30 replies to this topic

[Crawfish]

Thanks for reply
Ok ,so my mini has not had one of those since I have owned it (approx 20 years)
At some point the original air filter housing has been changed to a fancy looking air filter with a chrome top

Do I need to connect the hose by buying an air filter housing and returning it to its original factory condition?
Or is it ok as it is without the yellow hose attached keeping the already installed air filter?

Thanks again

[cal844]

It should run ok with the yellow hose disconnected but you may want to try the standard one.

[Crawfish]

Thanks cal844

I'm trying to do everything by the book -as far as you guys are recommending, as I want to get this problem sorted once and for all.

 

I will chat to the mechanic tomorrow and might need to think about reverting the air filter back to the original (plus yellow hose) if the problem is still happening

At least all of the other hoses plus fuel trap have been replaced, so that should make a difference

 

The mechanic has also adjusted the revs to (Think he said ) 850 as they were at 500 and something ,so that might help

 

Unfortunately he tells me that the ECU isn't responding to diagnostics ,so that might also be a new nightmare for me to ask you guys about.

 

Fingers crossed things will be sorted!

 

I will keep this updated

 

Cheers

[cal844]

You might need a MEMS specific diagnostic tool.

Can you do a code scan like the modern cars? If you can, do one and post here with any codes.

As I say it may be worth trying a standard air filter housing, but I can't really see it making much difference if the car ran well without the yellow hose fitted, there may also be a location for the hose to clip into on the KnN filter baseplate

It's probably been asked previously, when did you last give the car a complete service? (Ignition components as well as engine filters)

Edited by cal844, 08 May 2019 - 08:33 PM.

[Crawfish]

Ok thats good to know the name of the right diagnostic tool

I don't know what a code scan is (I'm very non technical) I will ask mechanic if thats been done

 

The mechanic said that the person that does all their diagnostics (mobile service) was at the garage and couldn't get any joy with getting a reading (not sure what he would have used to try and take the reading) said was perhaps ECU problem or electrical

 

I will keep in mind about reverting the air filter housing as a next stage of troubleshooting 

 

the car has not had a service other than the usual oil etc -I imagine I would need to find someone who works on Minis for the ignition side of that?

Edited by Crawfish, 08 May 2019 - 08:42 PM.

[cal844]

Ok thats good to know the name of the right diagnostic tool
I don't know what a code scan is (I'm very non technical) I will ask mechanic if thats been done

The mechanic said that the person that does all their diagnostics (mobile service) was at the garage and couldn't get any joy with getting a reading (not sure what he would have used to try and take the reading) said was perhaps ECU problem or electrical

I will keep in mind about reverting the air filter housing as a next stage of troubleshooting

the car has not had a service other than the usual oil etc -I imagine I would need to find someone who works on Minis for the ignition side of that?

The MEMS I quoted earlier is the name of the ECU, your electrical guru might need an ACR 4 diagnostic machine, although I believe they could have a modern machine with the software on it.

Aslong as the rotor arm and distributor cap have been checked for wear and to make sure the carbon brush is still springy it should be ok.

A member of my Mini owners club has had issues with his SPI mini. The car was fitted with a known good used ECU to rule it out and it made an improvementso worth trying if you can get one. I'd also try making sure the pins aren't corroded, bent or snapped in the ECU plugs.

One way to test the wiring is to do a resistance test from each pin of the ECU to the component it controls, you'd be looking for 0.5 ohms maximum, if the screen shows off the scale you have a broken wire.

I hope this is of some help.

If you need any further help just ask

Regards

Cal

Edited by cal844, 08 May 2019 - 10:15 PM.

[Crawfish]

Thanks very much for all this information Cal844

 I now have it stored here for future reference

 

I'm hoping that the work that has been done so far will make an improvement ,fortunately I also have all this other information to use if not

 

Really appreciate you taking the time to help me fix my car

Many thanks :)

[Crawfish]

Ok the mini is back

New radiator The fuel trap replaced ,black vacuum leads replaced, red vacuum lead replaced but not joined to anything on one end / yellow one left off also ,as there isn't an original air filter housing (it has a K&N one installed)

 

First thing I have noticed about the car, is its its running much lower revs on idle and the idle speed is a bit erratic (going up and down)

I haven't taken it for a long enough  drive to see if it's still stalling ,but so far it hasn't stalled 

[cal844]

Good to hear, does the car have a diagnostic port or connection?

