Dying then dead engine!

The Oily Bits S2 Specific Topics
1

Earlier this week I was at Hockenheim on a 2-day course.

On my journey there my brakes started to stick on � had to press again to achieve full release. Not the best start.

Nevertheless, the first day was fun � until the last exercise of the day: practising the Senna S curve in front of the Mercedes tribune. On the approach, where we had to go from a standing start to as a fast as we could before the first curve, my rev limiter started cutting in at just over 5,000rpm!

Turning round and idling between runs, it started running unevenly and cutting out. After this we had our end of the day talk and were supposed to follow the instructor’s car leading us back to the paddock in line. Mine would only fire once after turning over - same every time. It was gone 6pm by now, so no chance to do much.

Next day checked the fuel pump cut-out, all the fuses and any connections I could find. All was OK as far as I could see. I then phoned my dealer and they’d never heard of this error. They put me on to a Lotus specialist, Komo-tec, nearly 200 km away. He had no answer either and couldn’t get to me.

I organised a trailer and went to him. The ODB(?)gave errors he’d never seen. The fact that it only fired for a moment didn’t help.

He said it would have to be a “trial and error” job. After checking the fuses, he took out the relay below the motor management box on the firewall. Swapping in another did nothing.

As the OBD was taling about a camshaft sensor error, he then took the top cover off the engine to check the connections there. All seemed OK.

He then removed the motor management system and put another in. It worked! But � he said he would put mine back in againto nmake sure it wasn’t just a dodgy connection (there are two multi-pin connectors to it). Put my original one back in and it worked perfectly! he removed it and sprayed some contact spray on it to be safe.

I was very grateful not to have to leave the car in Germany, but very pissed off to miss the afternoon free training session � I got back to the Hockenheim autobahn exit at 4.30pm and the last batch had gone out at 4.20pm. Bugger!

So, if you find it suddenly doesn’t run right and the rev limiter cuts in early, [size:17pt]try unplugging and re-connecting the motor management connectors [/size](not easy to access though).

My (unbeknown to me at the time) dead car

Motor management box (on firewall) removed

2

Blimey that was a bad day, at least it was fixed. Bloody cars like ours who would own them… :wink:

3

Anyone else noticed that nearly all problems on the S2 are with the bits that Lotus modify or mess with… Never Toyota related problems !!!

lol :wink:

4

I must admit, I did have that thought.

5

Sorry to hear about that Speedy but I’d like to second how very helpful Komo-Tec are… Glad it was sorted.

6

When I phoned, the boss (Daniel Koblitschek) said they were open throughout the day. As I would be arriving at lunchtime, I was a little sceptical and had visions of hanging around in front of a closed-up workshop � but sure enough, they were there and working.

In fact they had no free capacity to work on my car, so the boss himself dealt with it. Something that is unusual apparently, as he made a remark that it was good if the staff see that the boss can work as a mechanic too.

He also has a sense of humour � he remarked that I had bought the wrong product (a referal to my Bemani supercharger and his (confusingly named) Turbodrive supercharger). The trailer I’d used was that of my 964 RS Ruf Turbo driving mate who accompanied me - he interpreted the “wrong product” comment as meaning I should have bought a Porsche (!). I put him right and the Komotec boss, doubled with a comment along the lines of “Porsches are fair products, but they’ve got no soul � they’re boring!” :smiley:

Btw, the relay that plugs into the motor management is a part that has been known to fail. He recommended a new one (about �60) as we’d removed it � and I could keep the old one as a spare.

The old relay � these are the connectors that caused me to miss a whole day on track :angry: