Thursday, September 14th, 2006
I’ve got a bit of grovelling to do to the local megasquirt guru. Last night I was blaming a fault on the squirt for the bad running of the Zetec. I’ve found out today that it wasn’t totally to blame. I drove into the village to fill up, and it still popped and farted when I put my foot down (although it didn’t seem as bad as before). Driving back I thought, with all this rich running, I wonder if the spark plugs are all fouled up. So I got home and whipped them out. I got the plugs out too 
Two of the plugs were fine, two were black. The throttle bodies need balancing again. Not a problem. But then I noticed that the ceramic on one of the plugs was cracked in two places. They’re only 1200ish miles old. New when I fitted the engine. I rummaged through the garage and dragged out the set that were in the engine previously. They looked pretty new too. I put them in, and went for a spin. Not a single pop. All I need to do now is get the mapping sorted out, and I’ll be a happy bunny!
I said it wasn’t totally the megasquirts fault. I still haven’t got to the bottom of why the squirt turned the injectors off, so until then it’s not totally blameless…
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Wednesday, September 13th, 2006
Went round to my dads today to pick up the van. I refitted the megasquirt and got my dad to follow me home. It made it, but it drove like a bag of spanners. Coughing and spluttering. My dad said flames shot out of the exhaust every time I changed gear. The further I drove, the worse it seemed to get. I must have missed rush hour traffic by about 20 mins. When I got back to my dads to drive my car home the traffic was a nightmare.
So, with it safe and sound at home I need to set about working out what happened. I went over to see the local megasquirt guru, and he tested the squirt and found it in perfect condition, citing the map being the problem. I’m not 100% convinced. He repaired the other megasquirt I have (the one that failed last time) so I’m going to fit that and see how it goes. I fitted it tonight and it ran without popping, but I wasn’t able to rev it as I didn’t want to annoy the neighbours. I might be able to take it for a spin tomorrow night and have a proper play but in the meantime I’m going to have a look on all the forums and see if anyone else has had the same problem.
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Monday, September 11th, 2006
It’s finally happened. I broke down again. I’ve managed around 800 miles before this incident
I’ve been wanting to get a good ECU map since the new exhaust was fitted, so I’ve been messing with the logging and remapping facilities within Megatune and Megalogviewer. While I’ve been logging the engine had started misfiring and spitting through the throttlebodies, and I’ve just not been able to get rid of it. I’d also noticed that the injectors looked to have been working overtime.
Soo, tonight I drove over to my dads, doing a bit of logging, misfiring and popping if I put my foot down. On the way back the engine cut out when I was reversing out of my dads drive. Started straight away. Then it cut out at the junction at the end of the road. Started straight away. Then it cut out half a mile away, just before some lights. Got it started after a minute or so. Then it cut out at the lights. Got it started after a minute. I thought, I’d never get home, so I turned round to go back to my dads, and it broke down at another junction, and it wouldn’t start. It took about 5 mins. Then again just before another junction, then at a major roundabout. Then finally outside my dads again. So that’s eight breakdowns in 15 mins.
I’d got my laptop with me so I noticed when it cut out one of those times that the injectors weren’t injecting. It’s the opposite of the last megasquirt problem I had, where it was just pumping fuel into the bores.
I’m getting someone to look at it this week to see if he can diagnose the problem.
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