If so try a code read to see what codes come up.

Edited to try and add the URL for search results of this site...

http://www.theminifo...ch&fromsearch=1

I simply used the search box to list SPI erratic idle

Regards

Cal

Edited by cal844, 14 May 2019 - 01:50 PM.

[Crawfish]

Hi again Cal

I have no idea if I have those ports /connections unfortunately

 

As you previously mentioned I need to go through the process of checking the ECU for corroded /damaged pins ,as currently I am unable to get a reading from it and it might be broken.

 

Via this site I've seen that there is someone relatively near to me that has an ACR4 unit, but I want to make sure that I don't drive all the way there and find I can't get that to work on my car, due to a faulty ECU or I have an electrical problem thats preventing diagnostics.

 

I've had a browse under the "erratic idle "search and its pretty tricky trying to understand some of the posts

 

Would this list make sense to you?

 

Check ECU for broken /corroded pins

Try and get readings from someones ACR4 unit

report back with findings from it ?

 

many thanks

[cal844]

Hi again Cal
I have no idea if I have those ports /connections unfortunately

As you previously mentioned I need to go through the process of checking the ECU for corroded /damaged pins ,as currently I am unable to get a reading from it and it might be broken.

Via this site I've seen that there is someone relatively near to me that has an ACR4 unit, but I want to make sure that I don't drive all the way there and find I can't get that to work on my car, due to a faulty ECU or I have an electrical problem thats preventing diagnostics.

I've had a browse under the "erratic idle "search and its pretty tricky trying to understand some of the posts

Would this list make sense to you?

Check ECU for broken /corroded pins
Try and get readings from someones ACR4 unit
report back with findings from it ?

many thanks

I'd definitely say you are tackling this in the correct manner, I simply don't see the point in spending stupid money on unnecessary parts as you'll not know what the fault was.

I do agree that checking the pins and wiring for damage would be the right way to go (you could resistance or continuity test the wiring to save you having to rip the tape off the loom ?)

Good to know we are making progress in that the car is running

[Crawfish]

 

Hi again Cal
I have no idea if I have those ports /connections unfortunately

As you previously mentioned I need to go through the process of checking the ECU for corroded /damaged pins ,as currently I am unable to get a reading from it and it might be broken.

Via this site I've seen that there is someone relatively near to me that has an ACR4 unit, but I want to make sure that I don't drive all the way there and find I can't get that to work on my car, due to a faulty ECU or I have an electrical problem thats preventing diagnostics.

I've had a browse under the "erratic idle "search and its pretty tricky trying to understand some of the posts

Would this list make sense to you?

Check ECU for broken /corroded pins
Try and get readings from someones ACR4 unit
report back with findings from it ?

many thanks

I'd definitely say you are tackling this in the correct manner, I simply don't see the point in spending stupid money on unnecessary parts as you'll not know what the fault was.

I do agree that checking the pins and wiring for damage would be the right way to go (you could resistance or continuity test the wiring to save you having to rip the tape off the loom )

Good to know we are making progress in that the car is running

 

 

Ok cool, I will try and get the ECU looked at for damage

Thanks again

[Crawfish]

Hi again 

Update on where I am with the mini 

 

I arranged with thevery  generous @rooboonix from this forum ,for him to see if he could get my mini to respond to his ARC2 reader with pod number1 attached (he is in the process of getting a pod 3) he is also a mechanic ,so this was a major result for me.

 

Today was the first time the mini had been on a longish drive since vacuum hoses/fuel trap replaced (60miles total )

I did notice that it appears to be drinking petrol much faster than it used too, this I noticed on the way there and back after adjustments.

