Thread: 2002 Disco not starting, have fuel and spark

Originally Posted by garrycol

Will that ECU work as it will be looking for the Body Control Unit of the car it came out off and may not recognise your BCU?

Easy to get it to be recognised with a Hawkeye or Nanocom, via learn security function and it will be ok.

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

Not many things actually stop these things,, (lots of things though contribute to a decline in performance, coil packs normally fall into this catergory).
Crank angle sensor will stop them.
Fuel pump will stop them.
Security will stop them.

A tripped inertia switch will stop them.

Because I am getting spark and fuel I dont think its the inertia switch. In my mind there are only 3 things left. ECM, wiring and timing chain.
So I am going to map the old ECM and copy it to the new ECM via Nanocom. When I plugged in the new ECM without mapping I didnt even get a spark.
Timing chain will be last.
It is probably something really simple like a earth wire has broken. Very frustrating!

Given what you said in your very first post it is not timing chain.

Will the engine fire up on starting fluid? If yes not a timing issue and most likely an injection/fuel issue - if still no firing then you are back to square one.

I will try with Aerostart and see. At the moment the intake manifold is off so I could put it back on with the old gasket just to check. I came down with the Lurgi last week so was unable work on it but will do this week. Thanks to everyone for their help. I will also check all the wiring to make sure there is nothing wrong there.

Just an update of the prolonged saga with my Disco 2 V8. I had the injectors all cleaned, checked to see if they were getting voltage and they were. Put the intake manifold back on, connected everything up again. The coil pack relocation kit came so I also installed that. Then with the help of my neighbour started to test each HT cable for spark and it started. I had a cam sensor fault but that was due to the plug not seated properly. After that all faults had cleared. I drove the car for a week and starting was becoming more difficult. Then it wouldn't start at all and kaboom the muffler blew up again. So I towed the car back home and went to google again. I found a post from someone who had the exact exploding muffler symptoms that I had and he also went down the same road of replacing crank sensor, cam sensor etc. He found out the internal fuse box was the culprit or specifically the circuit board within the fuse box. I purchased another one from ebay but before it arrived I replaced all the spark plugs and again it started. I started to check all the wiring I would have touched when putting in the spark plugs. but it was still starting although not running well. I then replaced the fuse box and thought I had better clean the IACV, MAF sensor and Throttle Body, as well as adjust the throttle and cruise control cable. The IACV was full of gunk and did not rattle until half a can or throttle body cleaner was sprayed into it. After all of that it idled fine. I gathered enough courage to drive it and it drove like a dream, starts fine and no faults.
So with the risk of being premature the prognosis is the IACV was getting stuck and possibly the 'Intelligent Driver Module' (IDM) in the internal fuse box was faulty. It may be the cable from the IACV as well but I rattled that that to see if the fault returned and its hasn't. What a 8 month saga and hopefully the problem has been solved although there is a small element of doubt.
Thanks to all those who provided advise, it helped considerably.

Glad you appear to have it sorted and thanks for posting the conclusion

PS - just quietly, I suggested you check the IACV back in July🤪

Yep thanks ballbag, If I had looked at that first I may not have had all those months of an unusable vehicle and the expense of another muffler. I think with a disco 2 its just one long continuous learning curve.