Misfiring CSL

[thompson]

Hi Guys
I think i have killed my csl. In the last few days i have been driving it very
hard since we had this good weather, why not.
Any way the car was running fine yesterday morning.Last night i was playing with my mates E92 M3 and all of a sudden i lost power on my car. So i had to pull over.
Engine management light was on and it was misfiring and running rough
so i switched it off straight away.I did not want to take a risk so i called the RAC who took their time to arrive.
The started the car and the misfire had disappeared and the engine light
was off, very weird!
They checked a few things and said its all okay and advised i get a further diagnosis check done by main dealer to be on the safe side.
which was fair enough.

Anyway i continued on my journey and i decided to give it more stick,
the same thing happened again but now i can control the misfire.
the engine misfires under load ONLY at 2000-3000rpm and then the misfire
clears away,if i drive it normally it is okay.

So now that pee'd me right of , this morning i took the car to my local
bmw dealer who said i need to book it in, anyway with a little bit of
hussling i got them to do a quick diagnoisis check which costed me
£117.00 but they could not find anything wrong with the car, they
stated the plugs and coils are okay and they need to do more tests,
i asked them to drive it underload so they did although they should of done this at the beginning but i was in no postion to argue with them,
However they want at least another 2-3 hours investigation time
but said it possibily might be the vanos system which could cost up to £2500.

At that point i fell of my chair in reception, my csl is fkd.
i have drove it back today and parked it up as i cant drive it anymore in this state.

Any ideas what it could be? Is this a common problem as the BMW
really were not that helpful, 117.00 down and no answers.

help please.....

[shane@mbtech]

Hi Guys
I think i have killed my csl. In the last few days i have been driving it very
hard since we had this good weather, why not.
Any way the car was running fine yesterday morning.Last night i was playing with my mates E92 M3 and all of a sudden i lost power on my car. So i had to pull over.
Engine management light was on and it was misfiring and running rough
so i switched it off straight away.I did not want to take a risk so i called the RAC who took their time to arrive.
The started the car and the misfire had disappeared and the engine light
was off, very weird!
They checked a few things and said its all okay and advised i get a further diagnosis check done by main dealer to be on the safe side.
which was fair enough.

Anyway i continued on my journey and i decided to give it more stick,
the same thing happened again but now i can control the misfire.
the engine misfires under load ONLY at 2000-3000rpm and then the misfire
clears away,if i drive it normally it is okay.

So now that pee'd me right of , this morning i took the car to my local
bmw dealer who said i need to book it in, anyway with a little bit of
hussling i got them to do a quick diagnoisis check which costed me
£117.00 but they could not find anything wrong with the car, they
stated the plugs and coils are okay and they need to do more tests,
i asked them to drive it underload so they did although they should of done this at the beginning but i was in no postion to argue with them,
However they want at least another 2-3 hours investigation time
but said it possibily might be the vanos system which could cost up to £2500.

At that point i fell of my chair in reception, my csl is fkd.
i have drove it back today and parked it up as i cant drive it anymore in this state.

Any ideas what it could be? Is this a common problem as the BMW
really were not that helpful, 117.00 down and no answers.

help please.....


Sounds like a coil to me, key is to get the misfire and do not shut down the engine. Then you can investgate.

They break down when very hot and then the car senses a problem so usually shuts said cylinder down. Switch off and come back later and misfire is gone. Fook the dealers for problems like this their labour rates are too high.

[glendog74]

If your car isn't under warranty i would take it to Simpson, Geoff Steele, BMSport or similar who deal with CSLs regularly.

[thompson]

Thanks guys, BMW Did check the coils today but said there is no faults
with it.Funny thing i drove the car today and yesterday and if i dont
boot it it drives okay, if i plant my foot down it will misfire only
between 2000-3000rpm surely if it was a coil it would be there all the time
right?

I can get hold of bosch coils tomorrow from ECP in Wembley

Maybe i should try these first???:bigcry: im depressed.

[Thorney]

Coils, plugs, injectors would be first checks. If there is an error code it will be quite specific so easy to identify although hard to replicate if not driven hard. Worse case is head gasket but i doubt that at this stage.

