# cis issue, cylinder 1 not "working"



## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

the other day i was driving home, and the car started to "mis-fire". well, at least i thought i was a mis-fire. the car is newish to me, its and 82 quantum 1.7lt, so i figured it needed a tune up. new cap, rotor, plugs and wires..... and cylinder 1 is still dead. 

so as its running, i pull the plug wire, and the idle/revs are the same as when its plugged in. i hold the wire end against the block and its definitely getting spark. after a bit of tinkering while its running, i pull the plug, and its dry. no fuel smell at all. okay, figure its the injector. i switch the #1 and #2 injectors to see if the issue follows to cylinder 2. nope, cylinder 1 is still dead using #2's injector. i did notice that the original injector from cylinder 1 was clean, dry, and didnt smell of fuel. the injector from #2 was wet and smelled like fuel. so, why wouldnt injector #1 not be firing? this is my first time with CIS, so that mechanical beast on top of the air filter is a pretty intimidating. i would assume the issue is in there?


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## WaterWheels (Aug 14, 2005)

Try this: Remove the #1 fuel line from the fuel distributor (release the pressure first of course) and swap it with another injector line which will reach and both can still be tightened down. Run the engine, is number one still the dead cylinder or the one you switched injector lines with?


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

You think the line could be clogged? I'll try that tonight.....


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## WaterWheels (Aug 14, 2005)

No, not really the line although that is possible, but these are old fuel distributors and they tend to get clogged inside from junk over the years.


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

Can someone give me a quick discription of how this fuel distributed works. Does it needed to be timed? Is there anything about it I should know before I pull it apart and clean it?


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## Glegor (Mar 31, 2008)

PULL IT APART AND CLEAN IT?!?! your nuts....

every single part in it has a specific setting, and has to be synchronized with everything in it, or atleast thats my understanding of these things. the little that i do understand them.


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

well, if its in fact clogged, how else am i supposed to get it working properly again.


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## WaterWheels (Aug 14, 2005)

It's not some sort of "Black Magic" that the common person can not deal with or touch. The only real tricky part is the sealing when you put it back together. between the upper and lower halves is a thin metal seal/valve. Some have said the put nothing on it and it sealed and others have their own sealant they prefer. Do a search on the Internet and you should find at least one detailed tear-down/re-build page. There is no adjustments or synchronizing that needs to be done, just cleaning, paying attention to detail and keeping notes if you think you will have any trouble remembering where things go. Also, use caution not to drop or scratch anything.

A description of just how it works can be found all over the Internet and they explain it better than I maybe can, and I might forget some detail too. No timing, no settings in the distributor it self (but when installing it yes)


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

i did some research last night, and found a couple good resources. i'm gonna pull it and break it open this week, under the supervision of my father-in-law. he's an engineer and he can pretty much fix anything. i found this which is pretty useful. its for a 928, but the concepts should be the same.

http://www.porsche928forums.com/download/manuals/CISRebuild.pdf


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

update: switched fuel line/injectors #1 and #2 to see if the problem is within the FD. started the car, and cylinder #1 is still dead using fueling that was going to #2. cylinder #2 was working fine on prior #1 fueling, the problem is not within the FD. so...... since my fueling is fine, and i have spark, guess its probably compression eh? ****. looks like i got to borrow the compression tester from my father-in-law. whats an easiest way on these cars to cut fuel so i can turn the engine over without fuel? unplug the pump? or is there a fuse i can pull?


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

also, does the injectors need to see pressure in order to fire? i pulled a couple of them and had my wife turn the engine over to see if they were "injecting". i couldnt get any to fire.


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## WaterWheels (Aug 14, 2005)

Yes, the injectors require about 35psi to pop them open. That would mean the air sensor plate has to be raised to allow fuel to be pushed through the lines to the injectors and open them. Good you checked the problem by switching line before tearing the fuel distributor down. It is always best to try to keep things like them together and sealed as they came from the factory. That would be my last, OK I would have done it before swapping lines, test before looking elsewhere. You only have to check the injector for cylinder 1 when doing this. If it sprays fuel when the pump is running and the air sensor plate is raised then you can stop worring about a fuel delivery issue.

Compression test is a good idea and really should have been done from the get-go. Removing the fuel pump relay is the best way to kill the pumps or you can just jump the starter motor and the pumps will also stay off. If you get reading that are within say 10% cylinder to cylinder then I would start looking into ignition issues. Even though you say you have spark, you don't say how you tested (that I recall). At the plug? Using a known good plug? I had a car with a dead cylinder one time and it took some time to end up finding that a small piece of whatever bridged the sparkplug gap shorting it out.


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

i're replaced most of the ignition system since the problem started. rotor, cap, wires and plugs. then i switched the plugs and wires between #1 and #2 and cylinder 1 was still dead using #2 plugs and wires, which were working prior. also, when i pull the wire off the plug when the car is running, it arches strong against the block. i've put atleast 4 known good plugs in without success.


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

getting 160ish psi across all 4 cylinders. now what?


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

i'm an idiot. i was assuming the spark plug order on the distributor was 1,3,4,2..... like newer vw 4 cylinders. as you may know, and now i know, its 4,3,1,2. so i had them mixed up. i assume the original issue was a plug wire, and when i did the tune up, i didn't put them back in the right order. oh well, at least this forced me to learn a **** load about cis.


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## ziddey (Apr 16, 2006)

it is indeed 1-3-4-2. Sounds like you've got the direction the distributor is spinning backwards. 4-3-1-2 can translate into 1-3-4-2 the other way.


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

these longitudinal engines make my brain hurt. am i supposed to stand at the front of the car when mapping it out? cause right now the car is running fine and when your standing facing the front of the car it goes: 4 on bottom, 3 middle right, 1 top, 2 middle left


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## ziddey (Apr 16, 2006)

Assuming your im shaft is in time and your dizzy is installed the right way, starting from the notch in the dizzy, it goes 1342 clockwise, which is how your diagram is.


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## mr sarcastic (Nov 2, 2006)

ah, i see. well, now that i got it running right, i had to tear it down again. my exhaust manifold has always had a small crack which wasnt that big of a deal. but, when i was messing with it i managed to make a pretty solid backfire. which made the crack way worse, so now i got to fix that. i had it going long enough to take some pics though...


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## ziddey (Apr 16, 2006)

HAWT!!


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## WaterWheels (Aug 14, 2005)

As has already been pointed out, 1-3-4-2 is the correct firing order. And yes, getting the rotation wrong and/or a wire mixed up can put a damper on things. Which direction you view the engine from or the location of the distributor for that matter does not matter, the only thing that matters is the order in which the plug wires are arranged. Shame, this points out something I always seem to point out, Internet troubleshooting is the pits most times. Not falting you or anyone, but this seems to be the case in many of the problems that are tried to fix over the net.


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