Engine cranks but no spark

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Had a beautiful 3 days driving round all the lakes and passes in the lake District, came to come home on Saturday and it wouldn’t start. Had RAC out and definitely no spark coming out of the coil. So its either that (hopefully) or the ECU. Can anyone think of anything else worth checking?Need to get the car fixed quickly if possible as I’m due at Elvington on Sat…don’t want to use JCT600 and was thinking of seeing if i can get the RAC to backload it to Lotus Ribble Valley…seem to think a couple of you out there use them. Does anyone know who is the man contact there and if they are open tomorrow. If I can arrange for them to take it in first thing Tuesday morning there may be a possibility of getting it back by Friday…any help appreciated.

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SteveSorry to hear this.LRV (01254 876876) Service manager is Albert Walsh, but I think he may be on holiday. His assistant is Jane. Dealer Principal is Bob McMillan if you want to go to the “top”, & the Lotus sales manager is Mike Hill. If it’s a non-warranty claim problem, Pit Lane may be able to help you - tel Rocco on 0161 486 9966Hope you get it sorted before Saturday, mate.

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Pesky thanks for comng up with the goods…i would like to take it to Pit Lane but have a couple of reasons why I maybe shouldn’t/can’t:1. If its the ECU that’s gone then its just in warranty as it was only upgraded to the 190 at this time last year, getting it exchanged under warranty will probably require an authorised dealer; and2. Having already been recovered home from Lake District, RAC will only take me to the nearest garage again on Tuesday morning…that is JCT but I think I can argue that LRV are a motorsport dealer and therefore the closest dealer that has the franchise to work on an Exige (at least thats my plan!).I would be more than happy to take it to Pit Lane if I could get around both of the above. After all, I don’t really now what the cause of the problem is just the symptoms…it may be something really simple to fix that does not require any major tweaking.

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Steve, your symptoms also sound like a duff immobiliser. Did someone else have that on here recently? Unlucky mate. [image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/frown.gif[/image]

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Steve/RussWell remembered - it was Roy Duggan who had that problem at Donington last year, although Roy’s problem was intermittant until it was fixed.

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I’ve had this problem happen to me on two seperate occasions. First time it turned out to be the immobiliser. You press the fob and the car refuses to start despite the engine turning over and a strong smell of petrol vapour coming from the exhaust. At the same time you could hear a clicking noise coming from the area between the seats behind the cargo net.The second occasion was a little more diverse, i was running the car and came home, parked on the drive, left it for a couple of hours came to move it into the garage and nothing. The engine turned over but that was it. The relays behind the seats were chattering on and off but it was dead.12 hours of fault finding by storm technicians found a faulty �1.99 earth strap between engine and chassis at fault. It prevented the relays from working correctly.Hopefully this could be your problem, rather than the ECU route. Keep us posted to the cure! Thanks.

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well the latest state of play is I went to see if it would turn over this afternoon and it would…fired into life almost immediately…so fault is intermittent…just like described above…I’m happy its now working but am not sure if/when it will let me down again…hopefully not in the middle of the track day at elvington!thanks for the posts on what the cause could be and the possible fixes…I went underneath and had a good look around and was surprised to find several loose bolts especially on the undertrays where they fix into solid mounts rather than just the overlapping panels. have sorted them all out with a little threadlock…took the opportunity to take off the tailpipe and have a good look inside…too many rough roads had loosened that as well and it was sitting at a rather jaunty angle.Took airfilter out and swapped it for a clean spare I had…I think it was Peter Crook on the 340R site that offered the pearl of wisdom that a clean air filter just before a trackday was probably worth a few bhp over a dirty one…does anyone know where to buy the recommended Pipercross cleaner and filter oil?