Terrible missfire,cutting out,idling poorly, backfire

[Sash_332]

Hi all...only seemed to happen 2 days ago...cold morning..go to start the 316i,started it up revs dropped car started shaking engine was barely running reved it a little bit and it cut out,went to start it up again and took a few cranks to get it running,started idling very very low needle was near enough on 0 tried to rev again and cut out..started it again idled normaly and as soon as i went to pull away it just miss fired backfired cacked some flames and died...its done this 4 times since then only does it when not driven for 5+ hours...any ideas??

Thanks

[brettE30cab]

The exact same thing happened to my mates e30 m3 today , it's not been driven in months though, interesting to see some answers.

[eltel]

any recent work done to it???

[Sash_332]

any recent work done to it???

No sir...to tell you the truth its always had high rev missfire,after 5k it would missfire and no speed would be gained...and monday night it was a bit wet i slid it round a corner in 2nd revs went up missfired then all of a sudden after that it missfired constantly until i put my foot flat to the floor on the gas it popped and flamed for 10 seconds and was fine,then every morning when its cold it does the same.

[eltel]

have you checked the rotor arm and dizzy cap? would be worth checking in there for any tracking marks/crud etc

i would check the spark plugs and leads also..all basics first

[Sash_332]

have you checked the rotor arm and dizzy cap? would be worth checking in there for any tracking marks/crud etc

i would check the spark plugs and leads also..all basics first

Thank you for info sir il check while on my lunch break in work tommorrow.

[LeChiffre]

That sounds like it could be a faulty crank sensor - I had something very similar a few years back. Could be the cap and rotor tho - its suprising how many are on the originals!

[eltel]

if it is a temp related issue could it really be the cps?? when mine was chaffing on the pump it would lose power at non specific times randomly until it finally gave up the ghost.

no amount of cooling or time affected it?? but nevertheless worth checking..if it is the same as the 325's you should get a resistance of around 540ohms between the 2 wires closest to the main lead at the plug end..and it should remain constant with wiggling. but not that genned up on 316's

[bpowell555]

My failing fuel pump plug lead to cr@p starts and death. You know what they say, fuel air and spark..,.