97 Cobra won't start ...jumped timing??

[maddogcapt]

I went to start my Cobra the other day and it cranked normally, started to fire so I let off the key and it died. On the re-start attempt, it would crank but not start. My battery is old and weak, so I put it on the charger and waited. Same problem with the charged battery. I tried jumping it and even borrowed the battery from my truck. No luck. Towed it to a local shop I know and trust.

I don't know exactly where they started with their troubleshooting, but they reported extremely low to non-existant compression on 7 cylinders. The car does have 102,000 miles, but I have owned it since new and changed the oil regularly with Mobil 1. It does not smoke or use any significant amount of oil between changes. There's just no way the rings are toast in 7 cylinders and even if they were, it would start and blow blue smoke It was running just as good as new when I pulled it into the garage a few days ago.

The shop pulled the valve covers and noted that the valves are all moving but they suspect that I may have jumped a tooth or two on the timing chain, which seems plausable to me based on the symptoms. They are worried that one or more valves may have contacted a piston. You can't hear any knocking or metal on metal contact when the starter is turning the engine over. They are going to dig into it and check the valve timing next. They looked into the possibility of an engine replacement from Ford and apparently this is not an option. If there is serious internal damage, I am going to need to find a shop to rebuild my engine, preferably in the St. Louis area.

Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

Kent

 

[JBeezy53]

I've kind of had the same problem with my 98 for a while. Every once in a while it would crank but not start, like once a month. After waiting 10 mins or so it would fire up. It stopped for months then one day I was driving it fine, stopped by a buddy's house to pick him up then it wouldn't fire up 2 mins later. After about 30 mins it finally did. It started doing it more often so I parked it a little over a month ago. Went to try it today and battery was low. Hooked up the battery charger and it tried to start but didn't. Then I tried again and it fired up. Back it out the driveway then back in, turned it off then it wouldn't start after that. I'm starting to think it may be the crankshaft positioning sensor. That's my next step.

 

[COBRA90GT]

You covered a lot, but just to get this straight, you last started/drove the car into the garage only a few days ago, correct? So, we should expect the engine can/will start up OK. Did you have sufficient oil in the engine?

RE the "no-start" condition:

Did you already check to see if you were getting fuel, air, & spark (the 3 basics) prior to taking it to the shop? I would start with the basics first for a "no-start" condition.

If your Cobra battery was bad and you ruled out the battery by using a good known battery (from your truck), then it sounds like you covered that angle.

It could very well be an electrical gremlin - how are your ground wires? Have you tried to temporarily run a seperate ground wire from the negative battery terminal to ground while attempting to start the car?

Any recent mods or work done (especially wiring/ECM/tuner) to the car? Is the PATS system theft light flashing or is it working OK? Are you using a factory ignition key or a spare/copy key to start it up? Did you accidently press the fuel cut off switch in the trunk?

G'luck, I would be hesitant to let this shop do an engine rebuild or engine swap prior to solving the "no-start" condition. I would try a different shop if you are not familiar with trying to troubleshoot this no-start condition, especially if the engine is still turning over, etc.