Difficult to start won't rev up
Turbo Mini Forums

After stripping my engine completely to repair an oil leak I now have a problem starting the engine and when it does start I have to keep my foot flat on the accelerator to keep the engine running and it only revs to 1200 rpm. Soon as I take my foot off the accelerator it cuts out.

Timing, dashpot oil and fuel pressure is good. Carb was recently rebuilt and was running ok prior to stripping the engine.

Could I have messed up the cam timing? Will bad cam timing cause this problem?

Engine spec: hif44, standard dizzy with igniter, vernier cam timing pulley, t3 turbo.

Any ideas?

Check your timing. if nothing was adjusted and the settings are the same then there would be the best place to start.

Own the day

Almost too simple a solution but have you checked the correct placement of plug leads / firing order?

Also have you checked compression?

Is the carb connected up properly, all breathers on or blocked.

Symptoms similar to when the part throttle lean off pipe is split or missing.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

Thanks for the replies.

Timing and plug leads are correct, two of the spark plugs electrodes are wet with fuel, I will buy a new set of plugs even though these plugs are fairly new.

first off im no expert but this is my opinion and what id do if the other guys agree?

id say pop the clutch/flywheel cover and tappet cover off so you can check what crank angle your getting full valve lift at should be able to use a "spark plug" tdc screw in stop (a long bolt with a lock nut) that way you can know for sure if the came is actually out?

you may want to exhaust all other possibility first tho? but id say if it barely runs with ur foot flat to the bords there is somethign drasticly whrong expecialy if you have not change anything like carb setting and all the pipes are that same as before?

How old is your fuel? Unleaded degrades fairly quickly.

imo
i think fuel could sit for a long time and not cause that bad of an idle (or lack off!) more likely to cause a lack of power and pre detonation if its a highly tuned engine
come on there is something more substantial than bad fuel make the car barely run with your foot to the floor?
just my thoughts im not having a go of course!

As I posted a couple of months ago I had similar problems which I thought might have been down to 2 year old fuel (topped up with a couple of green cans) which turned out to be two plug leads swapped (either I'm a complete f'wit or my bro' in law or one of my friends did it for a joke).

I'd tipped some octane booster in but when I found the plug leads were wrong the car went so well I don't think the fuel had degraded that badly at all.

Are you sure you've checked, 1,3,4,2 anti clockwise on the distributor cap? Find compression with your thumb over a plug hole and make sure the rotor is pointing the right direction as a very rough check.

Nial.

Fuel is about 2 months old and I've checked the plug leads about 5 times hoping it was something simple. Had to work late today so I will have a good look in the morning. Thanks for the advice much appreciated.

is there something catching? is the vernier timing gear a duplex chain and is it a new addition?
mine was exactly the same as you describe after changing to an a series ( not a+ ) timing cover ( ill se if i can find a pic of what happened to mine)

also dont dismiss the fuel shell v power nitro goes off tune in less than a week in my skyline, the ecu makes it well known its not happy, water injection turned off that is
i did tests with it back to back, results are on here i believe maybe data logs too

Yes i moved to the darkside

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is the distributor drive in backwards

Finally found some time to have a look what was going on..... When I first stripped the engine I made a mark on the distributer so I could put it back to the old timing position, so I assumed the timing was correct. After advancing the timing it would start easier but still did not run right, I then decided it had to be valve timing so I removed the timing chain cover and checked the cam timing and found it was off by what I think was one tooth. Put it all back together and it seems to be ok now.

Thanks for all the advice. :)

so its back to what it was before tear down?
so the crank/cam and dissy where a touch out of whack?? the dissy/timing would have been amplified by the cam being out too..

Yes all back to where it was.

The vernier timing gear does not have alignment marks on them and not wanting to go through doing cam timing when I put the engine back together. I used an old timing gear set that had alignment marks to line up the camshaft and crank and then once aligned I put the vernier gear set on. During this process I messed up the cam timing and put the gear on one tooth off.

All seems ok now, will see tomorrow on the track....