corsa running problems

my nephew has a corsa 12v with the ecotec engine (1999) and is having some problems that have gradually got worse.

it started when he tried to put the car in the lockup, he stopped it, and it wouldnt start again. it turned over and over but refused. i went down and gave it a blast, same problem, but it started when i tried to move the car into the lockup on the starter.

eventually it wouldnt start when doing that, and bump starting it worked for some reason (when cranking on the starter didnt!)...now that's given up the ghost.

the engine has started to die randomly, sometimes idle, sometimes when driving, and is a bitch to restart. nothing but leaving it ten minutes will let it start again, and as to how long it will drive after that is anyones guess.

are there any known issues on the ecotec engines? i suggested either fuel pump/relay or cam sensor.

Plenty, where do you want to start?!

Crankangle sensor to begin with- sounds temperature related.

tim..

"Tim (remove obvious)" wrote in message news:dj40uc$420$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrdmz02.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...

LOL ideally with the ones that are likely to cause this problem :p

so not the cam sensor... the crank sensor? il take a peek at that and wd40 its ass, or do you reckon its a terminal death?

anything else you can think of and squeeze in before i head to my bed shortly lol.

Does the engine management light go out when the engine is being cranked over? If it does, then the ECU is receiving the signal from the crank sensor. If you have a flashing EML, then there is an immobiliser problem.

When you say you move it into the lockup, have you been moving the car short distances only? A lot of fuel injection cars do not take kindly to being run for a few seconds when cold and not being given a chance to warm up. A lot of fuel is injected on cold start/warm-up (equivalent to the choke being out on an old car). This can literally flood the engine if it stopped and started while warming up. Try starting the engine with the accelerator pressed all the way to the floor - this will temporarily disable fuel injection to hopefully clear the excess of fuel. You may need to remove the spark plugs and clean/dry them. Does there smell like there is an excess of fuel around the engine?

Other possible causes of problems are faulty idle control stepper motors, faulty DIS packs and EGR (exhaust gas recircultion) valves.

HTH

Anthony Remove eight from email to reply.

the eml lights on ign 2, and goes out when the engines runs. it stays on while cranking.

nah, this is a 12v corsa driven by a 19 year old boy, it gets a good run and sees the end of the rev range alot.

to test the egr, does disconnecting it disable egr totally? or does it leave the valve completely open?