so yet again, I'm working with an asshole 240. This thing seriously goes out of its way to hurt my feelings.
The latest thing this little shit is doing.
It is a bitch to get started. Once it gets started, it runs like crap. You have to hold the throttle open a little to keep it alive. Constant miss-fire. It is either cylinder 3 or cylinder 2, consistently. After it runs for about a minute. It will drop another cylinder. Either 2 or 3 depending on which one was missing first. Typically, it misses on number 3, then drops number 2, but by the end of the night last night, that had switched. The engine tries to keep itself alive running on number 1 and 4, but that only lasts 10-20 seconds, then the engine stalls out. Can't get it started again for about 10 minutes, then it is the same crap all over again.
Don't know how the engine ran prior to this. This is a friend's car and he bought a used engine to replace his that is needing a rebuild. So I don't have any history. It has ran like this since we put it in. Well, it ran worse, but that was a MAF problem and we solved that.
Pulled the fuel rail off and all injectors spray fuel, the pattern looks good and they appear to spray as they should. They ohm test within tolerance. 1, 2, and 4 test at 11.5-11.8 and number 3 tests at 12.2.
Pulled each spark plug wire and grounded it to the chassis, turned the engine over and each one sparks as it should. did the same with the plugs to ensure the plugs themselves were sparking.
Replaced the ECU with three separate, known to be good ECUs.
Replaced the distributor thinking it was the CAS but that didn't make any difference.
I'm needing ideas. Hell, bad ideas would be a help at this point. Don't need useless ideas, I know the totally unrelated tire pressure is good.


Cliff notes: engine is a pain to start. once started, runs like crap with consistent miss-fire. a couple minutes later, drops another cylinder. runs on two cylinders for a minute. stalls out. won't start for at least 10 minutes.

Ideas?

 

when u put this motor in did u use the harness that came with it or ur old one???(pinched wire???) only thing i have come up with since last night.

 

we used the harness that came with the engine. the knuckheads that sold us the engine took the harness off when they pulled the engine. So who knows why they did that.
But I've been over the harness. I've not been able to find anything. I've tested a bunch already and not been able to find a short.
I didn't want to just swap the harnesses with my old harness because my old harness is all set up for the tuck and would be a pain in the dick to install with the engine in the car.
I'm going to try that upper timing gear tonight and see what happens, so cross your fingers for that.

 

i have a spare working harness and good 28 ecu if needed.

 

well it turned out to be that upper timing gear.
problem is, the bolt was warped, and stripped the threads on its way out. so now we need to get our hands on a helicoil to get it fixed.

How does that sort of thing happen? Its a hardened steel bolt and it warped...

 

told ya it sounded like what my car was doing... goodluck finding the bolt... and the bolt hole is stripped in my car. i just took the washer off the end. was able to get 6 full rotations easy.

 

was yours like stripped stripped? this one came out with all of the threads... think there is enough back there in the back to tighten it down?