My name is Greg and I'm from Sydney, Australia. I have a bright yellow 2005 Lancer 'CH' model 4G94 2.0L wagon. The engine is the equivalent of the US 'OZ' model.

I was wondering if anybody could shed some light on a strange phenomenom. The car has cheapie (but great quality!) Ebay USA cold air induction, complete with welded MAF bracket. I got rid of the K&N style filter (too big!) and replaced with the Aussie Unifilter twin-sheath foam pod. The car also has 4-1 RPW Street headers. All professionally hooked up.

Next I fitted the aluminium underdrive pulley kit for Mirage. It's cool for the 2.0L, I just had to get 2 new smaller belts - No's 5PK1240 and 4PK705. The car has no 'flat spots' and doesn't hesitate when gunned. All 3 mods so far have made a noticeable gain under acceleration. OK - here's the "problem":

After fitting the pulley, when the engine is gunned close to or at the rev-limiter make, I get the coil-pack igniting cylinders 1 and 4 apparently failing!! The car struggles to run on 2 cylinders. This has been consistent whilst testing. I thought to pose the question before going to Mitsubishi with warranty questions! I suspect my mods have done nothing - except to more easily expose a 'hidden' problem. Because the engine is now far easier to push to the rev-limiter mark, the rev limiter or coil pack fail (or maybe knock-sensor?), and drop power to cylinders 1 and 4. All I need do is pull up in a side-street, switch off ignition - then restart. The car restarts OK and keeps running OK.

Any ideas anybody? All help appreciated!

Kind regards,
SOTHEBY

 

When you said belts, did you mess with the timing belt? Maybe you missed/skipped a tooth? Timing is now off or something...

 

If you accidentally retard the timing a tooth or two it will act like normal until you gun it and it feels like you have no power.

As soon as I read the title on this thread I said "coil pack' to myself. Especially if you turn the car off and turn it back on and its good for awhile.

When there used to be electronic ignition distributors on cars there was a piece of solid state material called an "ignitor" that would take a **** and shut the car off and shutting the ignition off and turning it on would sometimes "fix" it. I imagine there is something like that built into the coil pack.

I know motorcycles with a bad coil will run up to a certain RPM and start cutting out and making the bike buck a little.

 

Thanks for the replies folks.
I definitely didn't mess with camshaft timing. In fact I got my local trusted mechanics to remove the original pulley and replace with aluminium unit. It's an underdrive pulley, like the RRM - but a smaller [made in China?] diameter cheaper unit. It drives the accessories more slowly - but I haven't seen any decrease in air-conditioner power, nor dimming of lights at night whilst at a standstill. I'm starting to suspect the coilpack.

The car is at the smash-repairer's at the moment - I got rear-ended last week. I managed to negotiate the newer, sexier MIVEC 2.4 rear bumper as a replacement. I just thought the more information I get from fellow petrol-heads in this forum - the better. Mitsubishi here sound like Mitsubishi in the USA. As soon as they see the extractors (that's what we call headers in Australia) and CAI - they will tend to turn up their noses and start blaming "aftermarket accessories" as the cause. . .!
Thanks again!
Greg

 

id go with the coil pack since, 1 and 4 are connected to the same coil pack, but take a meter and make sure theres power to the pack, how do you know its 1 and 4?

 

Hey dude.
Thanks for the reply.

When I pull over and park, I pop the bonnet open and the engine's spluttering at barely 500 rpm idle, and vibrating on it's mounts.

It took me a couple of these instances, but when I unplugged the lead to coilpack 2-3 the engine stopped. When I unplugged the lead to coilpack 1-4 - nothing happened! The engine would keep spluttering. Putting the lead in and out did nothing. But wait, there's more:

When I put the mains power servicing coilpack 1-4 back in (and nothing happened), I also pulled out the 'slave' boot servicing spark plug position #1. When brought close to the valve cover - it arced! Hence some voltage is going through it - it could be a timing issue with the coil, or not enough voltage.