[Will Fields]

If your car isn't under warranty i would take it to Simpson, Geoff Steele, BMSport or similar who deal with CSLs regularly.


I agree, as I am sure we (Geoff Steel) and all the others named above would fit a used set of coils (and other components) first to try before forcing you to buy a new products....(and at a much lower labour rate...)

[shimmy]

might a failed lambda in the headers have a similar result:smokin:

[Thorney]

might a failed lambda in the headers have a similar result:smokin:

True, but would generate a different error code.

[shimmy]

True, but would generate a different error code.


:thumbs:

[thompson]

hi guys

I Have changed the sparkplugs and coils today but it still is the same.
I Hope it is not the headgasket! Could it be the injectors or ECU?

The fault codes that i was given are
cylinder 1 misfire
cylinder 2 misfire
cylinder 3 misfire
cylinder 4 misfire
cylinder 5 misfire
cylinder 6 misfire
random cylinder misfire

I also went out in the car today and noticed that i can drive the car normally for hours it drives 100% perfect also checked the oil/water levels
and temperatures all okay.

Now say if i am in 2nd gear plant my foot down, only when revs reach
2000rpm-3000rpm it misfires, it will not misfire after this, if i hold it at 2500
rpm it will misfire really bad and engine light will come on and it will continue to misfire even at idle until i switch engine off and restart
where it will clear unless i produce it again.

After the engine is restarted i can drive off as normal without any problems
until i plant my foot down.

After reading up all night on the vanos system and different issues on it
it seems that vanos will only cause rattles and not misfires, i dont know
if this is correct???

If it was injectors will it not misfire all the time?

[shimmy]

My HG failure had a misfire that got slowly worse. S54 HG failures normally fail between cylinders so oil and water should be ok.

I doubt it is HG unless your car is 60k miles + and driven very hard ( lots of heat)

compression test is very easy for a garage to do to rule this out or not.

[thompson]

hi

thanks mate, i think i might get this done, just hope it is not the headgasket.

if it is, are there any uprated parts i can use instead of standard BMW?

[shimmy]

I'm certainly no expert but as long as you head isn't cracked or any pot marks on your pistons all you'll need is a new gasket and bolts

there are different gaskets available and if you have to skim the head them a thicker one will be used to avoid raising the compression ratio

get it looked at asap

[Thorney]

Catch it early enough and all you will need is a new gaskett. ARP bolts aren't a bad idea at the time as you have to replace them anyway. We warped a head on Cup car a while ago and it was scrap but that was after some time on track ignoring a miss fire and 200k on the engine :)

[shane@mbtech]

Catch it early enough and all you will need is a new gaskett. ARP bolts aren't a bad idea at the time as you have to replace them anyway. We warped a head on Cup car a while ago and it was scrap but that was after some time on track ignoring a miss fire and 200k on the engine :)

Why did you ignore a misfire? Seems suicide to me.

[AlexGTT]

Why did you ignore a misfire? Seems suicide to me.

I believe John was not driving. Was one of his customers driving last year.

[shane@mbtech]

I believe John was not driving. Was one of his customers driving last year.

Slapped wrist for the driver then:hahaha:

[shimmy]

Slapped wrist for the driver then:hahaha:

Slapped wallet more like:)

[Thorney]

I believe John was not driving. Was one of his customers driving last year.

Actually no, my fault entirely, this was nearly 3 years ago at Croft. Not driven circuit before and wanted to get some time in, only ignored it for 2 laps but that was enough. Engine had done 197k so guess we got a good run out of it.

[thegingerninja]

Throttle potentiometer worn at the 2-3k revs? It's going to be something electronic by the sounds of things, but a simple comp test should help confirm the gasket one way or the other?

