Trying to help a mate diagnose his car, its a SC400 V8.

Drove it home one night, it never started the next day, or since.
It was minus 10 that night.

Transported it here, where it is now.

This is what I have found so far.

It has petrol. (not contaminated)

It has fuel pressure (not checked, but it is there)

Injectors are working. (clicking on turn over)

It has a healthy spark ( confirmed )

Timing belt has not slipped, (confirmed)

Compression test reveal all about 140psi except for one that is slightly lower.

It is sucking air into intake

Normal oil level

Changed the spark plugs with no effect.

Removed the exhaust, it is not blocked and I have pressure coming out of the exhaust when it is spinning over.

It is spinning over as fast as it should, and you can hear it coming up on compression when it is spinning over.

It does not start, splutter, cough or fart.

So, what is it ?

Does it sputter or cough if you spary start gas into air intake ?

Thats the next step, hes gone to get some.

Did it work?

do the plugs get fuel on them when you turn it over?

just tip some petrol in the intake.

The easy start made no difference.

The plugs are wet, so it shouldnt be overfuelling,
Changed ECU.  Thinking about cam sensors but it has 2, so it should start lumpy.

The car drove fine to where it is now, and didnt break down.  It just wont start any more

if you have good spark, compression and fuel then that could mean timing, could be a senor that controls it like the crank sensor.

Could be the crank sensor, but it is under the inlet and means a major strip down.
Hes going to spend the evening trying to work out if he can test it via the ECU Pins.

http://soarercentral.com/sc-forum/messages/1113/862.html

shows how to read fault codes by bridging some pins on the connectors.

Hes been through that already, he runs an equivalent site here in the UK :-D

what does the exhaust smell like ?

sounds a lot like a timeing problem to me...

i had a car that just wouldnt start one day, checked there was fuel and pressure, checked there was spark, just cranked over and over, turned out there was a dead cell in the battery and it didnt have quite enough current to do everything at once, tried a jump?

crank position sensor. has to be a timing prob if it DEFINITELY has fuel and spark and good compression.

His response :

QuoteHeres the thing.

If the crank sensor is not working, would it have a spark ?

NO is the answer we are looking for here. as the crank sensors tell the igniter when to chuck out a spark.

But what about the cam sensors ? as I said before I know if one is bad it will run, but be a pig to start, so they do not have anything to do with the spark (I think not )

The car doesnt have an alarm, and if it did it would have cut out either the fuel or the spark, and I ahve both.

I dont like easy start, so I got some petrol and squirted it into the intake while it was spinning over, and nothing, I even had a spark plug lead off to make sure it had a spark while spinning, while squirting while spinning.

So it had suck, it had fuel, it had spark and it had spin.

It has to be timing Shirley ?

But I am reluctant to take it apart until I find out what the problem is.

It is a 32 so it aint an easy or quick job to strip the front down, but I could do this and leave all the important bits connected and then spin it over after I have seen the timing marks to make 100% sure it aint slipped a couple of teeth.

What am I thinking ? I have checked the timing and it is good.

I lined up the crank shaft pulley with the mark, and checked both dizzy cap positions.

WTF can it be ?