I would then reconnect everything, turn off the engine, restart it - and presto! Problem gone. I now push the car, but 'gently', and try and avoid going above 5,000 RPM. I'll take it to Mitsubishi once it's out of the smash repairer's. And no - the rear ender wasn't as a result of this problem. A guy just thought I was going to run an amber light at a major intersection. I stopped. I must say, the Lancer wagon damage was rather minimal - it held up quite well. I just need a new fuel tank, bumper mount, rear bracing and bumper. The guy who hit me had the 'CE' Lancer (US Mirage I think) - his whole front end was totally destroyed.
Cheers

 

a little translating, bonnet=hood, amber=yellow haha.
... i dont think its the timing, cause then the other two pistons would be off also, have you looked at the spark plugs to see how they are doing, maybe try reseting the ecu, whenever i have a problem it usually fixes things. maybe follow the wire from the pack to see if its connected properly or damaged.
so then the accident wasnt your fault because he hit you from behind?

 

OK, more info. . . The car is back from the smash-repairer's and has the new MIVEC rear lower skirt under the bomper as an added bonus. It looks cool!

I swapped the 2 coil packs around. Yesterday I revved up to the rev-limiter mark. . . and presto! Power to cylinders 1 and 4 dies again! Now, earlier I swapped coil-pack 1-4 with the 2-3. 1-4 is failing again! So - it's NOT the coil pack. I'm starting to suspect the rev-limiter. Perhaps it's programmed to randomly drop power to cylinders 1 and 4 until such time as the driver releases pressure on the accelerator.. . Except in my case, power is lost altogether. Interestingly, I switched off the engine, waited 20 seconds, and switched it back on. The Engine Check Light was still on, and it was turning very roughly still on cylinders 2 and 3 only. I switched it off again, pulled the spark plug lead off the plug and the master coil, and reseated it again. I then turned on the ignition, and all 4 cylinders fired up again. The CEL also went away. . .

Really wierd!

I'll book in a time with Mitsubishi, and take it from there. . .
Cheers.

 

I believe you are going to find you are actually hitting the rev limiter. I haven't been all the way to it in mine, but there is no need to go all the way when the limiter is actually about 500 rpm above peak hp. By going above that, you are actually slowling yourself down anyways. An engine is most effective between peak torque and peak hp. Remember that when driving hard, and you will be surprised.

 

Hey dude. . .

Thats just it - I AM hitting the rev. limiter. I often do hit it driving the wife's VW New Beetle, but the RPM just sit steady on 6,500 until I ease off the accelerator pedal. The engine doesn't cough, splutter and run on 2 cylinders.

The Lancer's behaviour is very bizarre. I'll see how it goes with Mitsubishi and their warranty process. Wish me luck!

 

It could be insufficient power to run your car on at that engine speed. If you changed to smaller pullies and the alternator isn't spinning at the right speed at that rpm and producing the right amount of power to send to the spark plugs, that could cause that coil pack to be short on spark if its first in the lineup. I could be wrong but that just appeared as a possibility to me.

 

I have an 03 lancer oz, doing the same thing. Bone stock so it's not your rev limiter, cept mine doesnt get power for 2 and 3. Runs on 1 and 4. Swapped the coils, same thing. It gets power from the harness to the coil. But wont spark at all. This happened after my wife filled up her car. I've tried everything, swapped out crank sensor, cam sensor, nothing. New spark plugs and all, only driven the car 3k miles, ran great. Maybe an injector is clogged and not putting out the right signal to the pcm or ECU, but I'm gonna have to take it to mitsubishi to diagnose.

 

Yeah I have a 06 oz rally and mine's doing the same thing. I've replaced everything I can think of and still nothing I have a major loss of power going up any sort of hill or incline I'm at a loss for what the issue is but it's frustrating definitely. Any luck on figuring out what could have been the cause? Would love to hear back.mine all started though when I plugged in my crank position sensor to my coil pack on accident in a very tired and distraught moment. Definitely not my finest things but I realized it pretty quick and all that fun stuff but the damage has been done that's for sure. I've even tried changing the brain on the car and with no luck it's not doing a damn thing.