LuisC1389

Hey guys decided to join the forums in search of Help, few days ago I picked up a Lexus ls400 for cheap that needs a bit of tlc cosmetically. Reason I got it cheap was because it was sitting and upon starting it the car seems to have a misfire all the time, I have narrowed it down to the last cylinder on the pass side of the engine. At first because the car was sitting I though it was maybe a stuck fuel injector, I though it was that because when it idles for a minute or so I can see raw fuel actually come out of the manifold flange were the cat bolts to, obviously the gasket is bad because it leaks, well so I pulled the sparkplug and of course its fouled. So I decided to got to my local junkyard and I got about 7 injectors to try, after swapping all 7 everything was the same, so I got tired of cleaning the damn plug and I did pull the rest and at least all on the passenger side looked a bit darker in color than the driver side ones but the last cylinder on the pass side is the only one missing always. With the engine running I would go and unplug all the injectors and the only one that did not make any change was the last pass side one. I have checked spark and it is strong on all plugs, checked both dizzy caps and all contacts seem good and no corrosion or moisture inside either, check coils and good also. Since I do not have a noid light I would put a screwdriver on the injector body to confirm that it was pulsating and all do tick, I still want to install a noid light to verify.


Things I have not done yet but will do is compression test and fuel pressure test, a friend of mine says it could be a leaking fuel pressure regulator causing the engine to run extremely rich and because its sitting right on top of last fuel injector that belongs to the inop cylinder then he said its possible that cylinder is getting affected more and its dumping so much fuel that it fouls the sparkplug causing the miss. I also tested running the car with that injector disconnected and noticed the fuel leaking from the exhaust flange was less but still there and its always only on the passenger side were I found the darker sparkplugs and its the side of the rail were the regulator is sitting closer to those plugs, also the further away from the regulator the less dark the plugs were lol. Another thing my friend told me wast the leaking capacitors that seem to destroy all these old toyota ecus, my buddies 1jz swapped sc300 had problems and it turned to be that. Guys I know this is a very long mess of words that I have typed here with bad grammar but please bare with me lol I really wanna get this car running I want it as my daily, my toy is my 13 5.0 mustang that I have put way to many miles on (74k) in less than 2 years and I cant keep putting miles on it like that, I want to drive this big comfy lexus for now on, I just really hope I don't have a blown cylinder that needs rings , but its funny because no blue smoke comes out the exhaust , the smoke that comes out is white almost gray and it stinks like gasoline and not oil or coolant, it stains the floor with a dark soot when I floor it also.

timmy0tool

iTrader: (7)

i also would lean towards the bad ECU capacitors which is VERY common on our car of that year, esp in humid states like FL.

read:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...capacitor.html

what check engine lights are you seeing? how many miles on the car?

dicer

I had the same issue with a ford truck and it was the ecu.

LuisC1389

Well guys i have norrowed down my findings . i went and check compression and all my cylinders checked out good at an avergar of 175 to 180 per cylinder. Checked spark and its good all around. So my problem is im running pig rich. So rich raw fuel puddles in the ground when i give it gas it spits fuel out the back is so raw i can probably reuse it lol. How do i pull the codes its a 95 with 195k miles. I dont have an older scannet for this vehicle. I really want to see how the sensors are working. Im going to pull the ecu and inspect it now. Ill post pictures of my findings.

LuisC1389

Well guys guess what, I took out the ecu and found four leaking capacitors, does not look bad and I think the ecu can be saved, the circuit board is not damaged, looks like it just started to leak. Well I will replace the capacitors and see if that does anything for the car.

dicer

Careful of ESD ! Study up on it.
And of course its going to do something for the car.

djamps

Be sure to replace ALL of them, not just the leaky ones. Please reference the ECU mother thread.

sndlight

Please take pics of your leaking caps if possible. I don't think we can have enough on here.

LuisC1389

Sorry guys I forgot to take pics of the leaking capacitors, from what I can remember only four were leaking. But good news, I replaced them and boom the car is silky smooth now , no more weird lights or misfires, smoke still comes out because of all the raw fuel that is still in the exhaust , most likely I will be cutting my cats off because they rattle maybe from all the bad gas that was getting in there and killed the cats. I will be doing junkyard trips in search of another ecu to see if its damaged and if it is then how bad, if it can be saved aswell I will buy it and repair it and keep it as backup. First time doing this to so im kind of proud of myself. Anyways thanks for the help lets see what else needs fixing on this old boat.

dicer

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/4-t...verter-removal
Read the above.
If you get an ecu get the same number of the one that is in the car. If you have trac the other car has to have it too.

Yamae

Don't mix Gen1 and Gen 2 regarding the traction control, dicer.
All ECUs for Gen2 include the traction control function and you don't need to worry about that.

Finding the ECU, you'd better not to choose one for a 95 which has a problem of the engine halt after the high-speed run. Find one which has an improved firmware. Or choose among 89661-503XX originally for a 96 instead of a 89661-502XX for a 95.

There are secrets among ECUs. I know some but there are many others.

SC4MaC

This is one thing I am starting to dislike about forums and moderators who know a lot but like to share little. Why not be fully transparent with questions or thread at hand and complete the correspondence so everyone can learn.....Who cares that the thread started in 3-08-16 as I know I will be flagged for responding but I hate that threads end without solutions.

jeronberna

Theres a FAQ and a thread where all of these questions are answered by LScowboyLS and Yamae, I don't think anyone's "not being transparent" they just don't want to keep repeating themselves if it's already in several other locations throughout the forum?

ECU Capacitor fix and ECU Models/Serials by LScowboyLS and Yamae

and heres the link to the FAQ and Tutorial thread :

FAQ/Tutorial Thread

SC4MaC, even the second post to this very thread has the answer to the OP's question and his solution was the ECU, so where was any information not given that was needed?

DaveGS4

iTrader: (2)

Welcome and have to compliment you on a great first random complaint necropost, lol.

Simple response to your concern is "welcome to the internet". People join, make a post and never come back and post their solution, just like they join and don't search or simply look at the FAQ stickies before asking a question. Often they never come back to read the solutions posted. Or they search up random threads to post questions or comments about things that aren't related to the subject being discussed (Iike your random thread bump ). They're all annoying, but that's the way things often work. And it certainly isn't limited to forums or driven by our moderators.

If you can find a place where there is a complete technical troubleshooting topic that fully answers each question posted with a thorough answer, please let me know. I'm guessing maybe it's a Lexus/Toyota technical manual, but that's not what Club Lexus is. Our moderators (and me) are ALL volunteers and you aren't paying anything to get some service. And as jeronberna mentioned, there are far better threads where the moderators you are complaining about have shared endlessly about the ECU subject. In fact, they weren't even moderators when this thread from 2016 was created.

I'd welcome for you to add some realistic suggested solutions to your own complaint and not just leave it hanging with a problem and no solution. I know you hate that, so do I.