Hi all,

Last Monday I was driving out of the grocery car park and my car just died. All lights came on and I had to coast to a standstill. No drive at all.

I took the car home and left it til the morning to inspect the car.

In the morining, the car would crank over, but I could see that the drive belt was not moving at all. I then started the diagnosis process of phsically moving each accessory pulley to see if they would turn. The supercharger pulley would not turn at all!

It was then pretty obvious that the supercharger was seized/had failed. That has since been confirmed and I will share pics shortly but that is not a burning priority at this stage. Getting my car running is

Anyway. no big problem I thought, I have a M7 ported charger that I have been meaning to put on the car for some time. Same with a Minispeed ported and polished head along with the Shrick cam. Even though I haven't done this stuff before, I thought that it would be a good idea to do the head etc at the same time...

Well, fast forward to today and I finally had the car together thanks to the help of my brother over the weekend. The only problem is that now the car won't start at all and I am at my wits end trying to figure out what's wrong. I need this car for work, have no warranty left and I'm having to cycle everywhere or catch lifts which is taking it's toll on my outlook on life so I REALLY need some help troubleshooting this please :smile: .

Now, I've checked the battery and it is showing 12.6V or so. The car is cranking ok, but just not firing. I have no idea about working on cars but am a quick learner so please bear me out on this one. I think that my problem may be the following, but I cannot be sure:

1) I was careful not to drop the timing chain when installing the cam. I suspended it from the bonnet with a bungee cord. I marked up the chain and sprocket as well, and they aligned fine when putting it back together.
What I did do though is that in a moments brainfart, I decided to turn to crank to see if I could hear any contact between the cam lobes and the spark plug tubes...thing is, even with the chain aligned properly, could this have messed up the timing? Does the cam sensor need to calibrate itself from a starting point of the camshaft sproket arrow at 12 o'clock?

I did think though that even if the car's timing was out, it would start but just run like poop...

2) The starter motor may be damaged/worn out? Would it even crank if this were the case?

3) Could the ECU be dead? Surely the car wouldn't even crank in that situation as well?

4) I installed new JCW injectors as well. Could the fuel pressure be too low in the system given that it has stood on axle stands for the last week?

I posted this in Drivetrain Mods because I was hoping to get the attention of the vendors, JLM, Msfitoy etc who may not check the 'Beneath the Bonnet' forum so often. It is also performance related since my SC failure is most likely due to the 18% interference fit pulley I had on there, but that has to be verified for sure later...

I am hoping it is something quite simlpe, like I haven't allowed the oil pressure to rise enough after changing it's oil yesterday and leaving it on the ramps all week...I don't know .

PLEASE HELP!

Thanks,

Henry

 

its hard to mess up the timing if you get the chain in the right teeth; (the lower part of the chain cannot come off the crank sprocket)

the ignition timing is set off of a crank sensor; also not fu-able

determine if it is sparking: pull a plug, hook it up to its wire, ground the threads and watch the electrode while cranking.

if it is not firing but getting gas, the plugs should be moist with fuel after turning it over for a while.

it may be possible to turn it over with the ECU unplugged, I'm not sure about this, but it would definitely not start.

look for a disconnected cable somewhere: ignition module, ECU, ground strap, etc.

 

Thank you so much JLM.

I will try your suggestions right away, even if there is only 30 mins of light left

I will get back to you once I have carried out what is suggested.

Cheers,

Henry

 

Ok...

I tried to pull the spark plugs but due to me denting the SP tubes too much to clear the Shrick cam, I am gonna have to get myself a proper SP tool 'all in one' instead of using a socket, otherwise it will get lodged in the tube. This happened once this morning but I managed to get it out

One thing I can be certain of is that there was lots of fuel being injected but no spark (there was strong fuel odor in the IC and the snoot area).

I then changed the coil pack and leads back to stock and remarkably had a more positive response. There was a spark and then a massive misfire! So I then knew for certain that there was fuel and a spark...not so sure about the misfire though

What I am thinking now though is that the spark plugs are properly fouled up. I should have changed them out anyway when finishing this install, but I wanted to see if the car started first.

You see, before I knew the supercharger was seized, I tried to start the car a number of times but no joy. This would have flooded the engine. The spark plugs were a little black when I took them off if I'm honest...now I think they are pretty much useless for their intended purpose.

Someone on Mini2 suggested that I had miscalibrated the cylinder firing sequence, but I thought that as long as the timing chain was put on the sproket in the same place (with the arrow at 12 o'clock) and that the chain hadn't slipped any teeth then I should be ok o nthe timing front? John, you suggested that the timing is difficult to fudge on these cars unless you drop the chain, so I don't think that this can be it...

