E46 M3: Cuts out after starting
Hi gents,
I am having an issue there the car cuts out immediately after starting. Exact same time every time. Which leads me to think I have a software issue. I wrote as much detail below as I could think of right now.
Car was working fine. I blew the head gasket so I changed it over the course of last week. Before it would still start without problems or hesitations and everything was working fine.
What I did:
I made sure everything is connected.Double checked. I didnt connect the air box, intake pipe, or the box that sits on top of throttle bodies. I just took the top part of the airbag where MAF is and I connected it and let it hang.
Cranked the engine by hand good few times when setting the timing, no issues there. there was a slight resistance but it was the same before I began the job. I even cranked the engine after failing to start it to double check, once again there was a slightly higher resistance than when valve cover and vanos were off.
It Has new battery. New spark plugs.
I finished working at 3 am and had to go bed coz of work on friday. So once I am finished this is what I ll check. If you have any input of what to check big or small let me know please!
- Disconnect the MAF, try to start.
- Connect Airbox fully, piping and intake box, since I saw some reports where this was causing similar issue. Although I doubt this is it.
- Saw some reports that it could be some EWS module, I think it is do with alarm. This is what i suspect the most. As I was getting some codes about key tolerance for awhile but it never caused an issue. Saw a recommendations to lock and unlock the car so I will try that. I dont have a spare key fob, but I have valet keys and few others so I ll try them too.
- I had disconnected my bonnet alarm sensor a month ago coz it was tripping so I will connect that too.
- Before the head gasket procedure I run the car and took out fuel pump fuse #54 to get rid of some pressure. I ll double check the fuse. But I am sure fuel pump is ok. Actually I didnt connect fuel rail correctly the first time and saw fuel leaking. So that was fixed so it should be getting fuel.
- I did crank the car with no fuse for fuel pump to build oil pressure. Maybe I didnt do it enough. I will disconnect coils and crank it again. But I dont think this would cut the engine, especially coz it cuts out very precise.
The only big concern for me was to make sure timing is correct which I triple checked. Made sure crank aligned, camshaft pins drop correctly. I will do it again later with fresh eyes. But if timing was an issue the car would start but the engine would get mangled after few seconds of running from my understanding. This feels like a software issue where car cuts out before it reaches certain rpm/ time.
I have carly for bmw but it did throw any codes. I am gonna see if I can maybe get a copy of INPA on the interballs.
Appreciate all the help!
