Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 10:44 pm, by: Shane Moffitt(Paradox)
About a month ago I think I fried at least one computer in my Soarer when I jump started her. Now the system check does not come on straight away and some times it takes a while for the speedo to come on.
Now being busy I have not tracked down what I need to replace and where to get them from yet.
Now driving home last week, strange noise from under the bonnet, kept driving home, loud bang, and the car started sounding like a motor bike with heaps of noise from the engine bay and massive lack of power. I get it to the mechanic and it appears I have blown out a spark plug. They are getting it re-threaded and replacing the tings it broke.
My question is, is it possible blowing the computers has caused the engine to run at massively higher compression and done this. Or is it just bad luck?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts. Extra big thanks if anyone can point me in the direction of instructions on what computers to replace.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - 06:29 am, by: Matthew Sharpe(Madmatt)
Your first question - sounds like blinky dash syndrome to me, probably unrelated to the jump start - search for blinky dash. Contrary to popular belief, its actually pretty hard to damage the engine ECU by jump starting, even with ordinary jumper cables.
No, compression cannot be changed by the engine ECU, it can really only go down as the engine gets old and the rings and valve seats wear. If you've had the heads off and had them plained, or fitted a thinner gasket, or replaced the pistons with high compression ones, then your compression may be up, but a spark plug should still not pop out like that, even with say, 12:1 or more compression.
Its more likely someone has damaged the thread or over/under tightened the plug at some stage. Easy enough to do with an aluminium cylinder head.
Saturday, June 14, 2008 - 06:25 pm, by: Shane Moffitt(Paradox)
Cheers, thanks guys.
I read the blinky dash thread and I will give it a go. Just need to remember how to solder
I got my head re-threaded by a specialist so it looks like I dodged a bullet. Not happy with Lexus, $400 for a set of replacement spark plug leads. Important thing is I have my car back