CEL light came on tonight - help!

[scouk]

Hey guys,

 

Need some advice..  Just about a mile from home tonight the CEL light on the dash came on (2001 Bugeye WRX). Not sure why.. Car seems fine was a nice lesurely drive home nothing racey.  Sadly the light comes back on after stopping the car and restarting. Doesn';t flash just contantly on from the point of switchign on the ignition.

 

Any suggestions as to what to do about it? I dont have a Diagnostic system myself so cant check out any fault codes (was thinking of buying one just the other day [*-)]).

Is there any easy way to find out what the fault is? (I'm guessing no, not without the appropriate equipment

 

Car had a center decat put in over a month ago along with a new WRSport backbox but everything has been running fine.. Just this damn light came on tonight all of a sudden. Dont really want to drive it until I get to the bottom of the problem.. 

Thanks in advance for any help, appreciated...
 

[spooks]

Bugs seem quite bad at sporadic CEL, sounds like its emmisions related if the car pulls full boost etc.Best thing is to keep an eye on it and get it on a diagnostic machine asap, if the fault is not present it will go off after 12 run cycles ie Start, run about up to temp and then stop IIRC

[cullenmin]

Ne so good min, best advice is to get a diagnostic check done to see what it is!

May just be a faulty sensor and not actually something wrong with the car, seems it has been running well.

I ran my car for months and months without any cats and didnt get any CEL warnings, but thats a classic and not a bugeye!

Did you get your splitter fixed?

Rich

[scouk]

Cheers for the replies!

Got a couple of spare cars in the drive I can use at the moment so I'll maybe run about in one of them for the next few days.  Ordered one of those diagnostic Openport cables just now so hopefully wont take long to arrive I believe that in conunction with some fancy software on the laptop will report fault codes for me. []  Was tempted to buy this before, but now I've got a reason..

My amatureish guess would be dodgy sensor kicking up hell as it seems to run fine and not in any sort of "safe mode"..  Did a search on SNet and found the restart fix of starting the car 5 times and the CEL sometimes disappears.. didn't work. maybe it's needs the 12.. Other thing is it was really wet on the roads, maybe some moisture has got somewhere it shouldn't.. Will check again in the morning once things dry off a bit.

The Bugeye's "should" run fine with the center cat removed by not lighting up the CEL, changing down pipes and up-pipes seems to throw it though. Not somethign I've done.. yet []

 

Splitter - My dad's having a go at repairing it.. He's done the odd repair over the years on bits' of body work falling apart on vehicles, so I have faith.  It's back in one piece, just needs some fillers for the holes and scratches, then a new coat of paint []  Not sure if it will be going back on again though.. Got Prodrive springs put on (along with replacement OEM rear dampers, expensive month!) and the car is running pretty low, with the splitter on it's obviously even lower at the front.  Interestingly, did a comparison with my bro's RB320 and even with the splitter on mine with the springs it's still slightly higher at the front than the RB...

[cullenmin]

Good luck with yer CEL and the splitter.

Hope to see you at the highland meet...with all fixed and raring to go []

[kevin_rhind]

I've had 2 downpipe censors fitted in 6 months, Kev at Town and County said if their was a problem that could damage the car it would go into safe mode he's the head mech. When he checked it the Lamda censor was gone. Twice it's happened to me once at Crail, i was a bit worried then. But it was just a censor, but do get it checked.

[JamesF]

I'd put money on it being a faulty sensor, there's so many on the scoobies now they do go wrong eventually. I doubt very much that it would have anything to do with the mods you've done though.

As EVERYONE has said already, get it checked over.

James.

[Smiler AS]

Did you get the CEL light issue sorted out bud?

 Ive had previous experience of this.

Im planning on doing a 3rd decat too next week, but where the hole for the sensor is I put in a "boss" spacer which lifts the sensor out of the centre of the 'faster', more turbulent airflow with the cat removed.

Think ive actually got two of them if your wanting one.

[scouk]

Aye got it sorted!  Was just as simple as a ECU reset.. Code was somethign about emissions outwith threshhold or something.  But after the reset it's never come backl...

BTW - if you have any problems I've got diagnostic software on the laptop and can even disable the sensor if it becomes problematic in the future (hell I can even remap ECU's [6])

 

P.s. Have you decided what Backbox your going for yet?  I swapped my WRsport out for a proper Prodrive PPP one last week quieter at low RPM not as burbly but really nice rocket style Whoosh! after 4,000rpm []