Need Help. Daewoo Lanos Engine Problems.

[SyNt4x]

Ok i was driving my car home yesterday, i turned around a bend and then accelerated out of the corner (not racing just normal driving) and then my car started to splutter. by the way its going its like im running on 3cyl. I pulled over straight away and checked leads and two of them the centre metal bracket that clips on the spark plugs came out of the leads and wouldnt come off the plugs. So i got some pliers i had in my car and removed them and put them back into the leads. Plugged the leads back in and drove home.

Today i baught new leads and spark plugs. Changed them over and the car is still running the same.

My guess is that it could possibly be a coil pack or an injector? Any ideas guys?

By the way its the 1.5L sohc engine not the dohc.

Thanks

Andrew

[pparkitn]

Hi, you have to be little more specific. Under which conditions does the car start to splutter:

1) Cruising, constant throttle
2) Acceleration
3) Deceleration
4) Idle

or all the time

Regards,

[SyNt4x]

The car splutters all the time. When u start it. idle it nearly stalls, On and off the throttle.

Its like its running on 3cyl.

[MMamdouh]

again i will ask the same elongated list:

1- how many kms on the car?
2- how old is your air filter?
3- how old is your fuel filter?
4- how old is your spark plugs?
5- how old is your spark plug wires? (the old set).
6- how old are your injectors?
7- how old is your timing belt?
6- when was the last time you cleaned your IAC and intake?
7- do you have a CEL?
8- done any service latly? did you fuel your car recently?

answer them questions for us so that we can build up an accurate diagnosis for your problem.

MMamdouh

[BosnianLanos]

The car splutters all the time. When u start it. idle it nearly stalls, On and off the throttle.

Its like its running on 3cyl.

I have had the same exact thing happen to me in basically the same way, under light accleration it simply lost like 20 HP and started shaking like a wet dog. If plugs/wires OK, sniff your exhaust (not too much! ) and see if you smell gasoline. If so, it is your coil pack, if not, it could be a fuel injector stuck closed. If it is either, it is a fairly simple and inexpensive fix that should take more than maybe 20 minutes.

[SyNt4x]

yeah it smells like unburnt fuel which is why i was leaning to it being more likely a faulty coil pack. I service my own car. Leads were original as i got the car off my dad only 6 months ago. The car has 88,3XXkm's on it. 98 Lanos,
Air Filter - less then 2,000km's
Fuel Filter - same as above
spark plugs that i just replaced same as above
injectors original as far as i know but were cleaned at around 50K when my dad had the car
Timing belt i have no idea if it has been done. dont think so.

What is a CEL? im guessing error codes. Where do i find these?

Car hasnt had fuel in it for like a week before this happened. I had half filled the tank and i dont do much travelling.

Regards

Andrew

[SyNt4x]

I've been chasing prices on new coil pack and i cant get a cheaper price then $375 AUD is that about the right price or not? Thats bloody expensive for a coil pack.

Regards,

Andrew

[MMamdouh]

unburned fuel ---> rich mixture ---> too much fuel or too little air.

too much fuel can point to:

1- leaking injectors, do you lose fuel pressure right after you turn off your engine? in other words can you remove the fuel filter right after you turn off the engine with no fuel pressure blasting out of it??

2- faulty fuel pressure regulator where it is stuck colsed or it doesn't fully open.

too little air can point to:

1- clogged TB passages so you have to take off your TB and clean it from the dirt accumilated in it and also cleanup the IAC... detailed instructions for that are in the How To section.

you got a new air filter so we got that covered.

i guess the ignition system can affect that too but i didn't really get what you said about them spark plug wires, are those the OEM set that came with the car? if so then they are too old and require replacment.

as for the coil pack... i can't tell you to get a new one right now, it is a too expensive part to buy for the sake of testing so if you know someone that owns a daewoo try to borrow the his coil pack and to a test drive to see if yours is faulty... that is when you sort out the spark plug wires issue.

it would be wise to check your timing belt... it could or could not be the problem but 88,000 on one timing belt is too much... i replace mine every 40,000 kms... it is better to be safe than sorry.

MMamdouh

MMamdouh

[panther]

If it sounds like it's running on 3 cylinders what I would do first is locate which cylinder is not firing. Start the engine and pull each wire from the sparkplug one at a time (use something insulating to avoid getting a shock). If the engine splutters or stalls then put that wire back and move on to the next until you locate the cylinder which makes no difference to the sound of the engine when that wire is disconnected.

[MMamdouh]

If it sounds like it's running on 3 cylinders what I would do first is locate which cylinder is not firing. Start the engine and pull each wire from the sparkplug one at a time (use something insulating to avoid getting a shock). If the engine splutters or stalls then put that wire back and move on to the next until you locate the cylinder which makes no difference to the sound of the engine when that wire is disconnected.

it is a good idea but not really practical for one simple reason: you assume that the faulty cyl. is not working at all so when you yank its wire nothing will change.

in practical life the faulty cyl. will be running some 40% or 30% of its power so when the wire is removed it will affect the engine behaviour... it took me some 30 min. to diagnose which wire is bad on my car.

a much easy way is to have one wire that you are 100% sure it is working fine and replace each wire with that test wire and watch the car performance, if it behaves in a perfect way thern you nailed the bad wire... indded this will be harder if you got more than one bad wire.

MMamdouh

[SyNt4x]

With regards to what panther has said. I have replaced all Spark Plugs and all Spark leads with new items. Cost me like $130. Now im moving onto it being a faulty coil. So how i have to diagnose the damn coils.

Regards,


Andrew

[delphis]

well to test the coil you can either do it at night time to see if there is a spark being generated at the end of each wire(pull out one by one to check them) or you could also try doing areverse setup from the coil (this would be better if you had an ODB scanner to see which cyl. is actually misfiring) just reverse the wires from the coil postion to see if it is still misfiring on the same cyl. IE the original misfire was cyl 1 then when you swap the wires cyl. 4 is now misfiring, that would be a dead give away to a bad coil.

[SyNt4x]

I think the easiest way is to pull off the lead and turn over the car and see if i get spark. If not i will know which one it is. Dont wanna connect it to different cyl as u dont wanna ignite an empty cyl it can go bang.

Regards,

Andrew

[panther]

These coil packs fire 2 sparks at the same time (1 is wasted). Once you have located which cylinder is not firing you can easily test the coil by simply swapping the 2 HT leads around which spark at the same time. For example, the coil on my Lanos is numbered 1,4,2,3. Numbers 1&4 spark at the same time and then 2&3 spark at the same time. If for example number 1 cylinder is not firing you can test the coil by swapping 1 & 4 HT leads around. If number 1 cylinder now fires but number 4 does not then it's a sure bet the coil is faulty.

[PrecisionBoost]

I don't know if I agree with that panther.... there are two coils in the coil pack... if one is damaged then the cylinder pair won't be working.

If one of the coils or drivers is damaged you will find that either 1 and 4 are not firing or 2 and 3 are not firing.

The swapping 1&4 wires only works if it's a problem with the wires and not the coil pack.

Given you've allready replaced the wires....if you find just a single cylinder not firing then you have some major problems as the driver/coil is not getting a trigger signal from the ECU or your spark plug is faulty.

Have you removed your spark plugs???

The cylinder that's not firing will have gasoline on the plug..... they should be a nice brown color if everything is running good.

If it's white or black you may have other problems such as a bad injector or damaged rings.

And remember..... what ever you do.... don't stick the spark plug wires on your tongue and have someone crank over the engine ( unless your into pain )