Car Misfiring Or Something! Anyone Help?

[Scottuk04]

Hi all ive had my car now for 3 months now with no problems till now..

 

its a 98 standard S1 with only a sports exhaust and I recently put a decat on (one week ago)

 

Went to a mates house the other day and left it out side.. well it pis*ed down and it really did here in shrewsbury! anyway went to a petrol station put in BP super unleaded and it drove like a bag of nails...

 

it was spluttering and misfireing like mad.. at idle, well it wouldn't idle basically it would jump from 750 to 1000 rpm instead of sitting at 900

 

when in drive it was like its only firing on 3 pistons.. but every so often it would pick up like normal... but then would go back to backfireing, spluttering and running bad!

 

I coated the HT leads in WD40 thinking they got damp with the heavy rain, but its been 2 days now and still the same..

 

so what do you think it could be? i still think its a HT lead problem..

 

any help would be great!

 

cheers

[SOUPS]

Hi all ive had my car now for 3 months now with no problems till now..

 

its a 98 standard S1 with only a sports exhaust and I recently put a decat on (one week ago)

 

Went to a mates house the other day and left it out side.. well it pis*ed down and it really did here in shrewsbury! anyway went to a petrol station put in BP super unleaded and it drove like a bag of nails...

 

it was spluttering and misfireing like mad.. at idle, well it wouldn't idle basically it would jump from 750 to 1000 rpm instead of sitting at 900

 

when in drive it was like its only firing on 3 pistons.. but every so often it would pick up like normal... but then would go back to backfireing, spluttering and running bad!

 

I coated the HT leads in WD40 thinking they got damp with the heavy rain, but its been 2 days now and still the same..

 

so what do you think it could be? i still think its a HT lead problem..

 

any help would be great!

 

cheers

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

im bad in mechanical stuff but i might be correct (for a change)

the firing partmight be air gone in the engine. this happens when u drive your car with almost no or little fuel instead of fuel being sucked into the engine.... air goes there instead just some air packets will go away after driving it a bit

i might be wrong so dont rely on this

[Mark H]

Usually water in the distributor cap. On my car the water was down by the spark plugs, they were dripping when you took them out.

[Reg]

Usually water in the distributor cap. On my car the water was down by the spark plugs, they were dripping when you took them out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I had that with the Scamp until I siliconed the spark plug cover down

[Mark H]

http://www.midlandslotus.co.uk/forum/index...wtopic=2857&hl=

[Dixie]

Mone did the same after a heavy shower or a good wash.

 

Change the dizzy cap and arm. it'll cost you less than a tenner for both. As a temporary measure take the cap off and wipe it out. Clean the oxide from the pickup and from the end of the arm. And it should be back to normal. But it'll happen again next time it gets wet!!!

 

It'll probably perform better once you change the cap and arm as well!!

[Tango190]

Presume all is ok now you did the things the guys above posted

 

Would say also, that I'm pretty sure the Elise ECU can't sniff fuel RON differences, bit like my TVR.

 

BUT, if I even take the Tivver near a BP petrol pump it starts to play up - honest !

 

Now it may just be shit petrol full stop. Shit delivery tankers, just don't know, but it's not just one BP service station I can tell you that.

[pizzaboy]

Yea deffo a HT related problem. I used to get this on my mr2 turbo, the thing ate dizzy caps. Bucked and misfired under boost/rain..quick switch of dizzy and all went well...until next time heh.

Its the bane of owning a mid engined car with a dizzy in the ingnition system. Open top engine + rain = eventual buckarooing.

[Reg]

What we used to do to seal the dizzys on the off roading Scamps was, get one of those black industrial gloves (bit like a marigold), cut the ends of the fingers off and slide it onto the dizzy with one lead coming out of each finger, cable tie in place and there you have it, you can now drive through rivers.*

 

 

 

 

 

*disclaimer, you could if you had a Scamp

[Scott_Mac]

Sounds like the problem mine had.... however that isn't fixed yet so i can't really help.

 

Water in dizzy could be an issue.

 

The other problem folks have found with this has been mentioned above, water in the fuel system... from when the petrol tanker fills up all the tanks it can get water in. Basically if you see a tanker at the station... drive on!

[Scottuk04]

Took all the dizzy apart cleaned it all and took all the plugs out didnt seem to bad at all...

 

 

put some new petrol in and within 10 miles all was fine!

 

my mate put some super BP!! unleaded in two days later from the same pump in his bike... pulled out and it spluttered and ran like a bag of nails!!

 

 

conclusion! never going back to BP!!

 

thanks for the help peeps

[PeterField]

You're not the first to find this Scott, pretty sure Bob's had the same problem with at least the Tivver.

 

I've not yet experienced any problems with a drop of Optimax though.

[Elaine]

The Turbo Esprit didn't like BP Ultimate either but ran/runs fine on Optimax, as have all our other cars for the last 4yrs.

[Dave, man]

The problem does sound like water getting in, but I'm another to have had a bad tank of petrol from BP - just the normal stuff, but enough to stop me using BP garages again.

[Arfurdaly]

This is all getting a bit twilight zone - went to BP - put the premium stuff in as a treat, car ran like a bag of spanners, it rained during the night and had to get the dizzy cap cleaned... AVOID BP!!