Guys My 87 328 has been laid up for approx 3 months due to the very bad weather.. Today it has been nice so decided to fire her up and take for a spin. However straight away I realized that there was a problem. The car is only firing on one bank so power is massively down! Car still drives very smooth but like a 4 cylinder! My garage is dry but very cold, a little damp? Any ideas on where I should check first? Battery is 100% as on conditioner and starts first time. Help please!
I wouldn't drive the car like that, as you may be dumping unspent fuel into the cat; this will likely trigger your "Slow Down" light if you do. It sounds like, perhaps, one of your ignition modules is out, but there are fellows on here who REALLY know their S**t, so be patient and I'm sure one or more of them will chime in Good luck, Scott
Yeah, no cats... UOTE=wazie7262;139297312]Ah...just noticed you obviously have a Euro car -- no cat.[/QUOTE]
The good news is that a 328 has 1 central ignition ecu (although, if something went wrong inside, it could, in theory, cause you to lose only 1 bank, but this has a very low probability) and only 1 set of flywheel sensors (which can never cause you to lose only 1 bank). The way I would attack your issue is: 1. first determine (with a timing light) which bank is not firing, 2. have a look inside the distributor cap on that bank to look for an obvious problem (broken dist rotor, broken carbon button, etc.) -- if that looks OK, 3. unplug the coil wire from the coil for that bank and measure the resistance from the unplugged end you pulled out of the coil to the metal contact inside the cap where the carbon button goes (infinite ohms would be a bad result) -- if that measures OK, 4. put the distributor back together and swap only the power module for each bank and see if the "problem" moves to the other bank -- if it does = bad power module. If the problem stays on the same bank, also swap the coils -- if the "problem" now moves to the other bank = bad coil. If the problem stays on the original bank with both the power module and coil swapped -- cringe Most likely, the power module has failed, but maybe you'll get lucky, and it will just be something easy associated with the cap/rotor/coil wire (we won't think about your ignition ecu being bad ) -- good hunting!
My '87 328 did this to me a while back. One bank quit firing. In my case it was the button inside the distributor cap. A fellow fchatter, whose name I cannot recall, suggested I remove the little spring loaded pin in the center of the distributor cap. Mine had some crud in it causing the pin to stick. I cleaned it out and lubed it with graphite so it moved freely. The fchatter also recommended reseating the coil wire to the distributor which I also did. Bingo, engine has not dropped the bank since then. As the ever helpful Steve Magnusson comments above, I was fortunate in that my modules were ok.
