SoCal General Chat

[TheRob]

I'm not suffering. I have been driving my E30 for 17 years now with a semiautomatic ;). Traffic driving is great !

Yeah, I guess it was just for dramatic effect :) Automatics are ok, my e90 is an automatic makes SoCal traffic easier to deal with.

[MrBurgundy]

When I was driving up a mountain yesterday, my car had a severe stumbling problem. Like, power would randomly cut out while I had my foot on the gas. Seemed to me like a fuel delivery problem. At the top, when I got out of the car, it smelled a bit like gas. I went to open my gas cap, and it forced pressure on the cap as I twisted it. Weird! I had filled up the tank before driving up the mountain, so it couldn't be a starvation problem. The in-line fuel pump is exceptionally loud. I replaced that several years ago, but maybe that's the problem?

I recently passed smog and replaced the usual wear items and fluids, so I'm not concerned with those components. The stumbling problem seems so random; although occurs only in upper RPMs under load.... except when it had little hiccups cruising on the freeway to the mountain.

Unrelated, but I did find tiny metal shavings last time I changed my oil.

sounds more like an ignition problem. Probably smells like gas because its not firing ignition.

[MrBurgundy]

Yeah, I guess it was just for dramatic effect :) Automatics are ok, my e90 is an automatic makes SoCal traffic easier to deal with.

I used to be so against anything automatic, but now I have a new appreciation for them. a few years ago my DD was stick and then the e30s were stick, so I had no escape from a manual gearbox. I say no escape, because doing 7 hours of stop and go traffic from Vegas to LA was traumatizing and something I'd never want to experience again.

Certain auto trannies are pretty nice too. My new to me mini has a 6sp auto and its really nice. I never find myself i wishing the car would be in this gear or that gear, it just always seems to be in the sweet spot in relation to your throttle input.

[parkerbink]

Car Flies About 60 Feet Into Upper Floor of a Building in California

Driver admits to being "high" (get it)??? lol

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/us/car-crash-santa-ana.html

http://abc7.com/traffic/2-injured-in-bizarre-santa-ana-car-crash/2943129/

[TheRob]

I used to be so against anything automatic, but now I have a new appreciation for them. a few years ago my DD was stick and then the e30s were stick, so I had no escape from a manual gearbox. I say no escape, because doing 7 hours of stop and go traffic from Vegas to LA was traumatizing and something I'd never want to experience again.

Certain auto trannies are pretty nice too. My new to me mini has a 6sp auto and its really nice. I never find myself i wishing the car would be in this gear or that gear, it just always seems to be in the sweet spot in relation to your throttle input.

Yeah I know what you mean, the six speed auto in my 328 does a good job (I wish it was the ZF but only 335s got those) Sometimes I wish it was a manual and then I use manual mode and the paddles and make turbo noises sometimes too...then my family looks at me funny.

[Chilezen]

Loss of power, I would go with AFM or CPS Brown.
The gas pressure is a bit trippy to diagnose, as I've never seen or heard of that before.

sounds more like an ignition problem. Probably smells like gas because its not firing ignition.

The spark plugs, cap, & rotor are new.
I can't imagine why it sporadically wouldn't fire. Maybe a loose ground? That wouldn't explain why it only happened on the way up the mountain. It's like, after I "relieved pressure" from the gas tank when I took the filler cap off, it worked fine again, but I wouldn't really know because I didn't push the car hard going down.

Perhaps the charcoal canister is clogged? I can't think of anything else besides a dying fuel pump, that would explain why the problem occurs under load, usually at high revs.

How could I test/prove the CPS or AFM is faulty?

[MrBurgundy]

You can do a resistance test on the CPS, if you don't know how to do that, look it up. Also, just because it's happening under a load doesn't rule out ignition. Pull each plug and check for fouling. It is possible you have a leaky injector that fouled up a plug. I'm not saying it's the spark for sure, but don't limit your diagnosis to fuel exclusively.

[TheRob]

Does the car consistently have a lot of pressure built up in the tank like that? It could be the line from the tank to the canister is pinched somewhere, the guy who did the smog may have even left the pliers he used to pinch it closed on there ( I've seen this once or twice, not too common)
On the CPS you can use an Ohmmeter and check resistance, its something like 520 +- 5 ohms across the sensor when disconnected but if its failing intermittently this might not find a problem, if you have access to a digital scope that's the best way to check them and actually look at the waveform through varying RPM ranges.
You can check Ohms on the AFM too, pins 2 and 3 on the AFM and check resistance while you slowly open the plate, not really an exact science on finding a fault though unless you find a point where the resistance reading changes drastically towards the top of the range.
Can you easily duplicate the problem?
If you really wanted to, you could leave a DMM hooked up the 02 sensor and see if its going rich or lean when the problem happens might point you in the right direction. Have the DMM in the car with you and have a passenger watch the numbers change...like an old school version of live data from a scan tool.
I think at this point I've just started rambling

[sileighty]

If you repaint a bronzit car to any other color, does it's value automatically increase?

[MrBurgundy]

If you repaint a bronzit car to any other color, does it's value automatically increase?

This may be shocking to read, but, no.

[IRON-E]

If you repaint a bronzit car to any other color, does it's value automatically increase?

How do I FB like this comment?

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Any machine shop recommendations in the valley? Need to get a cylinder head cleaned, checked and resurfaced

[Balleristic31]

Any machine shop recommendations in the valley? Need to get a cylinder head cleaned, checked and resurfaced

Bimmerheads

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Bimmerheads

I dont think they do the actual machine work in house? Thanks though

Got a connect through work - $150 for cleaning, pressure test, check for cracks, valve job and valve guides and resurface, done today - seems like a smoking deal



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[MrBurgundy]

I dont think they do the actual machine work in house? Thanks though

Got a connect through work - $150 for cleaning, pressure test, check for cracks, valve job and valve guides and resurface, done today - seems like a smoking deal



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That’s a great deal.


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