Well, I'm still trying to get to the bottom of the hot-start problem. Just replaced all the vacuum lines, had the injectors cleaned and tested by WitchHunter Performance, replaced the FPD and FPR, and I'm still having issues. The solenoids all clicked with the 12V and passed the resistance check. I was thinking it might be a coolant seal so I taped a cheesy 20 sec vid of the "bubble test" and got maybe 2-3 bubbles during that span. The t-stat wasn't fully open so it could have been trapped air or just condensation boiling off.

Question: If a coolant seal is failing, would there be more bubbles than this? It's kind of hard to see since I was trying to record and hold the light onto the funnel. Any insight would be grateful.

Thanks.


Crap - the vid is too big. Can anyone host it?

 

I always thought the hot start problem was with an apex seal/or low compression? as the car will get less compression with the seal being hot? I believe this was brought up by RotaryRessurection in responce to a thread that had to do with starting an engine that isnt in the engine bay to check for compression.

But to answer your question, you would have more bubbles than that.

 

Well, my motor was still within specs in Janurary when I did a compression check.

Rear Rotor: 7.5, 7.5, 7.6
Front Rotor: 7.4, 7.8, 7.2

 

You can host the video on www.youtube.com.
Put a funnel inside the filler neck and wait for it to warm up a bit. Two or three small bubbles does not mean that the coolant seal is shot. Two to three huge bubbles may just mean that you have an air pocket.

In any case, the champagne test is very crude (IMHO) as there can be tiny amounts of air trapped in the coolant system. I would either use a coolant pressure test or a coolant exhaust gas test (you can get them at certain auto stores).

 

^ those things are invaluable for finding leaks of any kind... it's also great because you don't have to have the belts running while you stick your nose around the engine bay looking for ****.