Have a 1986 2.3 16v with some major head work done and a big valve job. very aggressive cams. 2.5" exhaust, high flow cat. When i got it out of the shop it had a rough idle due to the cams, but it did idle and fire up right away all the time. It had tons of power and was a blast to drive. about 9 months later it started having issue. It pisses me off because i dropped over $6k into the motor.

Anyways, my issues are as follows; It now has issues starting most of the time and the only way it will start is if i hold he gas pedal to the floor, which i thought is odd because it's not carbureted!! And it also cranks a lot before it will fire up... im talking cranking it for like 20 30 seconds sometimes.

Thats not the main issue... that's just anoying. The main issue is that once the car is running the "economy" gauge thingy on the instrument cluster is around the middle of the guage when it should be off to one side showing that no gas pedal is being applied (if you own one of these you will know what i mean). As soon as i give it gas and try to drive the econo meter goes even further into the red and if i floor it, the engine bogs down majorly and seems like its not firing all cylinders(thought it is). The car has NO power at all when i give it gas. almost seems like its just dumping tons of fuel into the engine and making it run like crap.

The fuel distributor is relatively new and should be fine. i removed it and made sure the plunger was working well. there is a small black magnetic thing on the side of the distributor... was told that may cause problems? its expensive so i dont want to replace it for no reason.

not sure what it could be. been reading around and even have a mercedes w201 shop manual. can't seem to figure it out. Anyone else out there had issues with this kind of thing?

Thanks

 

Did you check the fuel pump??


hmarmaizmd717

 

Pump should be ok. Its new and the fuel filter is new. New cap and rotor, plugs, wires, coil.

 

Small black thing is the hydroelectric valve HEV and controls the amount of fuel passed from the high pressure to the injector feed, either works or it don't and yes it's expensive, as it's univesal to a lot of Mercs just borrow one or scourse one from a scrapyard or ebay and try it, it's only two screws and a plug, mind the little O rings though.

Check compression, I just had to fit new rings on my 2.3-16v, head is pefect in every way but a swine to start nad lacked power under 4,000rpm

Also look at the starter injector and it's connections, crack open the nut holding the fule pipe to it and turn on the ignition, you should get a spurt of fuel out of the loose joint.

An after market fuel pressure regulator FPR which usualy sits between one and two inlet pipes can be upgraded for an adjustable one with a pressure guage on, again check out eBay.

 

Thanks for the info UK. Ill have to look into some of those things... Most likely compression test will be first, although im sure its probably ok.

Ill report findings as they happen!

 

Dusty-tron, if you got this resolved. please let us know the what the resolution was. Thanks!