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Spyder starts, then immediately dies

11K views 19 replies 11 participants last post by  beachbum  
#1 ·
Hey everyone, been a long time. Hope everyone had a good New Year!

Helping a friend troubleshoot her Spyder. She was driving the car and went over a speed bump, then the car died and wouldn't restart. Battery is good, no obvious loose connections that I can see. ECU gets power (not the relays on the firewall). I thought it was the MAF, so we replaced the MAF and same simptoms. It will crank, fire, then 1 to 2 seconds later dies.

I am going back over to look at it this afternoon with a code reader, but not sure it had any prior.

I checked all the fuse to make sure they were tight/good.

From what I remember, if the crank or cam position sensor was bad, it wouldn't even fire. Is that correct?

Any other ideas? Thanks!
 
#2 ·
Fuel pump?????
 
#6 ·
If the crank sensor was bad it will still crank it just wont fire. I would have thought MAF as well. Battery showing a full charge? Any vacuum leaks. Check all the connection near the airbox. Possibly something may have come loose or off by the intake, even the intake itself.
 
#5 ·
Some cars have fuel pump switches that turn the fuel pump off in a high inertia/impact event. I don't know if the spyder has this or not but it is always a good idea with injected cars. Speed bump then quits so this is what I would look for.
 
#7 ·
Read the code, it's a P1305 - so if I recall, that's cylinder #2. Connectors to coil packs look good. But not sure why it won't run if it was the only issue.

We put a new MAF in there and same results, so that wasn't it. I will check again, but pretty positive we have good fuel pressure. It fires up, runs for about 2 secs then dies. Each time it will fire and run for a sec. Would it do that with out fuel?

I will go over all the air connections tomorrow to make sure they are sealed.

Saving a air leak somewhere, what other connector could have come loose?

Thanks!!
 
#11 ·
Will swap a couple this afternoon when I work on it.

Will the car continue to run if you gave it gas? Your issue sounds like a decent vacuum leak.
No, it dies. We've tried revving the idle and it increases, but still dies in 2-3 seconds. I will be checking the air intake/vacuum lines as well.
 
#12 ·
Car should fire and run with no MAF, no intake system even. I like to do gross troubleshooting, I'd undo the entire intake and see if you get the same result (but I'm 99.5% sure you will). Then you can eliminate all things intake from the equation.

If the crank sensor were somehow damaged, it would likely not fire at all. Cam sensor - I haven't tried, but it'll likely fire and limp without one (in batch fire mode).

Of the fuel/air/spark triangle, my guess would be fuel. Possible the pump primes but then shuts off?

It is an MT, not an SMT, right?
 
#17 ·
I would go with the simplest, cheapest suspect first. I would simply check the grounds. Remove and clean the ground cables. Check the cables at the battery to ensure they didn't come loose, check the grounds to the trans and frame. Make sure they are clean and well fastened. Bad grounds cause all kinds of crazy problems. I seem to recall that someone had this issue a while ago and it was a loose ground cable. Cables always look good until you start poking at them and taking them off. If that doesn't do it then start with the diagnostic troubleshooting sections of the BGB.
 
#19 ·
Ok, here's the update after a little more work this evening. Short summary, it's working and purring like a kitten again.



Long summary: after spending time at work digging through various threads online and making a list of things to check from intake, vac lines, ground wires, crushed sensor wires behind AC compressors, etc, etc, etc...the solution was a simple coil pack replacement. I swapped #2 and #1 and the error moved to #1, but still wouldn't run. Swapped them back then #2 and #3 then error was on #3. Replaced the faulty coil pack and fired right up, runs great.



Wanted to post an update and thank everyone for their help. This is still a fantastic owner's community; makes me miss my Spyders! :scrock: