So I have a 2003 MCS and decided to remove the lower and upper airbox to clean it up and replace the filter while I was at it. Removed the ECU plugs, everything came out fairly smooth, took everything and cleaned the upper and lower intake off carefully under tap water to makesure no water came near the ECU.

Fastforward, everything is back together I start the car and it stalls, restart...

Traction control light comes on with the check engine light, car hardly idles sounds as if its running on 2 cylinders. Any throttle imput does nothing as the car seems to be limited and wont allow it to rev over 1000 rpm, everything else in the car operates normally. When under the hood I can hear what sounds like the fuel injectors surging almost, other than that I am stumped and the closest MINI dealer is over 90 miles from me.

Is there any way I can find the codes off the car? Any help would be great!

 

What did you wash?
If you are sure you got nothing electrical wet then something was left unplugged or not connected. re trace EVERYTHING you did you will find it.
Even after you find the gremlin you may have to have the codes cleared.

 

You can check the codes via OBD-1 or ScanGaugeII

 

I washed the upper and lower airbox and took extreme caution with the lower airbox due to it housing the ECU.

I unpluged and repluged the ecu 2 times to see if it was connected loosely but no luck.

I checked the vaccume line connected to the intake tube, but there are no leaks that I can see or feel.

 

Also, do a quick check of the fuses in the box next to the ECU. I recently had my DSC light stay on and discovered that one of the fuses in there had blown.

 

It really sounds like something got over looked. I regularly wash my engine compartment out and have had a couple of times the ECU throw the engine in limp mode for an afternoon. but if you say none of the electrical got wet and you do not have a way to see which codes are showing then carefully look at everything again in a reverse order.

 

What was wrong with just wiping the box down with paper towels?

 

Alright guys got the issue taken care of, thanks to Nitrominis I rechecked everything and realized the problem.

As horrible as it sounds it all came out ok luckily.

I used a rag to plug the intake pipe to makesure nothing fell inside, unfortuniatly over the time I was fiddling with the intake the rag had shifted into the intake piping out of view combined with my tiredness I forgot to take it out compleatly.

The throttle body caught the rag and and there were no missing peices when removed so all is ok.

Stupid mistake, I know.

Anyways, car runs beautifully now however I now have the engine light illuminated all the time, and after a quick drive around the block my DSC light and tire pressure warning light turned on and stayed on solid, however the EML is now off and the car is not in limp mode.

I am assuminig I will need a trip to the dealer to clear the codes? The throttle feels fine I do not belive there was any damage done to the throttle servo but I could be wrong!

 

Remove the negative cable from the battery for about a minute, that will probably clear the codes. Then go drive to see if anything comes back.
If so, some autoparts shops loan/rent the OBDII reader to read your codes. Don't know what part of the country you're from, so I can't make any recommendations, just call around.

 

Have you checked if the plug on the throttle body is correctly plugged in ? I had the same kind of issue and it was simply this plug which was a bit loose.