Delta HF turbo ie, just won't fire up!

[Guy Croft]

Connect the ignition system and check that it generates sparks when the engine is cranked, by holding the main feed from the coil to the distributor 0.5cm from an earth point. Both injected and carburetted engines will spray fuel out of the cylinders (unless the fuel pump is isolated) so keep the HT lead well away and wear eye protection. Keep a CO2 extinguisher to hand.

A good test that all the injectors are working: the fuel pumping out of the plug holes when the engine is cranked can be ignited with a small butane torch – there should be a blue flame on each compression stroke. Be aware of the risk of this flame igniting anything and wear eye protection).

'Colortune' would also be worth trying:


http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=colort ... mages&tbs=

GC

[Infectus-Guy]

After all that messing about, it turned out to be the most basic of problems! Spark plugs!!! Obviously the original ones had pretty much died overnight, i guess the heating up after a long time sitting had finished them off. The spares that i put in were second hand ones that i had, but looked brand new. These were duff too! It wasn't until i tried the set out of my track car that it fired up. Its not the first time i've had NGK's fail in a short period of time, i was doing a brake upgrade on my Capri that took a week and in that time 3 of the plugs suddenly died.
Well if nothing else it was certainly a learning experience. I know the loom, the sensor resistances and their supply voltages etc.
Guy

[Infectus-Guy]

Okay, so having slaved over the bodywork a bit and diverting my attention back to the engine, i'm still having problems after all. I'm 99% sure its not a fueling issue as i've checked all the loom again for the engine temp sensor and it all tests out fine. I'm still getting loads of smoke despite trying some decent 2nd hand rings and honing the bores, it could be the turbo though as it only smokes whilst idling or off-load (even though it didn't smoke on the previous car!). I must do another compression test come to think of it! I don't think the smoke has anything to do with the firing problem though. When i start the engine with fully cleaned plugs (or even my brand new ones) it still won't idle properly, it still tries to die every 6 seconds or so and you have to give it a load of throttle just to keep it alive. When this happens you can hear a bit of burping going on back through the inlet. This surely means its trying to spark at the wrong time? I took it for a short (and very smoky!) drive the other day and the power delivery was very hesitant, it drove very much like one with a faulty engine temp sensor. It can't be this though because i've swapped the sensor, checked the wiring and even used my 2 stage manual choke device which uses a pair of resistors (something i made up to help diagnosis first time i had this problem). The rev counter sometimes seems a bit laggy, they're directly wired to the coil but i've tried a different one already to no avail. The only thing i haven't swapped is the crank sensor, though the resistance is in tolerance as is the gap.
Would very much appreciate some advice as i'm half temped to sell the whole thing on as a project and probably take a few hundred pounds loss on it, not to mention HOURS of my time!
Guy

[WhizzMan]

I just went over this topic again and failed to see any mention of the coil being swapped. Did I misread it, or did you not yet try another ignition coil?

[Infectus-Guy]

I just went over this topic again and failed to see any mention of the coil being swapped. Did I misread it, or did you not yet try another ignition coil?

Sorry yes, i forgot to add that to the list of things I have tried. I've just bolted another turbo on and i'm going to fire it up in a minute, if it still smokes i'm going to rip the engine out. Even if it is the crank sensor (which is the only thing haven't tried yet) the engine would be unusable anyway. I will give it a try and report back with my findings.
Guy

[Infectus-Guy]

So having tried my spare turbo and it still belching out smoke, i've decided to pull the whole engine out and replace it. Lets hope this strange misfire problem goes away with it!
Guy

[WhizzMan]

That's drastic, given the fact that you have not found a cause yet. I'd plan on swapping the wiring loom for the engine as well, if you are going to swap it out.

[Guy Croft]

Guy, albeit it's not my car it is my website - so I am going to suggest you try calmly to ID the exact cause of the problem rather than binning the car/project/engine/turbo, OK?!

If it's smoking is it oil or gasoline? If the compressions are 'good' then the most likely cause of oily smoke is thru the turbo circuit.

I did suggest use of a Colortune but you don't seem to have tried it. That would give you a clue as to whether the running issue was gasoline or ignition - that would be a start, would it not?

G

[Infectus-Guy]

Damnit, i knew there was a suggestion of yours i still had left to try! Alas the engine is out though and sitting on a pallet as a potential rebuild. I did at least use my little resistor gadget to fool the car into thinking it was warm and therefore leaning the mixture out whilst trying to start it. It wouldn't start up so switched it to "cold" and it fired, still loads of smoke and trying to stall every now and then though.

I have a 70,000 mile engine which runs very smoothly and quietly, so that bottom end will be going into my track delta and the surprisingly healthy 125,000 mile engine from that will go into this road car project. With all the head swapping it will at least finally give me a chance to tidy up the ports on my track car head and fit the spesso racing gasket that i've had on the shelf for a while. At least there's that to look forward to. It seems to be all clouds and not many silver linings at the moment, especially having just done myself a lower back injury which will put me out of the garage for a week or so. Considering the fact that i spend almost every day in there its a bit of a choker. I will report back with my findings when i'm all done though.
Guy