hear the fuel pump turn on with ignition and engage on turn over. So next I thought maybe it was the injectors getting clogged and staying open flooding the motor, but I don't think its that either because I've added injector cleaner on separate occasions and it doesn't seem to remedy the problem, and I know that's not a perfect way to be sure, but its a start. Either way my problem goes like this...
I turn the car over and it will start to fire, Now the majority of the time it will start from a "cold start". Cold start meaning the first fire of the day or in several hours since it has been used (lets say long enough for the block to cool off after being driven), but every now and then though it will fire and then bog out like it chokes and the car will die (it literally sounds like its choking), and it wont start after no matter how much I turn it over for as long as I want. This only happens every now and then, normally though it will just turn over and start no extra steps needed, nothing fancy. So now it gets better...Pretty much every time after I drive the car whether its down the street to the gas station or to my girlie friends house 2 cities over, after I shut off the car and come back to start it again it will do what I described above EVERY TIME.
The very first thing I thought was causing this was my valve cover, the reason for this is its leaking oil at the seals allowing it to get into the spark plug chambers (where the wires go), the amount varies by chamber, spark plug 1 is normally just sort of moist like it gets misted, but 3 is normally soaked like a puddle. I thought maybe the oil wasn't allowing the plug to spark, because in the past my distributor had oil leaking into it, also from the valve cover causing the car to die randomly and not start, but that isn't the problem either.
So what I've been doing to combat this issue is when you turn it over as soon as it shows signs of life and starts to pickup, rev it to the 4's I normally give it 2-3 quick taps and then i'll just hold it in the 2's for maybe 10 seconds then let it settle to normal idle and it fires up and runs no problem(I've never had it randomly die after its started this way), Although sometimes doing even this isn't enough to get it started and it will still bog out, but that probably only happens 1/15-20 starts, I think its more of a timing fail on my part.
Anyways just recently something new has started happening, Because of the above stated start problem I always rev the car when starting the car, regardless if its a cold start or not, and while revving will start the car and normally is needed after its ran for a while and I stop it, There are times where it seems like the clutch switch isn't engaging and I wont even get the starter turn over, I get nothing from the motor when I turn the key over. So here is the twist. It's actually more like 2 things have popped up, First being sometimes if I don't have the clutch floored the car wont turn over, It never used to need to be floored, just engaged. Like I said though there's a twist, sometimes even if it is floored it still wont turn over, and so far this only happens after its been driven and then parked for a couple mins before attempting to run it again, just like the above rev problem. For a parked time example lets say the amount of time it takes to fill up a tank of gas.
Now as I said it doesn't turn over at all, but I know the clutch switch is engaging, because if its down, I can hear the fuel pump turn on when I turn the key, and if I release the clutch it will shut off immediately, only to pick back up when I drop the clutch to the floor again. So I know its making contact. Now what I'm wondering is if its the starter not engaging for whatever reason or if its the alternator going out and not charging the battery fully, So it doesn't have enough juice to start the car (everything else turns on ignition/stereo/lights everything, just not the car). Or maybe even the battery being bad altogether, although I doubt its the latter. Now the weirdest thing about it is just like when it bogs out if I leave it for 5-20 mins it will fire up like nothing was wrong every time. Now when I say I get nothing I mean absolutely nothing whatsoever, I don't get the little click of the starter when the battery's low nothing no motion/noise/or sounds other then the fuel pump kicking on.
Whenever it happens I just tell people she gets moody
, but I honestly don't know what it is. I checked all the fuses I could think off and nothing is blown. I checked the Battery leads nothings shorting out or corroded from what I can see, and even if there was it wouldn't make sense as to why it will start back up if left alone, because it would be a Full time thing.
I've been having a problem similar to his which has switched up a little on me. I thought it was the fuel pump, but that isn't what it seems to be, as I always hear the fuel pump turn on with ignition and engage on turn over. So next I thought maybe it was the injectors getting clogged and staying open flooding the motor, but I don't think its that either because I've added injector cleaner on separate occasions and it doesn't seem to remedy the problem, and I know that's not a perfect way to be sure, but its a start. Either way my problem goes like this...
I turn the car over and it will start to fire, Now the majority of the time it will start from a "cold start". Cold start meaning the first fire of the day or in several hours since it has been used (lets say long enough for the block to cool off after being driven), but every now and then though it will fire and then bog out like it chokes and the car will die (it literally sounds like its choking), and it wont start after no matter how much I turn it over for as long as I want. This only happens every now and then, normally though it will just turn over and start no extra steps needed, nothing fancy. So now it gets better...Pretty much every time after I drive the car whether its down the street to the gas station or to my girlie friends house 2 cities over, after I shut off the car and come back to start it again it will do what I described above EVERY TIME.
The very first thing I thought was causing this was my valve cover, the reason for this is its leaking oil at the seals allowing it to get into the spark plug chambers (where the wires go), the amount varies by chamber, spark plug 1 is normally just sort of moist like it gets misted, but 3 is normally soaked like a puddle. I thought maybe the oil wasn't allowing the plug to spark, because in the past my distributor had oil leaking into it, also from the valve cover causing the car to die randomly and not start, but that isn't the problem either.
So what I've been doing to combat this issue is when you turn it over as soon as it shows signs of life and starts to pickup, rev it to the 4's I normally give it 2-3 quick taps and then i'll just hold it in the 2's for maybe 10 seconds then let it settle to normal idle and it fires up and runs no problem(I've never had it randomly die after its started this way), Although sometimes doing even this isn't enough to get it started and it will still bog out, but that probably only happens 1/15-20 starts, I think its more of a timing fail on my part.
Anyways just recently something new has started happening, Because of the above stated start problem I always rev the car when starting the car, regardless if its a cold start or not, and while revving will start the car and normally is needed after its ran for a while and I stop it, There are times where it seems like the clutch switch isn't engaging and I wont even get the starter turn over, I get nothing from the motor when I turn the key over. So here is the twist. It's actually more like 2 things have popped up, First being sometimes if I don't have the clutch floored the car wont turn over, It never used to need to be floored, just engaged. Like I said though there's a twist, sometimes even if it is floored it still wont turn over, and so far this only happens after its been driven and then parked for a couple mins before attempting to run it again, just like the above rev problem. For a parked time example lets say the amount of time it takes to fill up a tank of gas.
Now as I said it doesn't turn over at all, but I know the clutch switch is engaging, because if its down, I can hear the fuel pump turn on when I turn the key, and if I release the clutch it will shut off immediately, only to pick back up when I drop the clutch to the floor again. So I know its making contact. Now what I'm wondering is if its the starter not engaging for whatever reason or if its the alternator going out and not charging the battery fully, So it doesn't have enough juice to start the car (everything else turns on ignition/stereo/lights everything, just not the car). Or maybe even the battery being bad altogether, although I doubt its the latter. Now the weirdest thing about it is just like when it bogs out if I leave it for 5-20 mins it will fire up like nothing was wrong every time. Now when I say I get nothing I mean absolutely nothing whatsoever, I don't get the little click of the starter when the battery's low nothing no motion/noise/or sounds other then the fuel pump kicking on.
Whenever it happens I just tell people she gets moody
, but I honestly don't know what it is. I checked all the fuses I could think off and nothing is blown. I checked the Battery leads nothings shorting out or corroded from what I can see, and even if there was it wouldn't make sense as to why it will start back up if left alone, because it would be a Full time thing.
