I recently got my 308 back from the garage after having had a new crank fitted after the previous one cracked in two!!!! Anyway, it ran fine all the way home, around 90 miles. However, when i started it up a few days later, it was a little lumpy to start (prior to the crank change it was perfect from hot or cold) and if you touched the throttle, the revs died. After a minute or two it was fine though and ran fine. I haven't had the chance to use it for a couple of weeks but just tried it tonight and it's very lumpy, idles rough and dies after 4-5mins. It stinks of unburnt fuel and seems to be running on 4 cylinders. I'm calling the garage in the morning but in the meantime has anyone any advice? I thought the injection system was fairly simple and i've checked the connections, leads etc. Could it be a coil on it's way out??????
It would help to know what year we are talking about. QV or 2V? I assume from what you are saying it is a fuel injected car, not carbs. But helps to know what year and 2 or 4 valves.
I assume you are on the phone with the garage and screaming like mad at them. Obviously, they screwed something up in putting the car back together. I also assume that this was an engine-out job that they performed. So there was a lot of stuff removed and put back together, which leaves many sources of possible problems. One of the most obvious places to look is at the wiring. If one bank is out, it could be that they did not put the connectors back together properly, or are dirty and making poor contact. Possibly the lead from one of the coils to the distributor, or one of the coils when bad. Or one of the distributors was knocked out of alignment, or if they removed them during the job, possibly reinstalled it wrong. A good place to start is with an inductive timing light. Get the car started if possible, and see whether you have spark from the coil to both distributors. If you don't, then you know the problem is either the coil, the wire from coil to distributor, or that digiplex unit or the connector. If you show spark from both coils to the distributors, then check the spark plug leads on both banks and see if the spark is getting from the distributor to the plugs. It could be as simple as the tech who worked on the car did not get the spark plug extensions back on the plugs properly (easy to screw up). Hope that helps. But in any case, the shop should be responsible for sorting this out for you, at their expense. You should have gotten the car back running right.
Hold the phone. You had the CRANK replaced and now in less than 100 miles it's running poorly? Whatever you do, DON'T start the car again. Degradation like that could be a crank-level problem. I have seen it happen in other aluminum-engined cars if bearings were improperly installed, block wasn't line-bored (or at least verified straight), etc. If your old crank was cracked, it could have caused a number of problems with the block itself. If those were not addressed, it would show up in running degradation very quickly. I know someone who destroyed a 928 engine because of this very issue. First I would pull the spark plugs and turn the engine over by hand a couple revolutions, looking for any resistance. Then drain the oil and look at it closely. If you have glitter you have a problem. Then open the oil filter and look for more glitter. If either of these shows up stop everything, take photos and contact the shop. Hopefully this isn't the issue, but at this point I would be over-cautious.
I wouldn't do anything but call the shop! Anything you do to the car will only give them ammo that something you did caused the problem.
Thanks for all your replies, i was going to have another look this morning but decided against it. I'll call the garage as soon as.
