vr intermitently dying

[chrishill 0]

just coming back from my parents about 10mins ago, giving the vr a bit of a run down the a1 to let it flex its muscles. backed off when I drove past a police car attending a small shunt, then went to accelerate again when out of their sight.... only it didnt! power for about a second then nothing, revs drop, engines still running but no power. dipped the clutch and coasted for a second, pulled into the slow lane and lifted the clutch... powers back! its there for about 5 seconds then goes... then comes back... then goes again! I limp home at about 50mph crapping myself. Theres no funny smell, no funny noises, no smoke. Basically it felt like i'd come off the accelerator when I hadnt at all, then suddenly it kicked back in! My first thoughts were a fuel problem, the symptoms kind of remind me of what happend when I ran out of fuel in the 16v, but I've got about 1/8th of a tank in the vr at the moment so it should be fine. anyone got any ideas?

[dazzyvr6 0]

at first i thought a plug might of oiled up,but then it would start missing...perhaps the ECU has gone into get home mode for some reason??

[RW1 0]

"That guessing results symptoms such as stalling on the overrun, roughish engine behaviour (like a slight misfire), the engine slowing slightly without movement of the throttle at small throttle openings, hiccup on pick-up from idle, dullness in the throttle response from shut until opened up a fair way resulting in the car leaping forward as things wake-up, ie. the ECU doesn't see throttle movement, then suddenly does."

 

 

Go here........

 

http://the-corrado.net/.archive/forum/viewtopic. ... c&lighter=

 

Your ECU doesn't know where the throttle is. Carry out Basic Settings are per the thread.

[chrishill 0]

cheers RW1 sound pretty much exactly like whats happening, just need to find someone local with VAG-COM now!

[RW1 0]

Not local to you. Check the sticky list.

[dr_mat 0]

I've had similar problems that were caused by dizzy .. I note you have a '92 so worth checking out your distributor too.

[chrishill 0]

AFAIK it had a new dizzy not long before I bought it, could it be the plugs/leads?

[dr_mat 0]

Could be... but then, your dizzy could still be clagged up with oil or something too, so still worth checking it out..

[Rpmayne 0]

I had similar problems and it turned out to be the switched feed from the alarm to the ECU had an intermittent break. When you dipped the clutch, did the engine idle?

[chrishill 0]

yeah, it idled normally. I took the dizzy cap off last night and had a look as best i could around the distributor, couldnt see any oil... would it be that obvious just by looking at it from there?

[dr_mat 0]

Did the rotor arm feel tight? Yes, contamination would be obvious, but what was the condition of the contacts on the rotor arm like?

[chrishill 0]

rotor arm was nice and tight, the contacts looked pretty good, a little oxidised but only enough to discolour them, same with the contacts in the dizzy cap itself

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Unlikely to be the dizzy. Even if the Hall sender went it wouldn't exhibit that behaviour.

 

To suddenly lose power like that points to interuption in the fuel flow or an electrical contact, such as the MAF signal wire.

[Chris VR6nos 0]

nope not the MAF as you could run happily along even it the maf fell off, i know, it happened to me!

i'd leave the dizzy and check the usual things like air leake and lecky probs.

I'll prob be at Paul's on Sat morning if you want to fetch it down for a looksee

 

 

Chris

[Kevin Bacon 5]

You'd hardly run along happily.... the engine runs like a bag of sh1t with no MAF signal and you know it, and soon as you take your foot of the gas, it dies...

[chrishill 0]

Its dad's birthday on saturday so I'm going up there in the morning and then I'm away in hampshire next week with work (going sunday) so i want to spend some time with the little woman before i go :norty: but I'll deffinatly have to come over to pauls one weekend soon and have a look at a few things. Finally got that rocker cover gasket so the polished jobby can go on! :D

 

one thing I did notice last night was that theres a little metal 'tab' on the dizzy cap and one directly oposite on the dizzy itself, they look kind of like they should have a wire with spade connectors at each end joining them, but they dont... is that important? :S

[Chris VR6nos 0]

it happened when i first fitted the charger and there was no crinckly pipe to extend the maf away from the charger and with the std knackered front mount, the engine moved under accellerstion and forced the maf and K&K to come off the charger inlet pipe and i ran over tham :lol: but it drove home ok, you know what i mean, like i got home and wasn't a bother on the motorway on the way home TBH

 

 

 

Chris

[Chris VR6nos 0]

they are the clips that hold the cap on but no spade clips go there apart from one at the base of the dizzy to earth.

 

 

 

Chris

[StormVR6 0]

Yep, when my MAF got buggered (by me :lol: ), it would start but keep dying until the engine was warmed up. And performance was shat along with pulling at gear changes and strange idling.

 

The only thing that didn't seem to affect the overall performance was when my lambda probe was somehow disconnected, apart from blowing the emission tests through the roof it was fine!

[chrishill 0]

they are the clips that hold the cap

:lol: no not those bits chris i'm not that daft! I'll have to take a pic later and post it so you see what i mean!

[Chris VR6nos 0]

I know what you meant, it's a propper spade male with a ickle hole in the middle

 

 

Chris

[Kevin Bacon 5]

The only thing that didn't seem to affect the overall performance was when my lambda probe was somehow disconnected, apart from blowing the emission tests through the roof it was fine!

 

Lammy lambda is ignored at Wide Open throttle mate, or 0.7V output on the probe. The ECU then just flings fuel in from the "I'm wide and open" tables :lol: That would explain why there was no change in performance. Below WOT, lammy lamb is just flitting up and down measuing oxygen content to keep the economy reasonable.

[StormVR6 0]

Thank you for lesson 129 my good tutor. :)

[dav 0]

Mate I would check your Fuel Pump (fuel pressure), and also the Coil Pack.

Your symptoms sound very similar to the one’s that I had with my VR, it turned out to be both in my case, but I spent a lot of money on unnecessary parts before it finally got fixed. I have a distributor type VR like yours too, try and borrow a Coil Pack if you can and swap it over to see if it makes a difference.

 

Hope this helps

 

D.

[Chris VR6nos 0]

I need some stuff for my VR to keep it happy but poverty scricken!

 

 

Chris