04 sportka intermittent running rich, smokey exhaust, misfiring..

[Pluggy]

Hi guys and gals, 

 

The wife has recently had an issue with her sportka on her way to work the other day.. sudden loss of power, engine management flashing, clouds of smoke from the exhaust. I went out to her and found it running on 3 cylinders, belching out clouds of smoke, smelling very strongly of unburnt fuel. 

 

So.. checking the HT leads were firmly attached (only fitted 10k miles ago along with ngk R plugs, basically a full service).  No issues found. After pulling off various things and trying to start it, it started and ran fine... For 50 yards before running on two cylinders and again smoking like a train.

Autoaid to the rescue. 

Fault codes read. 

Bank 1 sensor 1 running rich. 

 

So got it home, found fuel around the pre cat lambda sensor! So... Changed the coil pack, checked the leads and plugs. Cylinder 1 and 2 plugs both wet with petrol. Then it began to ran fine again and cleared up. Weird. 

 

Suddenly, it begins misfiring, lack of power, engine management light flashing again, clouds of smoke, stinking of fuel again. 

 

Plugged our code reader in, found cylinder 1 misfire this time.  

Unplugged the injector on cylinder 1, started it up, as expected, running rough but no smoke.. plugged it back in, running fine! 

 

We've noticed on idle once warm, the exhaust emits a random puttering noise which after say 30 seconds, it clears up and idles really smoothly for a short time before going back to this off beat puttering again. 

With live data, the short fuel trim % hits negative 8,10,17 or more when it is making this off beat puttering on idle. 

The long fuel trim % hits negative when revved, on idle, is around 1.6 to 2.2

 

When the car is running on all cylinders and not over fueling. I've also noticed when trying to hold the revs steady and the same rpm. There is a clear, minor misfire that can be felt through the car. 

Begining to feel like this could be an electrical gremlin somewhere as disconnecting the HT leads and and injector plugs has also brought on the steering wheel air bag warning light which is now perm on. 

 

Any help is appreciated, kinda of losing the will to live with this. 

Thanks

[Pluggy]

Well, if anybody does use these forums or if you found this from a Google search, here's the solution to this problem! 

 

If you have the symptoms of intermittent misfire on one cylinder, suddenly throwing out loads of smoke, smelling  of petrol and virtually un-drivable. 

 

New injector is required. 

 

A simple OBD2 scanner should tell you which cylinder is misfiring. 

 

Swap this injector to another cylinder and wait for the issue again (don't go too far from home or on busy roads an early Sunday morning is ideal for when it suddenly goes and loses power etc). 

If the fault has gone to the other cylinder.. 

 

New injector is required 

Our findings, the injectors available from euro car parts don't last 6 months. 

 

Advice... Get a whole injector rail with regulator and injectors from a street or sport and swap the whole unit at the side of the road in just a few minutes.

 

Hope this helps anyone