Hey Everyone,

New to the forum and a new Mini owner so please bear with me. I have a 2010 Mini Cooper base with about 97,000 miles on it which was having the CEL come on with a code of p0301. I went to check the spark plug in cylinder 1 and there was oil in the well. After searching the forum about this issue it was suggested that a replacement for the valve cover gaskets would fix the issue. I just did the gasket replacement and replaced all the spark plugs with Bosch iridium plugs (.8 mm gap). Now it idles terribly it bounces from about 740 rpm to 850 rpm. Driving is fine as it was before but the idle is really choppy. On my scangaugeII it says there are pending codes for p0300, p0301 and p0303. I put everything back exactly as before so does anyone have an idea as to what I should check next. I'd appreciate any advice.

 

I just swapped coil packs between cylinder 1 and 4 and I'm still getting a p0301 along with the p0303 after switching them.

 

Got a lot of smoke on take off a couple of times yesterday. I cranked down the valve cover a bit more last night wonder if I had a vacuum leak. Idle issue was present this morning and I got some smoke again and p0301 and p0300 codes. Cleared out codes but rough idle issue seems to be gone all of the sudden. Not sure what is going on.

 

I think there few more things you need to do and you may add this info as we go along:
1- did you do compression test? what are the values?
2-how did you set up your timing?
3-did you use a repair manual? torqued right with correct sequence?
4-who did the work for you?

 

MiniToBe thanks for the response...

I'm thinking without the torque specs that maybe the valve cover wasn't torqued down enough and was getting a vacuum leak. After I torqued it down more all the way around, the idle has been smooth and the CEL hasn't come back. It's only been a day but that CEL was coming back everyday after clearing prior to the gasket change out and tightening down the valve cover. I'll keep an eye on it and if the trouble returns my next thing to try is a compression test.

Thanks,
Jim

 

For some reason I thought you did Head gasket job. but that is ok. I will check my manual and see if i can get something for you for the torques. they should be around 8Nm if i remember correctly, but i'll double check. The smoke coming from the pipe could be tied to the PCV valve. take a look at it and see if there is oil on the pipe

 

No oil in the tailpipe. Another good day so far with no CEL. Thanks for checking on the torque. I appreciate it.

 

It says 10Nm for the valve cover

 

Tightening sequence for the N12 and should be the same for N16

 

Awesome!! Thanks so much for the information.