P020E: Cylinder 5 Injection Timing
What to do
Ask whether other cylinders on the same bank have also set codes. On a V engine each bank has its own fuel supply hardware, and two codes on one bank usually means one shared fault rather than two injectors — which is a much smaller bill.
Mention any recent injector work and whether calibration codes were entered. An injector fitted without its code produces this fault with a good part.
Say whether the engine has a rattle or has ever jumped in timing. On engines with more cylinders, a worn timing chain or crank sensor can scatter per-cylinder timing codes that look like several injector faults at once.
What this code means
Injection timing on cylinder 5 is not where the module commanded it to be.
A cylinder 5 code tells you something about the engine before it tells you anything about the fault: this is a five, six, eight, ten or twelve cylinder engine, so it is either a straight six, a V, or something larger — and on anything with two banks, cylinder 5 is very often the first cylinder of the second bank.
That matters because a bank has its own hardware. Two banks can have separate rail sections, separate pressure sensors, separate return circuits and — on some engines — separate high pressure supply. A timing deviation that starts at the first cylinder of a bank is asking whether that bank's supply is the problem, rather than that particular injector.
So read the stored codes by bank rather than by number. Cylinders 5 and 6 both deviating on a V6 is a bank fault; cylinders 1 and 5 deviating is one from each bank and points at something shared.
The crankshaft measurement itself is less precise on a longer crank. More cylinders means more overlapping combustion events, so the module needs a cleaner signal to separate them — which is why a worn crank sensor reluctor or a stretched chain shows up as scattered per-cylinder timing codes on a six that would set nothing on a four.
Likely causes
Start here
- Failed fuel injector · specialist
- Worn or leaking fuel injectors · specialist
Less common
- Low fuel pressure · moderate
- Injector fitted without entering its calibration code · specialist
- Stretched timing chain · specialist
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
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