how did i miss this?
just read through...quite the journey you had there! great paint job! i could have used you when i did mine. so how many miles you have on the new motor?? when is it getting dynoed?

great build!

 

Persistence personified. Amazing trip. Amazing story. Thanks for posting. Well done!

 

Great proyect car!! Keep it up.

 

Amazing persistance ! .

And man looks lime the cruise of a lifetime ! .

 

I have over 7500kms on 5 apex seals, 3000ish on the new one

It got dyno'd on Friday, and again on sunday, and again this afternoon. I ran into a problem....its the same issue that's been blowing my engines in the past. Random ignition misfires.

I found a couple damaged wires on my CAS, so I swapped it out at the dyno on friday. After that, the misfires were made worse as we found out on sunday. Instead of the random events being mere blips or pauses as its revved up, they are now full on grenade sounding "booms". I thought I lost the engine on four seperate occasions.

There's no apparent reason for the misfires, viewing datalogs shows steady and accurate RPM, MAP is steady, inj duty steady, TPS steady, and then IGN advance just shoots into the straosphere on its own.

I have replaced everything on the car at different points in time, the only thign remaining constant throughout the engines is the E6X ECU itself. If this ends up being the issue I'm tearing that piece of **** out and going MoTeC M2R.

But today we'll find out if the last fix cured the issue. Sad part is the only way to make the issue arise is by running it out on the dyno. Its like testing a parachute out by jumping off a cliff with it.

Thanks for the positive comments guys! Don't ever give up on your rotary!

 

How did it go joe ? .

Getting a motec, E8 ? or fixed the problem ?

 

Well, last night at the dyno we made an interesting discovery.

During my runs, which were yet again tainted by this random misfire, Jim K was grabbing wiring here and there to try to induce the misfire. Grabbing the alternator harness (modified for an FD alt, but otherwise original from 87) would produce the misfire consistently. We traced back the wiring as far as we could on the dyno and couldn't find any nastyness. But after disturbing some of that, and some of the stock fuse block we have made the issue much worse (happens roughly every two minutes now) and causes the tach to drop when it happens.

I believe somewhere in the stock harness there's a short which is causing the coils to shut off. Since the haltech install only adds triggering to the coils, they still get their power from the same wires the did in 1987. And they are perhaps being turned off momentarily by the short. The short also does not show up in datalogs as a voltage drop because I wired the Haltech to the battery seperate from all stock wiring, even the "key on" power for the haltech is derrived from a switch I installed, so theres no stock wiring powering the Haltech.

I'm definetly rounding the corner on the issue.

Other good news is the ONE clean run we made onthe dyno netted 258whp at 6psi on a mustang dyno. Not too shabby....

 

258rwhp at just over 7psi.

My suggestions -- Have a double-check at the CAS wiring since the Haltech external reluctor was removed as well as continuing on the power harness. Honestly, I think the power harness portion has been fixed and now all that's left is the CAS drop-off presumably from a wiring good from a couple days back. I noticed no other 16krpm spikes or hard hits while loading out last night aside from the CAS RPM drop-off. That's a new symptom.

B

 

well i hope you figure it out.

 

Sorry bud, no hope. Might as well just give your car to me. I'll take it and won't charge you a dime.

Gl getting your problem fixed.

 

haha, yeah...

Alright - Updates:

I've been playing with the car for several weeks now trying to get the random misfire issue solved. I've de-loomed the factory harness and found dick-all wrong with it, ran the car with the harness apart and jiggled/wiggled wiring all to no avail. At that point I re-wrapped the harness and routed the alt. wiring as far away from the CAS wiring as possible and drove the car.

At that point I drove the car for a while and found the problem still existed. I shut it off and left it sitting in the driveway for a few days.

Upon attempting to re-start the car I couldn't get any RPM signal on the Haltech - it wouldn't fire....strange. So I adjusted the gains (up from 2 on each) to 3 and it fired right up. At this point, the filters were both 1. I drove around for a good while (45 minutes) and had nothing screwing around on me - happy times. I pull into my buddy's place and as the car's idling.......................................fart: same old issue, but much less freqently now.

So I adjusted the gains again in the driveway before shutting the car off (raised both gains to 4) and then went in and hung out for a while. On the way home I experienced no problems.

Couple days later, fired right up (no need to adjust gains this time to get it to start cold) but after 10 minutes of driving, a teency weency version of the same issue happened. So this time I bumped the filters to 2. Drove that way for 3 days before experiencing another teency weency burp.

I bumped the gains to 4 and 5 over two weeks ago and haven't had a drop or hint of anything like I was experiencing before. (knock on wood) its running like an absolute champ.

Moral of the story: Never underestimate the finicky nature of trigger wiring. Go to extreme lengths to keep it away from any source of contamination (alternator wiring, spark plug wires) and NEVER underestimate the amount of screwign you'll need to do with gains and filters on an E6X. Actually better yet, don't buy one, buy an E8.

Currently the car's running well and recent logs of free revving in neutral show no signs of break up or any issues like before. I'm running 12psi up to 5500rpm and thats where it'll stay until another week or so of RPM issue free driving. After that its back to the dyno yet again to make sure everything is happy and joyful for its full boost, full RPM runs.

Also - Bonez 3" "performance" cat. ******* garbage. Blew out on the dragon and has been a restriction up until last night (BDC - thats why we could only make 6psi with the EBC off )

 

I would've just re ran and re insulated the wiring from the CAS to the haltech.

 

The shielded cable that comes on the haltech harness is only so long. And the entire time it had other aluminum wrapping around it.

Its not as easy as it sounds.

 

Joe, start where we left off and ease your way in. Follow the model that I set when I was there -- don't rush in; tippy-toe in. It'll possibly buy you an engine if the problem happens to not be resolved.

B

 

Will do Brian. I've been boosting a bit for the last couple days. Running 9psi (spring pressure) and ran it up to 12ish at 5K just to see if the EBC was working. I'll definetley be taking my time because as you're aware - I'm not afraid to blow it up, but definetly not in a hurry to.

On the plus side, it hauls f**king a$$ even just on spring pressure

Also, I turned on decel fuel cut and gained some more mileage. I'm back to around 400 per tank depending on how much playing around I do during the tank of gas.

 

O_O

Can't wait till I have a stand alone! Well, installed.

 

lol, thats on BDC (better driveability and everything) tune. On my tune that I drove down south with on the highway I could push 450+kms tank. Probably running too lean all across the board, but if you were super paranoid and or experimental and wanted to see how far you can push it - its pretty fun and surprising just how far you can go!!

 

congrats! im excited for dyno graphs!!

 

Oh wait, kms, lol, I forgot you're in canada. I normally get 240 per tank, miles, which is like 528kms

 

Cool Car, Dude !

 

dj shadow ftw!! perfect choice.

nice car and best of luck figuring out the gremlins. wiring issues are always a pain.

 

ooh man thats looking clean broi like it a lot keep up the good work!

 

Good ear, thanks for the comments guys!!


Still running well - if all is good by the end of the week I'll book some more dyno time.

 

damn joe, i cant believe i never saw this thread! you never told me you popped a motor in FL. ill race you to the dyno! that is, whenever my my new sexy fuel system gets F%#*ing finished!!! next year you are riding with me on the dragon!

 

Yeah, I didn't think I'd mentioned the Florida incident....and race to the dyno?? You're ON! hehe

I'm compiling alot of stories for next year - so I'll ride with you for sure!

And I want info on this fuel system when you get it all up and going!