ej20 coughing n spluttering

olliekent · Post by **olliekent** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 9:30 am

hi guys, i went on a long trip up north last week. went over some pretty decent corrugated roads and something has happened to the engine after about 15 kms of gravel road. ok, the symptoms, where do i start. it feels like it is occasionally miss-firing at idol, i cant tell if it is on the same spark plug or not. but when accelerating it coughs n splutters a bit like it is short of fuel, it is definatly underpowered. when the turbo starts to boost up the noise(whistle and surge of air) is there but the boost of power is not even half of what it is normally. now i drove it 500kms back home with this problem, cruising was fine but accelerating is where the problem occurs. once i got it to 100km it would sit there fine, but when going up a hill and needing power or just puttin my foot down on the flat it would cough n miss a beat. my first thoughts were fuel shortage, the filter is pretty new, but maybe the corrugated roads kicked up some crap in the fuel tank and it has clogged the filter. other thought was a spark issue but the problem isnt constant, so its not constantly miss-firing... the bloke i bought the car off has put external bosch coil packs on(this means nothing to me, although i know what they look like, thats it).. could anything of happened to one of the coil packs while experiencing some serious vibrations... my last thoughts were something to do with the turbo due to the problem mainly occuring when the boost gauge starts to read above zero, any small pipe or hose could of come loose somewhere and be affecting pressure or something..?, i dont know turbo engines from clay so i dont know where to start when it comes to that side of the engine. i know the ej motors are meant to be pretty bullet proof so im thinkin/hoping that this is a simple fix, im gonna check the fuel filter today and see if that changes anything. cheers for any help...

Post by **TOONGA** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 11:17 am

it could be a loose electrical connection or a vacuum hose has come loose or as you said the tank has had all its sludge shaken free and has filled the filter

you need to go through and check all of these to eliminate them from the possible problem list

have you checked for error codes ?

a simple explaination of how to check

showthread.php?p=158508#post158508

this is a good guide as well

http://www.scoobypedia.co.uk/index.php/ ... ngECUCodes

TOONGA