 

As mentioned the mini was idling very slowly and erratically and the first part of the journey was pretty good with the car running ok ,towards the end the car started cutting out everytime it stopped, but at least started first time afterwards,

 

 

When I got there the borrowed reader did attach ,so that was great

Below are some readings that @rooboonix thought worthy of note to the rest of you 

 

 

Map sensor/vacumm was 80 (apparently this should be 34) the idle switch was open , the throttle was high 0.75-0.8 (should be 0.4-0.5) Oxygen 0.8 fuel

These readings mean little to me ,so I may have written them down wrong ,apologies if its a bit confused.

 

 

The work that has been done today is as below

 

The idle was originally really bad (the garage mechanic had messed with it ) and that was changed, so it is currently around 850 and this seems its less likely to stall.

The throttle cable was put in the correct position, as it wasn't that way to start with

 

Hopefully this might make some more sense as to what iis the next stage to go for, we are currently thinking of pod 3 with the ACR2 ,so we have more control over the ECU ,plus potentially exchanging the hoses for silicone ones

 

Thoughts welcome from you all as I’m on a mission to get this working right @rooboonix is also going to pay attention to it ,so you can be as techy as you want :)

 

All the best

Edited by Crawfish, 19 May 2019 - 01:40 PM.

[RooBoonix]

Just to quickly add to the post above:

 

The car has a single plug ECU with no idle switch on the throttle pedal, the idle switch reading on the ACR reader stayed open when I expected it to stay closed on idle or at least flicker between open and closed as the stepper motor did it's job on keeping the idle stable.

 

I tried tweaking the position of the TPS to bring the voltage reading down on idle towards the more desired 0.4-0.5v, but the lowest I could get it with the engine not running was around 0.65v. When started up the stepper motor came into play and it sat at around 0.7-0.8v as mentioned above.

 

MAP sensor reading I wasn't too happy with, sitting at 70-80KPa on idle I would expect this to sit much lower, the K&N filter being less restrictive may alter the vacuum reading slightly but I wouldn't expect it to alter this much. I am tempted to try some silicone vacuum hose on the car, even if it's just temporary, to rule out any potentially faulty new vacuum hoses. I did check out the vacuum lines and visually they seemed to be ok.

 

Oxygen sensor reading was stuck high indicating a rich condition, however as previously noted the car is drinking fuel so the O2 sensor may well read rich due to a seperate issue causing the ECU to overfuel.

 

I look forward to hearing some more opinions on the problem, next time we meet I hope to try some more suggestions and I may bring some parts off my own SPI to test on the car to hopefully find the cause of the issue. I am looking out for a Pod 3 for my ACR2 reader so we can also confirm the setting of the stepper motor is correct.

 

Cheers,

Cameron.

[Crawfish]

Just to quickly add to the post above:

 

The car has a single plug ECU with no idle switch on the throttle pedal, the idle switch reading on the ACR reader stayed open when I expected it to stay closed on idle or at least flicker between open and closed as the stepper motor did it's job on keeping the idle stable.

 

I tried tweaking the position of the TPS to bring the voltage reading down on idle towards the more desired 0.4-0.5v, but the lowest I could get it with the engine not running was around 0.65v. When started up the stepper motor came into play and it sat at around 0.7-0.8v as mentioned above.

 

MAP sensor reading I wasn't too happy with, sitting at 70-80KPa on idle I would expect this to sit much lower, the K&N filter being less restrictive may alter the vacuum reading slightly but I wouldn't expect it to alter this much. I am tempted to try some silicone vacuum hose on the car, even if it's just temporary, to rule out any potentially faulty new vacuum hoses. I did check out the vacuum lines and visually they seemed to be ok.

 

Oxygen sensor reading was stuck high indicating a rich condition, however as previously noted the car is drinking fuel so the O2 sensor may well read rich due to a seperate issue causing the ECU to overfuel.

 

I look forward to hearing some more opinions on the problem, next time we meet I hope to try some more suggestions and I may bring some parts off my own SPI to test on the car to hopefully find the cause of the issue. I am looking out for a Pod 3 for my ACR2 reader so we can also confirm the setting of the stepper motor is correct.

 

Cheers,

Cameron.

 

Thanks Cameron for the much needed technical stuff

Hopefully this will bring some responses from those in the know about this stuff...any takers out there?

 

Cheers

Andy