Tomorrow I will try and crank the car with the ECU disconnected. If it gets to the stage that I am at now without ECU intervention, then I can be certain that the ECU should be considered a trouble area. If it doesn't turn over at all, then it should be something else (thankfully).

Also, is it possible that the oil pressure is too low?
How bad is it to crank the engine when it's not firing up properly? I guess I have to be careful about not flooding the engine...

Thanks for all the input so far. Please keep the advice rolling in. I am all ears for everything and anything :smile:

Cheers,

Henry

 

Hi Henry,

I can't help you but I wish you luck......your a good man who has always been supportive of me.......wish i could do something for you.

Bob

 

Ahhh, thanks Bob for your kind words and support

As you will no doubt already know, it's painful and 'powerlessness' inducing seeing your car sat there but she won't run

I hope that I can get her running again soon, cos motoring is so much more fun and efficient than walking everywhere

I'll keep this post updated so that when a solution arises, this thread should be a good reference for anyone in my position in the future.

Thanks for all the support again guys

Cheers,

Henry

 

is it possible you mixed up the plug wires? if you flooded it, it has to dry out and you probably need fresh plugs.

 

here is my take.

The car was running fine untill the S/C siezed...right?

If that is the case it has to be one of these problems.

1. you do not have a connector plugged in.
2. the cam timing is wrong ( maybe 180* off )
3. the spark plug wires are in the wrong order.
4. did you wire the injectors correctly and are they fully seated as well as the fuel rail ? ( longshot here )

Other ethan these things I dont se what else can be wrong. Onluy other thing is make sure everything is sealed up tight ( intake manifold, ic runners, ic boots.

 

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

The plug wires were wired as per the numbering sequence on the coil pack and wires, so I would hope that I could at least get that right . The engine was a little flooded though, so I will let it dry overnight and then get some fresh plugs on there asap.

Deltman,

Thanks for your input as well. I actually have had an offer from a MINI2 user to come out and look through my car far tomorrow which is very kind of him (he's a mechanic btw). Hopefully we should be able to get to the root of this problem in one day. It's so nearly there! I will implement all the suggestions I have had so far whilst trying to troubleshoot. You guys have given my effort real direction and new vigor now

Also, I forgot to mention but it may be important, does it matter that the front bumper is off when I try to start the car? It is on axle stands at the moment.

Cheers,

Henry

 

FYI, to get the flooding properly eliminated you may well have to remove the spark plugs and let the gas evaporate from the cylinders. I've never had to replace my spark plugs due to flooding but I have had to clean them with a steel brush (this on an older car that misfired badly when flooded - tips were covered with sludgy greasy foulness).

If this isn't it I'd be looking hard at the camshaft installation. Could be 180 degrees out of whack.

 

The camshaft could very well be off 180 deg. I have not installed a camshaft on the mini. Does the cam gear come on the camshaft already or do you have to remove it from the factory one? If it is a two or four bolt design I can deffinately see it easy to fup the timing.

 

I dont remember how many bolts but the gear doesnt come on the cam. That is why I think the cam is 180* out. That would also explain the random mis-fire and no start but yet there is fuel and spark.

My be it it is the cam timing

 

a good way to get rid of a flood is to remove the spark plugs grab the aircompressor with just the moving air tool and wrap a rag around that then stick it down the tube and use the air to move the gas onto the rag, its worked for me so it might work for you.
disclaimer: wear eye protection and you can not sue me if you somehow injur yourself in the process!

 

The MINI camshaft has one bolt and an indexing dowel pin. If the crank has not been moved, and the sprocket has been placed in the original forward facing position (TDC mark showing), the chain will only go on the sprocket one way, while aligned with the cam dowel and the cam locking tool dowels. Not one tooth off either way. If the sprocket had been put on backwards, the camshaft would have to be rotated 90 degrees for the dowel pin to index. But, given the information we have from a statement in a previous post, we should discount the misalignment possibility. Henry said in the other thread, “Don't worry about the timing being out. I marked up the chain with the arrow on the cam sprocket and luckily had the BMW cam sprocket tool on loan and it all lined up beautifully before reassembly.”

This of course is long distance speculation and we are operating on limited information. I wish Henry good luck tomorrow.

 

Good info on the cam!

I hope he gets it all straight tomorow. Hopefully its something simple.

