hey everyone, I noticed this problem last friday when the car stalled out on me as I pulled out of my driveway. It struggled to start right away, then i let it sit for a minute, then it fired right up. Had no issues all weekend, drove about 100-150 miles w/o any problems, and then the car sat all week.

Had the same issue today, except its stalling out in my garage, wont fire up right away, and when I got it to run, it was running really choppy. The only thing I've noticed with these issues is that the oil pressure is through the roof when I start it up.

Anyways, I got the car running and drove to get my inspection sticker and had no issues. Couldnt even get the sticker as the place I go to had the entire road ripped up down to the gravel

Below are some videos of my struggles. Is my engine f'ed or could this be a simple fix? Maybe a messed up throttle body or idle valve or something? Thanks guys

 

Squirted?

 

Sounds like only 3 cylinders are firing between 0:17 & 0:22 on the first video. And the camera (maybe the car) is shaking in sync to the sound.

C

 

stock ecu, i havent put the megasquirt in. Obviously wont install it until I resolve this issue

 

did some digging, seems like the symptoms I'm having are due to a dead coil. Can anyone provide insight on that?

 

have a friend who has a 1.6 coilpack, should be picking it up later today and hopefully will solve my problems.

I also pulled the spark plugs and noticed some oil in the threads so I may buy a new valve cover gasket as well.

 

Change the igniter first. I've yet to see a fried 1.6 coil, the igniter always goes out first.

 

Turns out the coil was fine. Replaced with another coil and it did the same thing. This problem only happens when the car is cold, and it only does it within the first 2 minutes or so of the engine being running if I give it throttle. All the vacuum hoses look fine too.

Also noticed there is what seems to be a random knock. It doesnt match any injector cycles or rpms or anything, and it also went away after about 3-4 minutes.

 

Heard this thing run today. The knock is weird. Its cyclical but maybe 2 seconds between knocks. Its relatively faint and doesn't increase in volume with revs. I couldn't tell if it followed the revs because the engine noise drowned it out when revving.

The car revs up great when its running. I told him next time it happens to have a set of plugs handy and plug them into the wires and make sure all the plugs fire to rule out a potential ignition issue.

One odd thing of note was his injectors and connectors were COVERED in oil. To the point that if I squeezed the harness going to one injector, oil squeezed out. Definitely not fuel. Oil for sure. Any chance this could interfere with the contact between the harness and injector? Not sure why it would only affect cold starts though.

 

How is the oil? Water? tested spark output on all 4? fuel? check timing and t-belt? Vaccum readings?

 

oil is good. I have a mobil 1 filter which might explain the random spikes to 90. I never noticed that until I put that filter in. Will replace it w/ a stock one on sunday.

Also hopefully will check timing tomorrow. I think water level is good. I dont have a vac gauge, so I cant check that. Also havent checked fuel psi either. will try spark output tomorrow as well.

 

Could be the CAS. My car did some crazy **** when my CAS went, twice. If you have access to another one to swap, it's worth a shot.

 

I tried diagnostics yesterday, got no codes, so I cleaned the grounds today and retried diagnostics, still no codes. However, let the car run for 15 min to get to operating temp (to do the diagnostics) and it didn't have any knock which put me in a better mood about this thing.

Dont have access to another CAS unfortunately

 

check the timing.

 

Once I get my hands on a timing light, I will. I'm also considering buying one, but I'm not sure what to get. I'd like something that will last a couple years.

 

Just buy one at vatozone.

 

would it be reliable tho?

 

Hopefully more reliable than your miata.

 

that cuts deeeeppppp. Dragula is goign to let me borrow his timing light. I should eventually buy one though.

 

does your crank pully go clack clack clack?