[thompson]

hi Guys

Well here is the update on my csl,

BMW have done further tests on the car, They have tried injectors because they said they found a fault with it,However the problem is still there so i aint going to pay for that i told them, They done a compression check and cylinder leakage test which came back 100% okay,
they said it is not the headgasket, They conducted a vanos test which came back 100% okay and now suspect its a ECU problem but are asking me if i have ever had it tuned/remapped (which it is-superchips),
they also said its a electrical problem rather than engine related and
need to try a ECU.
any way i decided to get the car out of there becuase it seems like
they are guessing it, today i got the map removed and it made no difference,

I had a indy give me the fault codes which are

196-C4 Misfire,Cylinder 1 with cylinder cut out
197-C5 Misfire,Cylinder 2 with cylinder cut out
198-C6 Misfire,Cylinder 3 with cylinder cut out
204-CC Misfire,Several cylinders with cylinder cut out

but he cant look at it till a week and half, So i called up Simpson Motorsport who were very helpful and stated they dont think it can be the ECU however they would need to check it, The problem is i have to wait
another week, thats nearly two weeks i have had this problem and i have
got nowhere, i meant to be taken the car to nice this weekend
and my plans, my car are totally fkd.

So now i am stuck and dont know what to do,

Potentiometer??? what is this and where?

Serious Help required.

[azrael]

Potentiometer??? what is this and where?

This is part of the intake flap and can fail causing the flap to be stuck shut = no induction. I don't think this would be your problem if stuck open, shut or part way.

Get it stuck into one of the garages sooner rather than later, if the car is there it can be worked on as and when up until your booked in time hopefully

[shane@mbtech]

Potentiometer??? what is this and where?

This is part of the intake flap and can fail causing the flap to be stuck shut = no induction. I don't think this would be your problem if stuck open, shut or part way.

Get it stuck into one of the garages sooner rather than later, if the car is there it can be worked on as and when up until your booked in time hopefully


Thats what we tell our customers, even though we are booked up for 2 weeks. Better if its left with us before the book in date, 9/10 we will get a spare half hour/hour and have a look well before the booked in date, depending on what it is it may even be ready before :thumbs:

[thompson]

hi guys

hope you are all well, after wasying weeks with bmw, i decided to take it to a local reptuable indy who stated its not the ecu but cam sensers
should bmw not picked this up?

anyway had cam sensers replaced but no joy so now i was pissed!

a friend of mines told me to stop wasting my time and try ca automotive
so i did, Mike who is a partner and also owns a-l tuning stated
it might be headgasket, after some members also stating the same
i prepared my self for a big expensive bill,

Any way, car went to A-L tuning Berkshire site , I was greated by mike
who had a look at the car and stated it would cost 2hours diag,
First impressions were very impressive, Porsches, ferraris and supercharged
m3s So i felt safe.

About 4 hours later mike called me and told me the car was ready
i was very supprised at that, so i asked him what the hell was wrong with
it,

here we go,

The throttle bodies required adapting with the main intake flap,
it costed me under £100 for the repair, i have spent hundreds with bmw
and indy specialist who both could not find the problem,

he also knew my car was remapped although he laughed and said
its rubbish, so cut a long story short i am going to try a ca-al map
which comes 14day money bk warranty, so what do i have to lose?
Going back in 2 weeks time.

i am contacting my solicotor to get legal advise about bmw,
i dont think i will ever use a main dealer again, bloody useless
over two weeks they had the car, i have done 200 miles in it
and its pertfect amd even more smoother, respect to mike at a-l.

anyway its going back in for a dyno map so i will be posting dyno charts
etc...

i just want to thank every one on this forum for their support and advise
including thorney and geoff steel.

[DuncanR]

Glad you got it fixed mate, wtf you doing up at that time ?? ..still on the :beer: :thumbs:

[Bounce]

Glad your all sorted matey.:thumbs:

[glendog74]

i am contacting my solicotor to get legal advise about bmw,
i dont think i will ever use a main dealer again, bloody useless


Glad you have the car back all sorted. :thumbs:

I not so sure about the solicitor idea, especially as your car was already mapped before it went to BMW. That's the perfect 'get out clause' for them as your car was not standard when they looked at it...

[cantfind1]

Mike at AL is a genius there is nothing he cannot fix on these cars he does all the work on mine, in fact it is in there at the moment having work done and being mapped. Well done Mike, again!

Wouldn't touch a main dealer with a barge pole!

Glad you have it all worked out now. By the way his CSL map is the best in the business, you will not be disappointed!

[thompson]

Thanks guys

I was bored so internet surfing lol!