Just finished resto of my SPI cooper, all brand new looms throughout, new crank sensor, fuel lines, fuel filter, new coil…ect ect…
The car ran beautifully before the resto began (18 months ago), so should be even better with new stuff right!!!
The engine starts instantly from cold and settles into a nice steady 850 rpm idle straight away, drives Ok and will accelerate through the Rev range pulling very well. The problem comes if you stall it or don’t use a little throttle pulling away, when it just won’t re start…
Engine turns over on the key and wants to start but doesn’t. You have to turn off totally wait a few seconds then try again, then it starts like nothing’s happened…
Acc cable is correctly adjusted with stepper motor and there are no air leaks at all..
Also, if you just bury the throttle from idle it just dies, no cough no splutter, just dies…
Something up, just don’t know what…
I would see if you could plug it in and see if its thrown up a code. Sounds to me like an ecu issue (I know they can take a while to adjust when they have been unplugged) Other than that it could be a fuel issue, maybe under load the pump is duff, hard to say without being there. Could also be something on the exhaust side with the cat?
Before going bananas replacing things, I would make sure that the ECU earth point is clean and tight. Another member had an issue with an MPI where the car ran fine but when the fog lights were turned on, the engine would die and would not restart until after a while. The earth point was common for both and had not been cleaned up after the restoration plus the bolt and nut used had some non conducting coating.
Any issues with the crank sensor signal will cut the engine. Can’t see why it would happen the way you describe it but just to mention it. I’ve had a situation where sometimes the car wouldn’t start and I found that when this happened there was no power to the coil (or the fuel pump I think). I took the connector off the crank sensor and cleaned all the contacts and that sorted it. Might be worth trying.
The main relay on the MFU provides power to the coil (+) on the brown/pink wire and should have voltage as long as the ignition is on. The coil (-) is the white/black and goes to pin 25 of the ECU. Also goes to the Tach. The pump relay coil input comes from the ignition switch (white wire). However the earth for that relay coil is provided by the pin 20 of the ECU (black/purple wire). There are many things using the ECU as the earth path, so it has to be good.
Any issues with the crank sensor signal will cut the engine. Can’t see why it would happen the way you describe it but just to mention it. I’ve had a situation where sometimes the car wouldn’t start and I found that when this happened there was no power to the coil (or the fuel pump I think). I took the connector off the crank sensor and cleaned all the contacts and that sorted it. Might be worth trying.
I’ll check that out today, it’s all brand new but I may not have pushed the connector on properly in my haste to hear it run…
