quadrophine

so, I was on my way to pick up a pizza, and i drove through a puddle, that I guess was fairly deep. well, shortly afterward, 5 or so seconds later while accelerating the engine began to sputter and limp, i turn around drive home and can't go more than like 15 mph, all the while the engine wants to stall it sounds like it's flooding.

I think it's the coil packs, or maybe the plugs. but the problem is I also noticed while i was checking out the car in the middle of the street, that I have a leak in my intercooler piping on the drivers side out the bottom of the intercooler I thought that may in some way effect what the problem is. I also get a strong gasoline smell so i'm leaning towards an ignition problem. it definitely feels like it's only running on maybe 2 cylinders. I'm having a hard time getting a feel for it and I know 1 and 4 and 2 and 3 are companion cylinders I've never experienced that before, with an engine failing just looking for some insight.

3K

iTrader: (9)

Wow, I hope you didn't suck water into the motor and hydro-lock it.

nytalonTSi

iTrader: (18)

Well that leak would be enough to explain. A big boost leak is that crazy.

quadrophine

if hydro locked would it not have died right away? I don't hear any unusual sounds from the engine. and the filter was bone dry.

you think it could be a boost leak causing that idle? I would think it wouldn't have much bearing on engine behavior especially running off vacuum. I'm not pulling as much vacuum as normal, but It just happened also, and nothin happened that would have caused that boost leak so bad that quick. I imagine i've been running with it like that for a while. how can I check if it's a boost leak... I'm looking i guess for trouble shooting solutions so I can figure out what i have to replace.

quadrophine

would it be out of the question to pull plugs and see if I isolate a particular cylinder, and thus confirming or ruling out an ignition issue

quadrophine

Bump...

quadrophine

okay, little update. I went to start her this morning hoping that somehow as it sometimes does the problem would solve itself miraculously overnight.

It did not.

i start her up and the engine is struggling to maintain idle... i run my hand all around the turbo piping i can reach and realize that the leak that i thought i had was air blowing down from the electric fan. as the engines sputters out I look around the engine bay for any hoses wires anything that looks abnormal. nothing. I get audacious and decide to touch my turbo manifold... pipe for first cylinder, closest to the cam gears ice cold... second cylinder fairly warm, third cylinder fairly warm, fourth cylinder, hot hot hot... i'm really leaning towards ignition issue, because i can smell gas and the engine now will not turn over at all. could i possibly be running on one cylinder?
would it be a bad idea, to ask the guy up the street who has an 8 if i could borrow his coil packs and swap em up to see if it will run on them? should i pull the packs see if they are wet perhaps dry em off throw em back in... or could i use my timing light to pinpoint whether or not the plugs are firing at all? I'm really not sure though where the spark plug wires would be I imagine they are underneath the coils. I'd prefer not taking it to a shop.

LeveeciusEVOIX

iTrader: (1)

How big was this puddle? I got through a puddle that was deep enough to cover my IC with no problems at all. If you have a boost leak, you'd also have a vacuum leak thus you may have took on some water if you went through a deep enough puddle if you have a leak by your IC piping. I'd boost leak test it. But if you're still having issues, and from what it sounds like to me, I'd be looking at your CPS sensor. If you're car isn't running right, you may have shorted out your CPS sensor going through that puddle. Are you throwing and SES/CEL lights?

quadrophine

where exactly is my cps and where and how much is one? I've read other threads where this was the issue, the symptoms sound similar.

are they relatively inexpensive? from what i've read many people just switch it out to see if that was indeed the problem. in many cases it solved it.

quadrophine

just an update of troubleshooting so far, switched coil packs over, only cylinder firing is the cylinder furthest from the cam gears... i'm calling this cylinder four, I'm not sure if it's 1 or 4, if it goes the other way, it's 1 but the drivers most side cylinder is the only one firing. i've ruled out an ignition coil fault, and now that i look around for cps issues it seems like in most cases you wont get any spark. where would be the best place to find a cps or a cas can I find one at autozone or would i ahve to hit up the dealership?

quadrophine

getting ready to compression test to make sure i didnt blow the engine.
what psi should i usually be reading.

i have about 50k on the engine

LeveeciusEVOIX

iTrader: (1)

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...-belt-how.html

2nd PDF shows the CPS and what it looks like. 4a PDF shows the CPS as a picture on the actual engine in the second picture.

LeveeciusEVOIX

iTrader: (1)

As far as what cylinder it is, the cylinder that is closest to the front of your engine (where your belts and cam gears are), is cylinder #1. Hope that helps.

I'm still leaning towards the CPS on this issue. It is the main component that tells your coils when to fire on what cylinder, and if it's not firing or sparking one some of most of your cylinders and you have already swapped good coils into it and it's still doing the same thing, then that is where I'm leaning.

nytalonTSi

iTrader: (18)

With a compression check you want the numbers to be close to each other. Consistent.


I forgot about the CPS. You would have to remove the timing belt covers.


It's possible for the water to have reached the sensor, driving through a puddle. It might still be wet.

Is the service engine light on?

quadrophine

so there all reading 80 to 90, with the 3rd cylinder reading 75, but with low battery. the second and third cylinder had the lowest, with the first and fourth at 90. seems a little low but i figure it's because i have a half battery. plus the engine is cold.

does this seem like there may be a problem with the 2nd and 3rd cylinders? each time they read consistently, first time i checked third i had 80 and the last time 75
the 1st and fourth consistently read 90, until i checked the first a second time i got 85 it definitely seems like i'm getting better compression in 1st and fourth consistently even with the battery falling off. is this enough difference to indicate possibly a bent piston rod caused by hydro lock? i have stock internals so I imagine if that happened it would have broke completely. I'm really pretty sure i didn't encounter enough water to lock it though. i revved up to like 6k after and then it started sputtering.
where can i find crank and cam sensors on a sunday? would advance auto or autozone or pepboys carry them?