I’m appealing for help please, as a very disappointed retiree from the Lands End Trial!
After thoroughly enjoying the first 8 hours of the trial with everything running well, my car began to lose power, and over the next 20 minutes it gradually worsened until I had just enough power to drive in first gear to the next village, and despite best efforts at the roadside, I had to retire and return home courtesy of Green Flag (who were superb btw).
My car is a 2000 4/4 1.8 zetec with Omex/ Jenvey TB’s and Librands exhaust. It was modified in 2017 and has since done over c20k, and ran absolutely fine for the first 8 hours / 150 miles or so of the trial. It starts and idles smoothly with no sign of misfire, and has enough power to move around in first/ second gear up to 1500 - 2000 rpm, but any more and the engine ‘bogs down’, as though choking for lack of air or fuel, best shown and heard in the youtube video link below:
I have several classics and modern classics and am fairly good with most things mechanical etc, however this one has really stumped me because I can’t get to the cause and it’s driving me mad! I am really hoping someone will watch the video, recognise the fairly distinctive symptoms and poor running, and even better recall what they did to fix it!
I have run through the usual checks, and so far tried new spark plugs, new coil pack, new leads, fuel pump and filter checked, confirmed fuel pressure at 45psi idle and under load, cleaned TB’s, checked Omex software for anything ‘obvious’ eg TPS (but I am not a tuning expert….), none of which has made any difference. The symptoms seem very distinctive, as seen and heard in the video, and are consistent. It doesn’t appear to be a sudden failure, and feels more air or fuel related as I can’t pick up any misfire on anyone cylinder. It fails smoothly, rather than losing power due lumpyness you tend to get if a cylinder is not behaving for fuel or spark reasons etc.
Next on list is compression test, possibly injectors change, drain and refill with new fuel….but not convinced the symptoms in video are what would expect even if had poor compression or valve issue..
So - hoping someone may watch the video and recognise the problem and solution so I can get going again, wondering how I missed something so simple…..
