July 17

- getting the new bits to work -

Well, despite the lack of website updates, I have been able to try a few more things to try and sort out this emissions stuff.

The LC-1 problem turned out to be that the logger software isn't supposed to see the LC-1...

So, William came round with his LM-1. We plugged it in, got the engine running, and William noticed that the lambda readings were very erratic - more than he would expect. Other observations were that the likelhood of a misfire increased as the engine warmed up, and that a misfire was often accompanied by the LM-1 resetting itself. We hummed and hawed for a bit, before William decided that my throttle bodies needed balancing. We listened to them through a rubber hose, and it was clear that they didn't sound balanced.

William was also worried about the LM-1 resetting itself - something it only normally does if it doesn't see enough volts. Perhaps the battery isn't very healthy. It's quite new, but perhaps was irreversibly damaged by being run completely flat on 'the bad day'

A few days later, I borrowed Dan Bromilow's 4 way carb balancer, connected it up to the IAPS take-offs on the throttle bodies, and sure enough, they weren't balanced. After several many lots of minutes I eventually got them balanced, but found it necessary to bump the hot idle speed up to 1400rpm for the engine to be able to run without stalling.

A few days after that, I decided to try and do the fuelling changes necessary to get a solid lambda of 1 at idle. However, when I started, I realised that the lamdba reading was still too erratic, and there were still misfires.

So, the time to investigate the electric supply had arrived. Following the Suzuki service manual, I determined that the alternator appeared to be OK, delivering the requisite number of Volts and having the right coil resistance at the specified engine speed with no load. I couldn't unfortunately test the regulator as the test involves switching the meter to some sort of Diode setting that I don't have.

One point of note is that the tests are carried out at 5000rpm, which is an indication that the alternator isn't running at full whack until there or thereabouts - so when (if...) I drive I'll have to keep the revs up to keep the battery charged. Officer.

I stopped the engine to reconnect the alternator cables - and couldn't get it started again. Lots of petrol, which occasionally appeared to manage to catch fire, but clearly there were no sparks to speak off, and the only thing I was succeeding in doing was pumping petrol out of the tank and out of the garage door via the exhaust...

No choice for it then but to try and get hold of a better battery. Fortunately, my housemate had a spare one. I charged it up, connected it up, and ... nothing. Not a sausage. (He's not called 'my useless housemate' for nothing.) It read 12V without any load, but didn't appear capable of delivering any current.

So I gave my existing battery a top up and reconnected it. The engine ran for 2 minutes, and then stalled and refused to start. I checked the voltage - 12.5V. I put it back on charge, and the Ammeter lept up to 5A and stayed there. I don't know much about electricity, but I don't think that's right...

So. What now? It appears that the engine needs a good solid voltage, so I need to source a good battery and see if that fixes it all: the stalling, the misfiring, the erratic lambda reading, the funny smell coming from the bins...

July 19

- getting worse -

William brought round a monster battery yesterday, which I left charging for 24hrs.

Into the garage, connect the battery, turn the engine over. A brief, lumpy, unhappy grumble. Try again, the same. Try revving the engine - stalls.

The sound is reminiscent of a time when I disconnected the IAPS whilst the engine was running (just to see what happened), so I try without that connected. Engine roars into life, idles for a 20s, and then stalls as the idle control reduces to minimum.

Swap the IAPS for the (identical) normal APS. Exactly the same - so it's not the sensor itself failing, unless both have failed simultaneously.

What does that leave? Dodgy loom, and dodgy ECU, I suppose. I guess my first port of call is to replace the wiring between the sensor and the ECU... Oh joy.

July 24

- getting worse still -

Another disappointing day. Having had the Cam7 mob around to help diagnose the problem, I bought a new set of spark plugs yesterday, and fitted them today. Now the engine at least fires, but with the same symptoms as before - will only catch if the IAPS is disconnected, and then dies shortly afterwards.

As I don't want to kill another set of plugs, I stopped trying to figure out what might be wrong and came back in the house.

Sigh

This page last updated on: Thursday, Aug 24 2006