iconic
New Member
Good morning gentlemen, great site you have here and I hope you can help me too!
I have just bought a 1996 P38A 2.5 DSE automatic with 140k miles on her, she came to me via an auction, drives very indeed but she has serious lack of power....and I mean serious.....up a slight incline on the M2 motorway she will do around 40 mph, on the flat she can do all of 50 mph, down hill up to 70/80+ mph! She has a good service history too.
She is all noise and no go, around town it's manageable, but on the B roads, A roads or motorways this thing is dangerous, the slightest hill and it's game over!
So what have we checked?
1/ Starts on the button cold and hot
2/ Idles 100%
3/ Engine picks up very sprightly when revved in neutral, intercooler hoses go fat when revved, the turbo spooling up can be heard too
4/ No blue, white, or black smoke at all cold or hot....even when flooring the throttle there is NO black smoke at all....
5/ Doesn't overheat, in fact the temp reads too low and never climbs above quarter way
6/ I had my friend code read the car and the only fault was 'start of injection initiation intermitant fault'...this must be a pump injection timing error.....does the M51 engine have a crank sensor? But surely if this was so she would be a pig to start?
7/ When code reading and she is reved on idle the boost does goes up, but seems a little lower than I would expect, but then it's hard to tell with no load on the engine...the highest I saw was 1200 mbar...anyone know what boost these things run.....I'm guessing no more than a .5 bar so maybe this is OK?
8/ She is booked in to see a diesel specialist next Monday in Paddock Wood, the only thing I though about was maybe the boost take off pipe from the manifold maybe blocked, I may just replace the pipe to be sure, I have seen this on a diesel Frontera before?
...although she throws up the timing code error timing appears correct at idle, it seems to me the fuel pump isn't injecting enough fuel when the turbo is spooling up....ohh, and if the timing was out she would still be seeing max fuel and there would be clouds of black...wouldn't there?
I spoke with the previous owner yesterday and he told he owned the car for 5 years and yes, she did this lack of power fault from time to time and he took her to the Land Rover dealer and they cleared "something in the ECU" and it would be OK for a while...what they did he didn't know.
The only problem he did have was when the "intercooler burst" he thinks..the engine bay ended up covered in oil...now that is strange...why would be there so much oil in the intercoole...unless he meant something else...it was at the front of the engine and had 3 holes in it.....doesn't sound like an intercooler does it?
I have had other thoughts, I would also suspect the tank pump BUT she starts too well hot or cold...isn't there a check that can be done by taking off the fuel feed to the filter and keying on to see if fuel is coming up from the tank?
......any thoughts guys.....and help gratefully received, how ever odd too
many thanks
Richard
I have just bought a 1996 P38A 2.5 DSE automatic with 140k miles on her, she came to me via an auction, drives very indeed but she has serious lack of power....and I mean serious.....up a slight incline on the M2 motorway she will do around 40 mph, on the flat she can do all of 50 mph, down hill up to 70/80+ mph! She has a good service history too.
She is all noise and no go, around town it's manageable, but on the B roads, A roads or motorways this thing is dangerous, the slightest hill and it's game over!
So what have we checked?
1/ Starts on the button cold and hot
2/ Idles 100%
3/ Engine picks up very sprightly when revved in neutral, intercooler hoses go fat when revved, the turbo spooling up can be heard too
4/ No blue, white, or black smoke at all cold or hot....even when flooring the throttle there is NO black smoke at all....
5/ Doesn't overheat, in fact the temp reads too low and never climbs above quarter way
6/ I had my friend code read the car and the only fault was 'start of injection initiation intermitant fault'...this must be a pump injection timing error.....does the M51 engine have a crank sensor? But surely if this was so she would be a pig to start?
7/ When code reading and she is reved on idle the boost does goes up, but seems a little lower than I would expect, but then it's hard to tell with no load on the engine...the highest I saw was 1200 mbar...anyone know what boost these things run.....I'm guessing no more than a .5 bar so maybe this is OK?
8/ She is booked in to see a diesel specialist next Monday in Paddock Wood, the only thing I though about was maybe the boost take off pipe from the manifold maybe blocked, I may just replace the pipe to be sure, I have seen this on a diesel Frontera before?
...although she throws up the timing code error timing appears correct at idle, it seems to me the fuel pump isn't injecting enough fuel when the turbo is spooling up....ohh, and if the timing was out she would still be seeing max fuel and there would be clouds of black...wouldn't there?
I spoke with the previous owner yesterday and he told he owned the car for 5 years and yes, she did this lack of power fault from time to time and he took her to the Land Rover dealer and they cleared "something in the ECU" and it would be OK for a while...what they did he didn't know.
The only problem he did have was when the "intercooler burst" he thinks..the engine bay ended up covered in oil...now that is strange...why would be there so much oil in the intercoole...unless he meant something else...it was at the front of the engine and had 3 holes in it.....doesn't sound like an intercooler does it?
I have had other thoughts, I would also suspect the tank pump BUT she starts too well hot or cold...isn't there a check that can be done by taking off the fuel feed to the filter and keying on to see if fuel is coming up from the tank?
......any thoughts guys.....and help gratefully received, how ever odd too
many thanks
Richard