Well at last the repair side of the saga is over. The car now has a new coil pack and runs sweetly. John Andrew Ford and Mazda even removed the Camshaft Sensor that they tried earlier and did not charge me for it. Some places would have left it on and charged for it regardless of it not fixing the f...

Friday 17th July. Just had a phone call from John Andrew Ford & Mazda. They have got the car running. They borrowed some coil packs from an auto electrician and away it went. So it's not the ECU after all and the search is on for reasonably priced replacements. These coils packs have the 4 wire plug...

Hi again huys I've been up in Northland for a couple of days, so haven't had much of a chance to reply on here. My ECU is: BPF3 18 881 Underneath it has: 0797004571 That was read to me over the phone by the foreman at John Andrew Ford & Mazda. He did emphasise the 'F' for Freddy, so I haven't confus...

Latest bulletin: The Camshaft Position Sensor has been fitted! But the car still has the same condition. It's not fixed. My thoughts now are that when VTNZ removed the Fuel Injection fuse and subsequently refitted it, at least one of these operations was done with the ignition left 'ON' and it spike...

Thanks Trevor, I have had similar thoughts myself. UPDATE: Tuesday 14th July. Mazda dealer thinks that the Camshaft Position Sensor is faulty. A new one cannot be located in NZ or Australia and second-hand ones don't seem to exist, so we have gone for a new Aftermarket sensor, price $253. I assume t...

I have now sent the old girl (on a truck!) to the local Ford & Mazda dealer for them to test it on their magic diagnostic machine. Latest report from them is that the car will not talk to their machine, so they were checking ECU connections manually.

Ho-hum, well it's only about $110+GST per hour.

The consensus of opinion now seems to lean toward the coils having been fried on my car and I am thinking that myself now, all things considered. One thing still puzzles me, why does it start up and run for a few seconds? Is there some way that perhaps the igniter(s) get triggered on initial start t...

Thanks for the latest replies. Euen, thank you for the offer of spare coils to try. I would like to do that please. I live in West Harbour, but my current job takes me all over Auckland most days, so pick-up would not be a problem. Can you contact me please and we can sort out details. The forum won...

Thanks Stevo and sprtsa. I agree with what you say, VTNZ have responsibility for the problem, however, their stance was "It's not anything we have done" so I knew that if I left the car there, they would do nothing but maybe push it in and out each day (their primary function being to do WOFs on car...

Hi Euen

Yes, it runs on all 4 and if I switch the ignition off /on/off/on rapidly it will keep running for as long as I do that. But all the time it is running, there is no movement from the tacho needle. It reads zero all the time.

Thanks for the latest replies. However, my car definitely does not have an igniter in that location. In between the fuse box and that little emission thingy with the vac pipes on it, there is just an empty bracket with two (screw) holes in it. Presumably this is where an igniter would fit but I thin...

I think you are right, but when I challenged them on the spark plug removal two of them said in unison; "We don't remove spark plugs." Then one of the guys said; "We have a machine with a lead that clips to one of the spark plug leads and then we crank the engine and it takes a reading of all cylind...

I have checked the connection to the airflow meter and it seems to be good. I have also tried bridging the FP and GND posts in the diagnostic plug, which forces the fuel pump to work all the time when the ignition is on. That didn't make any difference to the problem.

I have a 1993 MX5 1.8 manual. I took it for a pre-purchase inspection for a potential buyer and after they had performed the compression test it would only run for 2 to 3 seconds and then die. They told me that they had removed the 'Fuel Injection' fuse prior to performing the test, and that they do...