Thread: Engine Dies

Originally Posted by AK83

Yeah, this is what mine would do until we traced it to the seals too.

You'd be cruising at pretty much any speed, then it felt like it ran out of fuel ... like you've turned off the ignition.
Difference between what Dave describes and my problem back in the day, is that mine would happen at any speed.

I then found a 'trick' to keep it going while it's dying ... pump the accelerator pedal, and it could start up again ... until it stopped again.
Also once it died and I was on the side of the road, very hard to start it first time. For quick start(ie. less than 5-10 sec cranking) had to do the 5 pedal pump fuel prime. Then it'd start quickly.

This went on for a while, changed FPR and fuel pump, and while I had the nanocom on it and running(didn't think of logging did I?) .. anyhow I had it on the injector balance page and noticed that a sec or two before it dies, injector balances would go all wild.
Running normally they'd show values between say -15 and 15 and usually about 5's and 6s, and flicker up/down to the 15s. But just before the engine dies, they go all wild and show values in the hundreds.

Someone here suggested injector seals and the problem was solved.

This is getting worse to the point I can't drive it anymore. My symptoms are very similar to what is written above.

However, I have since changed injector seals. They were in a pretty sad state so I was confident that this would fix the problem. It didn't

I then changed the fuel pump, still the same. I noticed fuel pressure regulator was leaking, so I did that. Still the same.

I even change the little valve in the fuel filter as well as the filter.

What has changed since it first happened. When it stopped I could restart and drive off. Now when I restart it if I try to drive off it just stalls.

If, after a restart and I try revving the engine it doesn't quite stall but it feels like it is running on about 3 cyl and just idling at about 350 RPM.

Whilst this is happening it is belching black smoke as bad as a racing truck.

To get it running normal again, with engine off and key on I give it several accelerator pumps to activate fuel pump.

This gets it running fine until next time.

Today I experimented in my yard without driving it. From cold I took revs to about 2000. When it warmed a bit I took it to 3000 RPM

After 11 minutes it died. After priming the fuel pump and getting it running, at 3000 RPM it lasted a minute and a half

I have no doubt that it is a fuel issue with symptoms replicating really bad injector seals.

And as was stated above, just before it died nanocom had cyl balance all over the place.

Where else could compression get into the fuel system.

So come on brains trust, I need some help here as it is near impossible to drive.

Only two things I can think of for 'ya Dave would be:

1. did you clean up the injector seats(head side obviously) nicely? could be some debris, or uneven pitting .. or something like that, OR maybe the new seals got damaged as they were installed.

2. possible cracked head? hows your oil looking/smelling? If it smells like diesel or if it's a bit high ... that's one situation you don't want.

When this happened to my D2(which was my brothers at that time tho), I had it for a while trying to sort it. On the last test drive, when I found that the injector balances went all over the place, I was on a drive out to LRA. They're not too far from me at that time, and I was going to get them to look at it. I was on Mahoneys Road Thomastown and it started to shut down, and that was the first time I tried .... "pump the pedal vigorously while it was shutting down" I was at 80k/h and the pedal pumping got it going again after a few seconds.

Having found that out(and being cheap!) I turned back around heading home. I used Mahoneys Rd b/c I didn't want to it to stop on the freeway(Ring Rd), but on the way home, took the chance and used that. I think I got back up to about 90k/h soon after I got on the fwy, same thing it dies, I pump the right pedal, it got going again. I had a few min wait on the Sydney road off ramp hoping to god it wont' happen there, luckily I got green light heading down Sydney Rd, I didn't get up to speed(maybe 60ish) and pedal pumping didn't keep it going this time.

Once home, I think I posted my question and pretty much all advice was injector seals then.
Did them... fixed, bro was over the moon (except for the prior cost of fuel pump, FPR, fuel filter, fuel filter valve thingy ... etc.)