StuckAgainSteve
Well-Known Member
You have it the wrong way round ! The crank sensor is the all important one - it has no backup,so must work or the engine wont go.It is not just for TDC either,it is used for overall engine speed AND misfire detection.The ecu watches the gaps between crank sensor pulses to see if each individual firing event takes place.If the pulse gaps narrow it can tell a cylinder has fired,if the gaps widen it knows the crank has slowed down - then will log a misfire.If the misfire is persistant it will store a DTC.
That it runs without the cam sensor is normal,it just cant tell that cyl,s are on compression or exhaust strokes,so runs bank fired not sequential and disables the knock sensors - hence the OP's engine pinking.All his engines symptoms add up,scoping it would soon show whats going on....
I just said I'm surprised coz the systems I've been directly involved with worked the other way round - but I know nothing about Motronic and its backup strategies for running and am perfectly happy to defer to you greater knowledge on the subject! I was basing my assumption my on bike requiring cam sensor info to run (start) because it has no CI backup strategy and a Ford system I was 50% of the ECU coding team on didn't either!