Misfiring CSL

[thompson]

Hi Guys
I think i have killed my csl. In the last few days i have been driving it very
hard since we had this good weather, why not.
Any way the car was running fine yesterday morning.Last night i was playing with my mates E92 M3 and all of a sudden i lost power on my car. So i had to pull over.
Engine management light was on and it was misfiring and running rough
so i switched it off straight away.I did not want to take a risk so i called the RAC who took their time to arrive.
The started the car and the misfire had disappeared and the engine light
was off, very weird!
They checked a few things and said its all okay and advised i get a further diagnosis check done by main dealer to be on the safe side.
which was fair enough.

Anyway i continued on my journey and i decided to give it more stick,
the same thing happened again but now i can control the misfire.
the engine misfires under load ONLY at 2000-3000rpm and then the misfire
clears away,if i drive it normally it is okay.

So now that pee'd me right of , this morning i took the car to my local
bmw dealer who said i need to book it in, anyway with a little bit of
hussling i got them to do a quick diagnoisis check which costed me
£117.00 but they could not find anything wrong with the car, they
stated the plugs and coils are okay and they need to do more tests,
i asked them to drive it underload so they did although they should of done this at the beginning but i was in no postion to argue with them,
However they want at least another 2-3 hours investigation time
but said it possibily might be the vanos system which could cost up to £2500.

At that point i fell of my chair in reception, my csl is fkd.
i have drove it back today and parked it up as i cant drive it anymore in this state.

Any ideas what it could be? Is this a common problem as the BMW
really were not that helpful, 117.00 down and no answers.

help please.....

[shane@mbtech]

Hi Guys
I think i have killed my csl. In the last few days i have been driving it very
hard since we had this good weather, why not.
Any way the car was running fine yesterday morning.Last night i was playing with my mates E92 M3 and all of a sudden i lost power on my car. So i had to pull over.
Engine management light was on and it was misfiring and running rough
so i switched it off straight away.I did not want to take a risk so i called the RAC who took their time to arrive.
The started the car and the misfire had disappeared and the engine light
was off, very weird!
They checked a few things and said its all okay and advised i get a further diagnosis check done by main dealer to be on the safe side.
which was fair enough.

Anyway i continued on my journey and i decided to give it more stick,
the same thing happened again but now i can control the misfire.
the engine misfires under load ONLY at 2000-3000rpm and then the misfire
clears away,if i drive it normally it is okay.

So now that pee'd me right of , this morning i took the car to my local
bmw dealer who said i need to book it in, anyway with a little bit of
hussling i got them to do a quick diagnoisis check which costed me
£117.00 but they could not find anything wrong with the car, they
stated the plugs and coils are okay and they need to do more tests,
i asked them to drive it underload so they did although they should of done this at the beginning but i was in no postion to argue with them,
However they want at least another 2-3 hours investigation time
but said it possibily might be the vanos system which could cost up to £2500.

At that point i fell of my chair in reception, my csl is fkd.
i have drove it back today and parked it up as i cant drive it anymore in this state.

Any ideas what it could be? Is this a common problem as the BMW
really were not that helpful, 117.00 down and no answers.

help please.....

Sounds like a coil to me, key is to get the misfire and do not shut down the engine. Then you can investgate.

They break down when very hot and then the car senses a problem so usually shuts said cylinder down. Switch off and come back later and misfire is gone. Fook the dealers for problems like this their labour rates are too high.

[glendog74]

If your car isn't under warranty i would take it to Simpson, Geoff Steele, BMSport or similar who deal with CSLs regularly.

[thompson]

Thanks guys, BMW Did check the coils today but said there is no faults
with it.Funny thing i drove the car today and yesterday and if i dont
boot it it drives okay, if i plant my foot down it will misfire only
between 2000-3000rpm surely if it was a coil it would be there all the time
right?

I can get hold of bosch coils tomorrow from ECP in Wembley

Maybe i should try these first???:bigcry: im depressed.

[Thorney]

Coils, plugs, injectors would be first checks. If there is an error code it will be quite specific so easy to identify although hard to replicate if not driven hard. Worse case is head gasket but i doubt that at this stage.

[Will Fields]

If your car isn't under warranty i would take it to Simpson, Geoff Steele, BMSport or similar who deal with CSLs regularly.

I agree, as I am sure we (Geoff Steel) and all the others named above would fit a used set of coils (and other components) first to try before forcing you to buy a new products....(and at a much lower labour rate...)

[shimmy]

might a failed lambda in the headers have a similar result:smokin:

[Thorney]

might a failed lambda in the headers have a similar result:smokin:

True, but would generate a different error code.

[shimmy]

True, but would generate a different error code.

:thumbs:

[thompson]

Misfire update

hi guys

I Have changed the sparkplugs and coils today but it still is the same.
I Hope it is not the headgasket! Could it be the injectors or ECU?

The fault codes that i was given are
cylinder 1 misfire
cylinder 2 misfire
cylinder 3 misfire
cylinder 4 misfire
cylinder 5 misfire
cylinder 6 misfire
random cylinder misfire

I also went out in the car today and noticed that i can drive the car normally for hours it drives 100% perfect also checked the oil/water levels
and temperatures all okay.

Now say if i am in 2nd gear plant my foot down, only when revs reach
2000rpm-3000rpm it misfires, it will not misfire after this, if i hold it at 2500
rpm it will misfire really bad and engine light will come on and it will continue to misfire even at idle until i switch engine off and restart
where it will clear unless i produce it again.

After the engine is restarted i can drive off as normal without any problems
until i plant my foot down.

After reading up all night on the vanos system and different issues on it
it seems that vanos will only cause rattles and not misfires, i dont know
if this is correct???

If it was injectors will it not misfire all the time?

[shimmy]

My HG failure had a misfire that got slowly worse. S54 HG failures normally fail between cylinders so oil and water should be ok.

I doubt it is HG unless your car is 60k miles + and driven very hard ( lots of heat)

compression test is very easy for a garage to do to rule this out or not.

[thompson]

csl misfire

hi

thanks mate, i think i might get this done, just hope it is not the headgasket.

if it is, are there any uprated parts i can use instead of standard BMW?

[shimmy]

I'm certainly no expert but as long as you head isn't cracked or any pot marks on your pistons all you'll need is a new gasket and bolts

there are different gaskets available and if you have to skim the head them a thicker one will be used to avoid raising the compression ratio

get it looked at asap

[Thorney]

Catch it early enough and all you will need is a new gaskett. ARP bolts aren't a bad idea at the time as you have to replace them anyway. We warped a head on Cup car a while ago and it was scrap but that was after some time on track ignoring a miss fire and 200k on the engine

[shane@mbtech]

Catch it early enough and all you will need is a new gaskett. ARP bolts aren't a bad idea at the time as you have to replace them anyway. We warped a head on Cup car a while ago and it was scrap but that was after some time on track ignoring a miss fire and 200k on the engine

Why did you ignore a misfire? Seems suicide to me.