help, engine dies at startup - (56k Warning - SOLVED)

[Bean]

Hi everybody,

yesterday my AE86 stopped working smoothly from one moment to the other

first I thought a gasket is loose as the car sounds like a tractor... but then started to check plugs... all 4 are fine and have sparks BUT I can leave the leads to #3 & #4 off and nothing changes so my guess is injectors, although I've never heard of two injectors fail at the same time... any other suggestions?

Car's sitting outside looking sad like me

[jamiemirror]

Distrubutor cap ?

[Bean]

UPDATE: I limped the car back to my garage and did some more tests
verdict:
compression
#1 >12bar
#2 >12bar
#3 0bar
#4 0bar :mad:

guess the headgasket went between the the two pots...
ordered new gaket set and will take the head off next weak...

[Bean]

well a little update - after I took everything apart and finished reasembling it yesterday, the engine didn't want to start - I checkd compression again and it's fine now (there was a 2cm piece missing in the HG between 3 & 4)...
anyway any suggestions? I did the timingbelt at the same time... and all the marks line up as they should... realy puzzled and pissed now

will post pics next week as I need to get my other PC with the card reader running again first

[Mux213]

Hey Bean,

Glad to hear your HG problem is fixed. Sorry to hear you run into another problem...

Can you give us some more details? The only suggestion I have right now since you swapped the timing belt is to make sure your crankshaft isn't off by 180 degrees (the marks will still line up). This would mean your rotor is 180 degrees off and your engine is firing on the exhaust stroke

You can check this by taking the rotor cap off, turn the engine to TDC with the timing gears lineing up on their marks, and seeing if the rotor nicely points to the lead of the #1 piston.

[Bean]

well I didn't have any patience left in the end to take some pictures but I did the following when installing the belt... I lined up the cams with there corresponding marks and the crank with the pin upwards (also matching the mark) - I then let the tension pulley loose (to put tension on the belt) - turned the crank for 2 revolutions and everything was still alligned nicely...
I checked the piston is at TDC when the pin was up... oh by turning the crank for 180 the #1 would be at the BDC

[Mux213]

Hey bean,

I was talking camshaft/rotor positions, not crank position

For every 2 times the crank rotates, the camshafts and rotor turn once.

So for the crank, TBC is indeed at 0 and 360 degrees, and BDC is at 180 and 540 degrees.

The problem is, TBC at 360 degrees is the start of your exhaust stroke and your camshafts will have rotated only 180 degrees. Also your rotor will only have turned 180 degrees at this point. Visually however, looking at the crank shaft you can't see a difference between 0 degrees and 360 degrees (duh!).

So if you have the 'incorrect' TBC, namely the one before the exhaust stroke, your timing will be completely wrong. Even if you put the camshafts nicely at their starting positions using the timing marks, your rotor is still 180 degrees off.

Ergo, if you took the old timing belt off, then took the head off to replace the HG, then put the head back on and then lined up the camshafts and the crankshaft to their marks, you have a good change you actually had to turn the crankshaft another 360 degrees (yes back to where it started) to set the rotor up right.

So go check your rotor!!

[Bean]

pity - when I first tried to fire it up it sounded strange, so I turned it to alline again with all the marks... took the belt off and turned the crank 360 and put everything back together and strange enough I couldn't hear any difference in the maybe 3 sec (2 max 3 fire tries) it runs...

[Mux213]

Hey bean,

Did you check the rotor position? Its not a good idea to do this trial and error, I have no idea if your engine can get damaged if the rotor is pointing in the wrong direction... I would say not because it would fire on the exhaust stroke with the exhaust ports open... but no idea... always was careful to make sure all was lined up perfectly, never wanted to risk it..

But you say it does try to run and then just dies out? Or does it purely turn on the starter and never fires up?

[Bean]

I'll have a proper check on monday as my girl needs some attention after all the time I spent in the garage that week...
it fires 1-3 times then dies, the plugs are flooded and it doesnt start at all for another 15min - my starter is fine... cheers for the help, I'll report on tuesday with pics