Alfa Romeo 156 JTS STALLING

[Sergio]

Hi all,
I'm looking at a 156 JTS '02 Manual 5 speed which seems to drive fine at high engine revs and when moving at speed but is extremely gutless at revs below 2500 - 3000RPM (it feels like you're trying to drive in 5th gear - no pulling power) and will STALL unless revved quite a bit from a standing start.

Any ideas what the possible worst and best case scenarios may be?  Has anyone encountered this before?  And if so, what was the problem? A sensor perhaps?  Or something major?

The car has a pretty good service history but its location means its quite difficult to get it to a specialist for an inspection.

Also, although I hope never to need it but just playing devil's advocate, in the event that a replacement engine is needed down the track, how much would a replacement second hand motor on exchange basis likely cost for these cars?

Thanks.

[dehne]

the replacement engine is in line with most other cars of its age anywhere from 1000 to 5000 as for the stalling you really need to get it to a mech who has a comp analyser that can connect to it so you can get the error and find the prob this same type of prob recently happened to the mo inlaws car and it was a 400 buck job mostly a comp reset and a mech checking a few thing and magicly fixing it with out knowing

[Sergio]

A bit of research suggests the problems may be due to the infamous MAF meter.  Can anyone confirm if these symptoms could be the result of a faulty MAF sensor?
Thanks.

[Jekyll and Hyde]

the replacement engine is in line with most other cars of its age anywhere from 1000 to 5000 as for the stalling you really need to get it to a mech who has a comp analyser that can connect to it so you can get the error and find the prob this same type of prob recently happened to the mo inlaws car and it was a 400 buck job mostly a comp reset and a mech checking a few thing and magicly fixing it with out knowing

Dehne, are you kidding?  JTS motors are next to impossible to find at the moment, as there are not many JTS cars in the hands of wreckers, and the ones that are have already donated their motors to science.  The top end of your price bracket there might be close, but below that - forget it for the moment.  As the cars get a bit older, and a few more get written off, this will change, but right at the moment, even finding one is no mean feat.  Its not a Twinspark mate, and even those - your good mate Rocco sells them for $1850 on ebay.

[wankski]

stalling and hesitation at 3k is pretty clearly MAF.

unplug maf and see what happens, and there's ur answer.

[Sergio]

Thanks all.  The Air Flow meter is what someone else had suggested to me off-forum.  Now, if unplugging the Air Flow meter sets off the check engine warning light, is there a way I can reset the error code?  I don't want to give someone money just to push a couple of buttons on a diagnostic scanner.  BTW, is the diagnostic system OBDII compliant?

Any advice on clearing error codes cheaply is welcome.

Thanks.

[wankski]

yes OBDII, u can use alfadiag or Fiat Ecu Scan to clear codes, or you can do it manually via ecu reset, but upon replacement it should clear itself.

[johnny_dust]

Excuse me for my ignorace but, can you replace a JTS engine with a TS one or is that just not possible?

[wankski]

Excuse me for my ignorace but, can you replace a JTS engine with a TS one or is that just not possible?

I haven't done it, but if you're talking 2.0jts w/ 2.0 TS from either 156 or 147, yes, should be fine on a manual. ECU would obviously have to come with it, but the blocks should be essentially the same and ought to bolt up to the trans

[Jekyll and Hyde]

Excuse me for my ignorace but, can you replace a JTS engine with a TS one or is that just not possible?

I haven't done it, but if you're talking 2.0jts w/ 2.0 TS from either 156 or 147, yes, should be fine on a manual. ECU would obviously have to come with it, but the blocks should be essentially the same and ought to bolt up to the trans

I think you might have serious issues with the plug from the car loom into the ECU, not to mention the communications between body computer and engine ECU...  Don't really see why you'd say being manual makes much difference either....

[wankski]

selespeed ecu is paired to motor ecu, and therefore you can't swap and change, and u wouldn't want to go back to TS era sele ecu...the physical bolt up will work as the blocks are the same, or very similar...

anyway the whole question is academic anyway, as there would basically be no reason to do it.

[Jekyll and Hyde]

selespeed ecu is paired to motor ecu, and therefore you can't swap and change, and u wouldn't want to go back to TS era sele ecu...the physical bolt up will work as the blocks are the same, or very similar...

anyway the whole question is academic anyway, as there would basically be no reason to do it.

Agreed, mechanically it would be straightforward.  However I think you'd have just as much issue with the wiring with a manual car.  Partly due to the body computer/immobiliser, but also I suspect the pinouts on the car loom to connect to engine ECU are different between JTS and TS, both in number of terminals and their layout.  If you managed to overcome that, you'd probably be able to get it working with the JTS selespeed computer as well.  But as you say, it would be a pointless conversion - money saved on the engine itself would quickly be drowned in working out the wiring and programming issues involved.