Weird Engine Issues Of Mysterious Origin

[mastakilla 1]

Hi, I just want you to share with you all the issues I am experiencing with the car lately: roughly one month ago I had it back from the garage and the engine was running "fine", by "fine" I mean that it was able to pull regularly without kangarooing or cutting, up to the limiter. It produced some petrol smell which made me think mixture was not perfectly set up, and it had hunting/high idle issues and excessive fuel consumption along with not so brilliant performance, but other than that, it was fine.

Trying to fix these small issues, I started suspecting the CTS, and I fiddled a bit under the dizzy to try to spot it: I didn't remove it, I just touched the connector.

After that, the car started to loose completely power, jerking badly, shaking violently and producing awful sounds. I suspected I had snapped some wire and double checked everything around the dizzy and CTS, but had no luck.

Suspecting an ignition issue, I replaced dizzy cap, vacuum module and rotor arm, coil, plugs and ht leads and fuel pump relay.

Guess what, nothing changed...a new ignition module is on the way but I doubt it will make any difference.

In the meanwhile I had the AFM out and tried it with a multimeter, getting readings compatible with the ones I found on the forum, so I don't think it is the AFM being shot.

Ruled out AFM and ignition, a fuel pressure test revealed 1,5 bar both at the injectors and the pump outlet. I thought I had found the culprit, finally, but with my surprise I discovered that my car had from the start the wrong pump fitted, a pump used in diesels that by spec produces 1,5 bars of pressure.

So yes, it was wrong and I ordered the correct one, but clearly it was not the cause of the irregularities.

I have made very few kms (around 300) with the bad pump, which I suspect has made the car running very lean. May this have caused some major damage to the engine?

[Grim.Badger 15]

Best double check all of your connections, particularly the blue clip-on connector on the ECU temperature sensor and the main earths on the gearbox.

 

I don't know for sure about any damage caused by running the engine on low fuel pressure for 300km, but I doubt it would cause anything serious particuarly if you can smell petrol from the exhaust (which would strongly suggest that you're actually running rich).