Rough running
 

Hi Gang and Merry Christmas,

My car sometimes cranks funny. Instead of a quick spin of the starter and then fireing up, the starter spins in a funny cycle then when the car fires up it runs rough. It shakes for a while then smooths out. It also put out a strong smelling smole like there is allot of unburnt fuel.

It only does this rarely, but I thought would pose the question. I think I might have a leaky injector because after sitting about an hour it does not crank right up. Does this sound like a coil pack going bad?

Thanks

Paul

Try the cheapest/simplest fixes first, thoroughly clean the throttle body with carb cleaner. My SVX had the same hard start and rough idling problems for years until I finally cleaned it this past summer. I also thought I had a badly leaking injector from some of the symptoms. But since the cleaning, I have not had a single recurrance of the past problems, like hard starting when cool/humid or shortly after being parked, stalling right after starting, and mild shaking until the engine warmed up. The exhaust still smells rich right after starting though, but it has done that since day one.

KuoH

You both have at least one injector leaking down. A good idea is to replace the offender(s). Excess fuel will find its way into the case and dilute the oil.

Easiest way to determine which injector is leaking down is with a gas analyzer - stop engine, pull spark plugs and wait an hour or so. Use gas analyzer in each spark plug hole until you find the one(s) with an ultra high HC reading. Of course most people don't have a gas analyzer laying around, but you'd be surprised how many techs have one available and still don't know how to use it in this manner. Now you can teach them... ;)

I've been attempting to avoid techs as much as possible since the last few dealer visits a couple of years ago. I wonder what if I can find out which injector with a match? ;)

KuoH

I blew my eyebrows off many years ago while doing a compression test on a 12kw generator. While I was looking down to put my finger on the starter switch a plug wire slid down over an empty spark plug hole. Lucky for me the hole was directly in front of my face, so that when I pushed the switch to crank the engine over the wire lit the mixture, shooting a nice big flame out of the hole and into my face. :eek: It certainly dried my eyes out for the next few days. I swear I could hear them squeak when they moved...

Beav, if you had told us this story sooner, I'm sure your mailbox would be filled with bottles of Visine right about now.

I guess it's a good thing that it is impossible to line our eyes up with the spark hole in the SVX, unless you're an alien or something. ;)

KuoH

Thanks!
 

I am not sure if anyone would have a gas analyzer around here since we're all red necks down here in NC. Most of the time the way we fix a car is to floor the gas pedal:p .

The hard starting problem has been plaguing Huoh and Myself for a long time.

Thanks guys,