Hi Guys,
Have trawled through various sites on the net trying to get some information about this but cannot.
The Car:
Nissan Micra K11 P-reg Vibe 1.0l Manual, non air-con, pretty basic model. 106k miles
The 'Incident'
Got caught in the classic engine flooding scenario, started car, moved it down the road slightly to let car out of drive, switched off. Couple hours later, needed to go down the shops but it wouldn't start, engine flooded, can smell fuel in bonnet. Tried to start it a couple of times but no joy and gave up and started doing some research on the problem.
Next day i had it all sorted in my head, started car with foot to floor on acc pedal, which signals the ECU to not inject any more fuel, and after 3x 30sec cranks it started but was very very rough, revved it a little to just make sure it wasn't anything that needed clearing out. Switched off and investigated, only to find that my dad had also taken the job on of fixing the car and had disconnected cylinder 4 (nearest distributor) spark lead to test for a spark and had forgotten to reconnect. So reconnected cylinder 4 lead and engine starts first time, however now i have a check engine (orange) light flashing on the dash and the idling appears to be too low, when starting it revs to about 1000, then drops down to 400 (battery charge light comes on for a sec) then revs stabilise at 500. Having driven the car for a while, i know that it shouldn't do this, before the flooding the car had started/run fine from cold. (revs are estimated as i don't have a counter, but the principal is there)
So now i have performed the ECU tests with the DDL connector in the fuse box, orange light flashes slow 14 times, then quick 3 times, giving me a fault code of 143. Which means nothing to me :doh:. Also i note that the IGN pin on the DDL connector is not outputting a voltage and i had to tap the +12V from the radio connector and pipe that into the CHECK pin. Also note that the NATS light on the centre console flashes even when engine running (this is a recent thing too).
I have read a lot about the Throttle bodies going over time but this is a simple case of: car was working fine, engine flooded, cyl4 disconnected, cyl4 reconnected, engine not running fine which leads me to believe that it isn't a 'gradual' failure of anything.
When warm the idling prob is less noticable, when cold sometimes the engine rpm dips so much that it will stall at junctions etc. When under load the engine has no problems, and has the same power/performance.
So now i have an engine with an idling problem and an orange light flashing in the dash all the time, with a fault code of 143. Can anyone shed some insight onto this?
Some Ideas of my own: (Stop me if i'm getting ahead of myself here)
Assuming ECU was still pumping fuel into cyl 4 when lead was disconnected and engine revved and cyl 4 spark plug may be damaged (however why would the ECU be flashing over a spark plug)
ECU sensors are outa whack, have multimetered a few including water temp, AAC value and performed ECU tests on oxygen sensor and they appear to be within spec.
Anyone had/having similar problems, and hopefully solutions?
PS: I've tried to be as detailed as i can about the run upto the problem and about the problem itself.
Have trawled through various sites on the net trying to get some information about this but cannot.
The Car:
Nissan Micra K11 P-reg Vibe 1.0l Manual, non air-con, pretty basic model. 106k miles
The 'Incident'
Got caught in the classic engine flooding scenario, started car, moved it down the road slightly to let car out of drive, switched off. Couple hours later, needed to go down the shops but it wouldn't start, engine flooded, can smell fuel in bonnet. Tried to start it a couple of times but no joy and gave up and started doing some research on the problem.
Next day i had it all sorted in my head, started car with foot to floor on acc pedal, which signals the ECU to not inject any more fuel, and after 3x 30sec cranks it started but was very very rough, revved it a little to just make sure it wasn't anything that needed clearing out. Switched off and investigated, only to find that my dad had also taken the job on of fixing the car and had disconnected cylinder 4 (nearest distributor) spark lead to test for a spark and had forgotten to reconnect. So reconnected cylinder 4 lead and engine starts first time, however now i have a check engine (orange) light flashing on the dash and the idling appears to be too low, when starting it revs to about 1000, then drops down to 400 (battery charge light comes on for a sec) then revs stabilise at 500. Having driven the car for a while, i know that it shouldn't do this, before the flooding the car had started/run fine from cold. (revs are estimated as i don't have a counter, but the principal is there)
So now i have performed the ECU tests with the DDL connector in the fuse box, orange light flashes slow 14 times, then quick 3 times, giving me a fault code of 143. Which means nothing to me :doh:. Also i note that the IGN pin on the DDL connector is not outputting a voltage and i had to tap the +12V from the radio connector and pipe that into the CHECK pin. Also note that the NATS light on the centre console flashes even when engine running (this is a recent thing too).
I have read a lot about the Throttle bodies going over time but this is a simple case of: car was working fine, engine flooded, cyl4 disconnected, cyl4 reconnected, engine not running fine which leads me to believe that it isn't a 'gradual' failure of anything.
When warm the idling prob is less noticable, when cold sometimes the engine rpm dips so much that it will stall at junctions etc. When under load the engine has no problems, and has the same power/performance.
So now i have an engine with an idling problem and an orange light flashing in the dash all the time, with a fault code of 143. Can anyone shed some insight onto this?
Some Ideas of my own: (Stop me if i'm getting ahead of myself here)
Assuming ECU was still pumping fuel into cyl 4 when lead was disconnected and engine revved and cyl 4 spark plug may be damaged (however why would the ECU be flashing over a spark plug)
ECU sensors are outa whack, have multimetered a few including water temp, AAC value and performed ECU tests on oxygen sensor and they appear to be within spec.
Anyone had/having similar problems, and hopefully solutions?
PS: I've tried to be as detailed as i can about the run upto the problem and about the problem itself.