My R53's been parked for a while, and at one point when being pushed around the yard the key was left in the ignition so that the battery drained to flat. It's been recharged and reconditioned and is holding up well when cranking... but the car won't start. It hasn't been wet, or otherwise molested AFAICT.

There's a persistent ticking (about 4 per second) coming from the R1 relay (DME relay) in the engine compartment. I've verified that the relay is good, and the ticking is due to the relay being turned on and off by the DME. Pulling F2 (the 20A fuse next to it) changes the ticking rate to ~1/sec. Unplugging the fuel pump doesn't affect things.

It feels like a DME brown-out issue, but the voltage at F1 (the 5A DME constant power terminal) is solid. Anyone met this before? The DME is probably not running standard code (car came with 550cc injectors, runs badly on 380s), but I have no idea whose.

 

Did you ever find a solution to this? I am in a very similar situation. I don't know if the relay clicking has always been there or if it's related to the no start