Originally Posted by Fatcat

Alright, it's been a minute since I've followed up with this forum, but I recently graduated and have time to myself.



We took apart the intake manifold and valve cover, and I got some pictures to show. You can easily tell that the cylinder 2 exhaust port has a lot of carbon buildup, which I'm assuming is a case of bad spark, because if it were a case of too much gas, it would be cleaner, no?



Anyway, we checked the springs and eccentric gear (the one in the picture, right?), and everything seems fine; regardless, we're replacing everything if I'm not wrong. my guess is the ECU is a shit one because before someone told my dad that it wasn't working well (his wording not mine) so we got one from LQK Pick Your Part and its ready to be coded and installed. I could be wrong, but I feel like it could also be the eccentric gear sensor, but the OBD2 port doesn't even work for me to monitor with my Foxwell scanner. We also might replace the valvetronic solenoid thingy if we have a spare one, which I'm sure we do.



I'm currently posting this because the engine is still apart, so if anyone has a clue for what to check for, I assumed that now is the time before we put everything back together. We're gonna do a leak-down test soon to see if any of the valves are messed up. im also gonna try to convince my dad to just completely replace the injectors and ignition coils because the ignition coils are mix and match of bosch and some aftermarket chinese piece of shit coils which literally broke apart as we were pulling it out. (cylinder 2 is bosch i already thought of that beforehand)



To those who said to clean the ECU, I did that, but with rubbing alcohol. Nothing changed, cleaned the ports too.



I hope the pictures I provided are good, but I can take some more before we put the motor back together.



Sorry if the pictures are too big, I didn't know what resolution to resize them to.