Hi guys,

So, I'm trying to figure out some weird issues that I've been having with my 2004 Justa Cooper. It's a 5-speed and has approximately 147k miles on it. It's having a couple of issues that I'm having trouble diagnosing.

First, if the car has been sitting for a day or two, it takes what I would deem an unusual amount of time to start (maybe 10-15 seconds of cranking). It's never not started and once it starts it idles fine and drives normally. Hot restart is always fine and starts within a second or two of turning the key. The fuel pump is putting out 50psi at the rail. I'm stumped as to what could cause this. It's never terribly cold out (I live in Los Angeles) and my battery is new.

Second, after I've been driving awhile in traffic, the car stumbles and acts like it's going to stall as I come to a stop. This only happens after I've been in stop and go for awhile and the car never actually stalls. The car also seems to have a problem maintaining a smooth idle when the electric fan kicks in and can be a little boggish with the A/C is on.

The car has new plugs, wires, and coil. I recently serviced the oil and filter, the fuel filter, the air filter, the transmission oil (Redline MTL), the brake fluid (Ate Gold), and charged the A/C. As of last week, I replaced the oil cap and the engine oil dipstick as I didn't get a change in idle when removing them when the engine was running. They seemed to help a little. The ECU reset doesn't seem to make much of a difference either. The car is throwing no CEL and I don't get any other codes when reading with a Peake code reader. Any help I can get from you Justa gurus out there would be GREATLY appreciated.

Cheers!
Kyle

 

Kyle I'm sorry I don't have an answer for you but I'll bump you back up to the top. Hopefully help will come along.

 

Have you done a full compression test on the cylinders and valves? Otherwise, poor battery and/or an intermittent fuel delivery issue - filters, hoses, and still maybe the pump,... The specs for the coils, wires and plugs were the correct ones, and the problem existed before those were changed out?

 

Came here to say mine acted similarly and was fixed with new wires/plugs and a little scuffing on plug 3 on the coil, but I guess you have those taken care of :p

If you have good pressure at the fuel rail, I would investigate the health of the battery and alternator. And just to make sure, see if you can rotate the belt/pulleys on the engine (turn it over essentially) by hand to see if theres much friction.

 

Just a hunch...
Next time after it sits....
Let the key sit on the "on" position for a few seconds....then crank...see if it starts ok.

Is the crank laboured and slow? When it starts is it rumbly? Power output seem ok? 90+ octane fuel only right?!
Does not sound like anything huge is likely wrong...boggy with an ac on is pretty common on lower ho cars with limited tq...heck even some S's do it till they get a 17% pulley.....

 

I had the same problem on mine. For me, it was a very slow pressure loss in the fuel line if the car sits unused for a while. There are a few places were it could be occurring. The fuel pump has a valve that closes when the car turns off to keep pressure in the line. The fuel pressure regulator does the same. It could also be a leak on the sending unit in the gas tank. There isn't really a good way to know which one it is. I started at the cheapest until I found the fix. For me, it ended up being the sending unit (the most expensive one!).

A quick test you can do to verify it's a pressure loss in the line when the car is off. Next time the car sits for a while (maybe a day or two, overnight would be a minimum), before cranking, pop the bonnet and check for pressure on the fuel rail. I just pressed the valve to see if fuel dribbled out on mine.

The A/C and no smooth idle is probably due to the first stage resistor being blown on the cooling fan. There's a massive thread on it here that you should check out. What happens is only the high speed kicks on intermittently and the sudden current draw causes the idle to drop a little, but then recover.

Do you have an INPA setup that you can "officially" reset engine adaptations, or are you using the one that uses dash to reset? I've only had noticeable result using INPA.

Does the stumbling when coming to a stop happen with only the A/C on?