G’day,
My neighbour has an ef falcon that was running like a pile of s**t lately. Once warm it would try and stall at idle and when you moved off it was rough as guts. I replaced the leads yesterday and it ran fine without a single hitch and i got it home. This morning it has no spark what so ever. I tried another coil pack and that didn’t solve anything. Battery voltage is at 12.7 volts, all fuses are good but haven’t checked all the relays.
However a few weeks ago i did test the engine with timing light and the harmonic balancer mark was over 1.5 inch forward of the mark. I assumed it must have been misaligned in the first place because i couldn’t see how the car would run that far out of timing.
So anyway after reading other posts its pointing towards crank angle sensor or ecu especially seeing as its only when its warm. An interesting thing i should add is the interior light wont go off at all so i took the bulb out but that was months ago. Apparently this can suggest ecu failure in some mystical way (WTF???) Just that that come up in other posts so thought it may be of some slight significance.
So tomorrow i plan to remove the crank angle sensor and clean it up along with all the electrical connectors because its all very grotty in that area. Am i right in assuming if the cam angle sensor were out you would still have spark just it would not be synchronised?
So im wondering wether anyone has any ideas or wether im heading in the right direction.
Thanks
Regards jay

When you changed the leads, did you replace the plugs at the same time?

to get a correct timing reading the ecu needs to be in diagnostic mode,
but being crank sensor and coil pack it not adjustable...

and i would highly recommend NOT running the engine with the cam angle sensor plugged in

i replaced the plugs a week earlier because they were pretty cruddy. it did improve performance a little.

sorry im a little confused. are you saying not to run the engine without the cam angle sensor plugged in? or to try with it disconnected?

i rather my magna where its actually adjustable. but engine control reliability and seats are about the only thing that is better in the magna then the falcon.

so tomorrow ill have a look at the crank angle sensor not that their is much that i can actually to to it i suppose. is there any known test procedures?

thanks allot for your help. appreciated!
regards jay

in regards to the interior lights staying on i know the cause its your BEM (body electronics module) it needs replacing with a working one ur bem is located on the drivers side dash just above were ur feet are when u drive different models get different colours i think ef falcon is blue or red not sure

when replacing the bem make sure to get ef one not a el one (wont fit different wiring)
u can put a high series(green) one in and get the feature of fading interior lights etc
ef ones have plugs at the top of them as well as the back of them so u will need to unplug it from the top and i believe there is 2 screws as well holding EF ones up at the top as well

yes you are right about the EF and the EL ones being but wrong about just changing the BEM to get the features of the next model. This would require extra wiring and stuff like that. There is a doco in the tech section that covers this

yeah sorry it should have like below:
and i would highly recommend NOT running the engine without the cam angle sensor plugged in

thanks mate!
ive been reading every post i can on no spark in the past 3 hours and it is looking like crank angle sensor. i should have checked if i had power to the injectors but in the heat of the moment it fled my mind. because as far as i can gather no soark and no injector pulse will indicate either CAS or smartlock.

but just to be sure ill check all the other rubbish like CRT fuse, relays, bat voltage ect. i once played with a old Mazda ute for days that wouldn't idle....turned out to be blown fuse stopping electronic idle solenoids from trigging....you wouldn't believe how that made me feel especially seeing as i blew it when changing the alternation. ow well we live and learn dont we

i also read somewhere the resistance of the crank angle sensor should be 354 ohms. does this sound correct.

thanks for the advice on the BEM but it will have to wait till the car is back on the road.
thanks again
regards jay

ok so i riped out the crank angle sensor this morning and found about 5mm of crud caking the end. cleaned that off and it went on the second spin. its running as smooth as i would expect from a 16 year old car that hasn't seen a proper mechanic in 3 years.

i still doubt the sensor in there is too good because when the car warms up it sounds fairly lumpy especially at the exhaust. so ill get another from the wreckers and see how that goes.

thanks for all your help.
regards jay