Car seems to run on 3 cylinders

[RB20DET_Silvia]

Hey guys,

Driving car today....started to notice it was stalling quite a bit....also it seemed to run on 3 cylinders when u floor it just makes horrid sound and gets no where and misfires....i think it might be something to do with a dud coilpack...also what andy said from GH. He also thinks the timing could be retarded aswell might cause some weird idle issues.

I got a 20v sprinter also.

What u guys think....was washing car so i thought maybe water go in spark plugs so i just pulled them out cleaned em dropped em back in also no change.

It also has a harder time kicking over aswell as stalling while on idle and as soon as it does kick over.

- Luke

[Brenton 86]

Its always nice to find problems after you buy the car, anyway dosent sound too scary every 20v iv driven has had a rough idle, did andy try advancing/recessing the timing when he looked at it?

[RB20DET_Silvia]

No we will get it all tuned when we go up to brissy all im worried about is the 3 cylinder thing....

I mean it has to be coilpack issue....runs on all 4 under little load then dies to 3 when u open to up...what else can it be checked spark plugs aswell and cleaned them.

- Luke

[Brenton 86]

also forget the washing theory, as long as the wiring from the conversion was done by professionals, nothing in the engine bay (expect of course the battery) should be affected by washing, i have gurneyed my engine bay after degreasing it several times.

[Brenton 86]

But the coilpack is usually farked or its not, an shouldnt really be affected by increasing the throttle and ignition. Im leaning toward fuel by the sound of the problem, but need more info, dose it have an external fuel pump and dose the engine pick up after it gets bogged down when rapidilly increasing throttle. The fact that its got a rough idle an stalls makes me think its over fuelling down low which always seems to happen with the 20v, as for when you gas it im having mixed thoughts an could be too many different things to bother mentioning. Hopefully its the timing which can be adjusted during tuning., Sorry im not much help but im new to forum mechanics, sound like ur in good hands but.

[RB20DET_Silvia]

Ok first up.....coilpacks and spark plugs together make the spark ur car needs to keep on pushing through out the rev range.....when one dies the whole thing will run like crap until u correct the issue.

And when a coilpack is f***ed it will still work usually it will just break down on high or mid throttle and not hold the spark and u will get stray stray sparks same with all coilpack related engines i believe and it will cause ur car to run on 3 cyclinders if u have one bung coilpack.

Coming from a RB silvia which also uses coilpacks i know on RB's there one of the first things to die and the same issue as im having now with my 20v happened to my RB silvia it was just the coilpacks so i got some splitfire ones for it.

Im gonna get them checked tomoz and replace if need be....u start off small and work ur way through u dont jump every where, its usally the little things that cause the problems.

Even if it was over fueling it would not drop 3 cyclinders i had this happen to me when my knock sensors went on my old RB.

- Luke

[xolent]

sounds like timing to me

if it's only on idle and feels or on the verge of stalling perhaps fiddling with the idle adjust screw might help.

[dctrd]

check the ignition leads, that happen to me before on my 20v, loss of power etc and i got a massive zap from the coil lead. Later on it melted in 1/2

[Dorio86]

Check the sparky's, check the one that isn't firing and see if it has oil in the tip.
If it does it's time for a new piston ring or even a re-bore

[ae71neo]

Mine was doing the same thing, obviously different as mine is a 4ac, but i changed my spark plug leads. Fixed it straight up.