98 M3, No start, Weird quirks

[mattdk318i]

alright guys, im about to lose my sanity. As the title states ive got a 98 M3. Here recently it will randomly stumble going down the road.
Its never a huge stumble but just sort of a skip every now and then. Now it wont start.

A few mornings ago i went outside to start it so it could warm up. And it started perfectly right away. I Forgot i needed to do some things in the house so i went back outside and shut it off, Thinking nothing of it.

Then when i was ready to go pay some bills i hopped in it and it wouldnt start. The engine turns freely but im not getting a fuel pump signal/Voltage. So i jumpered the fuel pump and started it over. To no avail, The pump works perfect and makes a good charging noise. So im Assuming i dont have spark.(i have plenty of gas, i visually verified it by pulling out the pump)
A few months ago i had the same problem and i traced it back to the EWSII, Which i jumpered from black and green to yellow and green. The car started right away and ran perfectly up until now.

So my first coarse of action was to see if that wire had fallen out, or was loose. But it was perfectly snug with zipties holding it in....... Im out of
answers.

A few weeks ago the windows started acting weird, They wont go up if you hold the button. you have to "bump" the button and it only moves 3 inches and you have to repeat that operation until the window is to the top. But its intermittant, sometimes the one touch works perfect.
Now my drivers side window wont go up. I can hear a click in the dash (BECM) But every once and again....Low and behold the drivers side window will go up without a problem

Please help?


matt

[fun2drive]

No CELs to fall back on?
You are on the right track. If not your EWS you might check your crank sensor but that should show on a CEL. Cam sensor will usually not hard fail and not allow a start but the crank sensor will. Seems to be related to temperature as in once warm not working that well (start condition that is) and once cold it will.
Windows- what you mention could be a number of things but bumping it up or even down usually means the regulator is on its way out. It could be as simple as too much resistance in the welting BMW uses. If it comes down fine but not up fine then I would suspect that your resistance is too high and it acts like it senses a trapped limb.

I use dry Teflon to lube my welting but you can search and see if there is something better.

These are pure guesses based on owning a lot of E30's and E36's by the way....

[mattdk318i]

gotcha, the CEL has been on since i bought the car about 2 years ago.. Is there any way for me to check? I know in E30s you can pump the pedal 5 times

[pbonsalb]

You need to borrow a scan tool. You may have accumulated a number of different CEL issues. I would write them down, then clear codes and see what comes back (assuming you can get the car running).

No start can be many things. I think as simple as a brake pedal switch, bad starter solenoid, crank sensor, etc. You need something more to go on. Window issue may be unrelated.

[Ron97M3]

All the windows are doing this? When car is running or not?

When was fuel filter, air filter, and spark plugs last changed?

Could it be the fuel relay? I think (not sure) there is another relay of same
number-type which can be used to the fuel filter one? Just for a test.

Weird problems here .... anything that was done to car just before these weird
problems appeared? New battery, something that involved disconnecting battery, like painting car?

[284Shooter]

Have you checked all your grounding? Make sure the engine and battery grounds are in good shape, free of corrosion and tight. If you've had the DME out, make sure it's plugged up good and not wet. It may be as simple as poor contacts.

[mattdk318i]

i did check all of the grounds....ended up being a bad relay.... I guess checking them all for the 3rd time is the charm.

the windows are still acting up, they exhibit the same problems with the car on, or off.

[Ron97M3]

Bad fuel relay right?

[E30lolz]

if it stumbles at all again, especially under hard acceleration your cam sensor is about to fry 2 of its wires all the way into the harness....

I had fixed a similar issue with a new relay and it held till the above happened.

[mattdk318i]

it is indeed still stumbling a bit. Almost like its getting fuel cut.

[mattdk318i]

lol, the weather has been tolerable so i didnt notice this until now.....

My blower fan stopped working. Ended up that i swapped relays around(correct color/type of coarse) and the car started working. So i figured i fixed the problem.

Turns out the bad relay that was in the fuel pump relay spot, got put in the fan relay spot. K4 i believe.....off to find a Light Green relay

Imma "pecial"

[Ron97M3]

Yeah I thought there was a swap candidate for the fuel relay.

I have pulled my fuel relay to running the fuel lines out of gas to change the fuel filter. Was your car dying for lack of gas? Hmmmmm a marginal relay but not totally dead? So blower using this bad relay would running marginally?