Thread: Not starting, stalling, running out of enthusiasm.

G'day all,

I've asked about this on the Facebook page but thought some may not use that so I would ask here also. I have a non-starting and stalling issue with a friends 98 D1 V8 to overcome.

It has on occasion stalled or refused to start but leaving it for 20 minutes or so would usually see it come back to life like nothing had happened and there could be weeks of trouble-free motoring afterwards, until it would do it again. Until the other week when it stalled and refused to start and had seemingly lost all spark. I've checked for the factory alarm/immobiliser box but it has all been taken out and replaced with a 12 year old Dynamco 6XR V4. I've spoken to Dynamco themselves and bypassed the immobiliser and it has made no difference.

I've put a working Bosch 024 ignition module and Bosch coil in with a used genuine baseplate and pickup in the dizzy (also set the air gap correctly) and a working genuine rotor arm and know that all leads and the dizzy cap are ok. The old plugs were very dirty and I replaced them with a set of NGK BP6ES (old ones were BPR5ES-11). I have my own 95 RRC 3.9 to test different parts on as the RRC is actually running just fine. All of the ignition parts currently in the D1 up to the actual distributor body itself have worked in the RRC. I did manage to make the engine stall a few times in a row by moving the two sets of wires next to the coil with the inline Lucas resistors, the wires are quite hard and possibly broken inside the loom somewhere? All of these connections and the coil terminals are all squeaky clean and snug fitting by the way.

I have had Rovergauge connected to the ECU when car was last running and it shows no faults with anything. The last I had the car running was about a week ago and after 15-20 minutes it almost stalled once, then picked up to idle again for a few seconds then stalled and now will not start. I have also checked main and fuel pump relays and both seem ok. The battery has about 12.7v and the starter is sometimes either very slow to crank over (as if the battery is flat) or very fast to crank over.

I'm at a bit of a loss now as short of pulling out the incredibly annoying drawers in the boot to try to get the fuel pump out to replace or to trace those wires back to the ECU from the coil - I am ready to burn it.

Help me please!

The wire and resistor connected to the negative side of the coil is the only way the ECU can tell that the engine is running. The fuel pump and injectors will not operate without this connection. I doubt that the wire is broken but make sure that all of the exposed parts are good. A replacement resistor could be bought from an electronics shop if you could read a value.

I would be rigging some LED test lights at 1. the negative side of the coil, 2. an injector negative wire and 3. the fuel pump fuse which is downstream of the relay on the way to the pump. The little rocker switches with built in LEDs make excellent test lights and can be bought in many places. If you have pulsing at the coil and not at the injectors the ECU isn't getting a pulse. The fuel pump should come on (and be audible) shortly after you turn on the ignition then come on during cranking and stopping a second after cranking stops. The fuel rail should have a Schrader valve where you can test fuel pressure.