 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a cam really cant be '180 degrees out'. Rotate the crank one full revolution and the cam will be 'in time', rotate it again one full turn and the cam will again be '180 degrees out'. This occurs because the crank turns twice for every rotation of the cam, or a 2:1 reduction ratio. It's more likely that you are a few degrees out if you somehow skipped teeth when manipulating the cam sprocket.

Double-check the cam sensor (on the passenger side end of the head) position and connection. Also make sure that any other sensors (knock, TMAP, etc) arent disconnected.

Since you installed a cam, another issue that occurs is 'lash adjuster pump-up'. When you disassemble the valvetrain, the hydraulic lash adjusters (in the tips of the rockers) are no longer 'loaded' by the valves and will expand to full length. If you are rather quick in reassembly and startup, the reinstalled adjusters will not have a chance to settle back in and will tend to hold the valves open slightly causing a backfire if it's the intake valve that's held open. It can take a couple hours in some cases to 'pump down' the adjusters.

If you still are having backfires even after all the above is okay, do a leak check. There is a chance that the damaged supercharger shed metal fragments and these got into the engine. If a leak check shows valve leakage, it's time to pull the head and see what's holding them open. Also, sometimes a blown intake valve will cause a supercharger-wrecking series of backfires. There is a slight chance that your troubles are, in fact, 'reversed'.

 

Hi all,

Just a short update really since no real progress was made today

I had a friend from Mini2 forums join me today in my quest to get my car running again.

We looked at the cam timing and came to the conclusion that since I put the timing chain back on the car exactly the same way as it came off, it wasn't a problem. He is also a mechanic, and checked the positioning of the pistons (TDC, BDC etc) through the spark plug tubes and found nothing to be amiss. Besides, if you mess the timing on the Mini even a little, it is supposed to lock up tight from valve-piston contact, but that is definitely not happening here...

What was most worrying, however, is that when trying to get the crank pulley off in order to access the bottom timing sprocket (to check timing), I held down the brake pedal and left the car in first gear whilst my friend Ricky turned the crank pulley with a socket and wrech...usually the bolt would just loosen and come off, but in this instance, the crank pulley turned with little force

I am taking the car back to the place that did the install here in the UK to see if they can diagnose the problem.

I am also thinking that the ECU is a potential problem area. For instance, I tried to download my ECU file for an MTH remap (admittedly using an 'alien' cable i.e. USB Sasha solution whereas I have only used the serial one with sucess in the past) but the strangest thing happened...I managed to get the car's ID to come up, but when I tried to download the map, it said that my ECU wasn't recognised! It had just ID'd my car's ECU for chrissake!!

I don't know. What I do know though is that this car is going to bankrupt me and make me physically ill in the process if it doesn't just hurry up and get fixed. I have work deadlines and no transport. I wouldn't wish this scenario on anyone else here. It truly hurts to the core.

I'll check in tomorrow again once the car has been looked over at this 'Mini' place.

Cheers,

Henry

 

Yikes, sounds like it broke the keyway of the crank when the SC seized up!

 

We once had a customers car sit in the shop for about a week when we were waiting for parts. Before it sat the guy had tried starting the car several times so there was lots of unburt fuel just sitting in there for over a week.


We could NOT figure out why it wouldn't start but we decided to try new plugs and sure enough, it started right up. Give it a try

 

Is any sound resembling free spooling of the pulley heard when trying to start? Surely there would be some sound?

 

that crank pulley bolt is a very tight one and the pulley is a tight fit on the crank. Are you sure the pulley was rotating with respect to the crank and that the entire crank wasn't turning with the bolt?


new plugs is a best first choice...I assume you got your plug socket in there?

 

This worries me man

How did you come to this conclusion? Can you share your experience with this please? I need to put my mind at rest

What would I be looking at in terms of repairing the crank?

Cheers,

Henry

 

John,

When we rotated the crank bolt, the cam gear turned as well since we had the cam cover off and could see what was going on. Therefore, the bolt wasn't just spinning there on it's own, independent of the crank turning.

Is that what you meant?

I managed to get the spark plugs out and in again, thanks for the lube advice on that one!. Tomorrow I will get this MINI tuner to change the plugs and see what happens.

Cheers,

Henry

 

That would only make sense if he turned the crank pulley by hand (not easy to do!) If he was turning the BOLT - that would turn the entire crank (or the bold would come out with the wrench if it was broken.) If he was attempting to loosen the bolt, that says that either the car was not in gear - allowing the crank to turn, or ??

 

Thanks Matt

Things are sounding more promising now. I hope that it isn't a failed crank though...

Cheers,

Henry