Hopefully someone can help me clear up this PITA issue on my car.

The first time I start my car each day it's pretty badly flooded. But after 2-3 tries it starts fine and blows out a lot of white or grey smoke. Sometimes it runs rough during this time, with horrible shaking like one of the rotors isn't firing or something. I'm not sure but I think this happens after the car sits unused for more days. I let it idle a bit because revving it would make it intolerable. After the smoke clears the shaking stops and it runs perfectly for the rest of the day. Starts instantly too.

The issue started when I changed my alternator and the weather got hot. The old alternator had a bad voltage regulator. Since I bought my car it would tend to flood in very hot weather but I rarely had a problem in coastal weather until now. So at first I blamed the heat wave but now it's December. Plus it's flooding every single day which is way too consistent for what use to be an uncommon occurrence.

Because it starts easier than other flooding issues and shakes so bad I'm guessing it's flooding in only 1 rotor, but I have no clue what's going on.

 

Leaking injectors.
Send 'em out for servicing.

 

Wow fast answer, thanks. Are they hard to remove? My rule is I do maintenance, mechanics do repairs. So difficulty limit is around a fluid change before I send it to a shop. And do you happen to know the ballpark prices for both removal and servicing?

 

Service on them is pretty reasonable (~20each). You just mail them out, wait a week, and you have them back. You have to remove them though. You mentioned changing the alternator? if it was you that did that, you can turn a wrench at least. You should be able to get the injectors out, but it's more involved.

If you can't do it yourself, you'll get the mechanics rate. Plus they have your car. Who knows what else they'll hit you up with

 

Ya I changed the alternator. That's easy. So I just have to loosen some bolts? That's no big deal. If I have to take off the UIM and replace UIM seals or some such junk then that's a pain.

I assume a Haynes manual has instructions for injector removal? And everyone is sure this isn't an electrical issue keeping the injectors from working properly or some such, just send them out and bam certainly fixed? Know any good places to send them from southern California, or should I ask in the West forums?

 

Yeah, I have no life.
That's hard to answer.
You can see the secondaries (although not remove them) right under the throttle body elbow (assuming this is NA).
The primaries are all the way under all the manifolding on the block.

You have to unhook a lot of vac lines and stuff, along with quite a bit of hardware but it's not "difficult" as much as time consuming.
If the intake hasn't been off in a while, I'd bet on some crispy vac lines which will need replacing. In fact, I'd take the opportunity to replace ALL the vac/fuel hose while it was apart.
Only a fraction of the vac spider hoses need undoing to remove the manifolds, so leave them all intact and replace one at a time. Same with the ones you actually need to undo.
Take pictures before and during the process and if you feel it necessary, tag hoses with tape or something.

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1= oil change, 10= transmission rebuild), I'd say this is about a 3.5-4.
It looks a lot scarier and complicated than it really is.
The first time I stripped down to the vac spider I spent a whole afternoon (but that included replacing all the hoses).
Now I could get it that exposed in about 20 minutes.

There is nothing at all weird mechanically, and simple hand tools are all that's required. If you look at the FSM ahead of time, you see exactly where all the relevant bolts/nuts are located.

The "difficulty" that does exist is simply the possibility of missing a hose connection, many of which will be hidden when you're done.

Make sure you cover the exposed ports in the LIM as you work, you don't want to drop anything in there.
Ahem, you mean like YOU just did two days ago? Physician, heal thyself...

Edit: Go to Witchhunter.com, they're very reputable.
And yes, you will have to pull manifolds and replace gaskets.
About one step more difficult than removing the alternator.

Expand your horizons.

Edit edit:
Surely you jest.
Nobody is "certain" of anything, we're giving opinions over the interwebs about a car we've never seen. Would you actually trust anyone who'd guarantee results based on the interaction we've had so far?
In your position, faced with the symptoms you've described, I'd first suspect leaky injectors.
That's about as good as you're gonna get from a bunch of digital ghosts.
You want better odds, return to meatspace and see a real, live mechanic.

 

My car floods often, but pedal down and it starts on the next start. It does this randomly during the day, it could be first thing in the morning or a random start to get groceries during the evening. But I'm in 0 to -15 celcius right now.

Could anything be causing this as well? Not to steal a thread, but I figured it was relevant.

I would prefer to order new/rebuilt injectors for 120-130$ instead of sending mine out and it costing nearly the same cost and having no car for a week.

 

There is no "rebuilding" injectors...you can have new or serviced.
See Witchhunters for an explanation.

 

Thanks I think I have this sorted out.

If it's his daily it still makes sense for only $40. Probably a good idea to save the old injectors to service and sell or service and keep for next time several years down the road.

So when I first got my car I figured my injectors were over 100k old so I asked the mechanic to clean them out just in case. The description on the receipt looked suspicious like "injector cleaning special" or something. Probably dumped a bottle of injector cleaner in the gas tank or the fuel lines and charged me $80. Goes to show you gotta find a reputable mechanic before getting any service done or you're only throwing your money away. Before I found one almost every piece of old service I had done failed and came back to bite me. Uh oh... there's still my fuel pulsation dampener and suspension installation remaining that hasn't broken yet. (crosses fingers)

 

Remember , unless you already plan to have all 4 Injectors serviced the only injectors that work on start up all the way to 3800 rpm are the Injectors you can see. Don't go after the ones under the UIM unless you want all four done.

Also make sure compression is good. Low compression can also make for flooding.

 

The primary injectors are the ones that you CAN'T See.They are on the keg.

 

Yeah, the easy ones (that you can see) are the secondaries.
I can get pics tomorrow as coincidentally, replacing injectors is something I'm doing right now.

 

Ok sorry i got them confused. I keep thinking the secondaries are on the iron.

 

OK Eric, here you go.
These pics oughtta scare the crap out of you...


This is the top of the engine with the vac spider and primary injectors exposed.
The lower intake manifold is still in place (it doesn't get touched for this procedure).

In this second pic, the injectors have been arrowed:


Here's the deal as I see it:
Unless your mechanic is experienced with this engine, he's going to be as lost as you are and you'll be paying his hourly rate to figure it out.
Only you can decide if you're up to it yourself.

 

He's a rotary specialist with a great reputation on these boards. I've learned my lesson.

Anyway don't worry about it. The reason I made the maintenance only rule is precisely because these things take way longer the first time, involve surprises or stuck parts the first time, and result in tremendous headaches. So I only want to learn to do something if I'll do it twice. It's not that I can't, it's that I don't want to spend a couple days figuring it out.

 

Fair enough.
Let us know how it turns out.

 

So based on my over the phone description a mechanic (but not the owner) doesn't think it's the injectors. And based on some forum searching I'd think it would continue shaking whereas mine is perfectly fine after a minute.

The more I think about it the more I wonder if it's the alternator. I think this happened right after the swap but I blamed it on the hot weather. I got 2 alternators recently and I forget which is which. One is a Mitsubishi for a Mitsubishi car (rather than our Mitsubishi made for a Mazda car) and the other is some guys used alternator. I wonder if one might be s5 or otherwise have different wiring, but I would think that would only drain the battery. Or maybe the busted voltage regulator on the last one fried something else entirely.

I mean it went from totally fine to daily flooding either the very next day after the alternator swap or within 2-3 days.

I don't like guessing though, never turns out well, so I'm going to take it in to an honest place and see.

 

I don't see how it could be the alternator, which is only able to output current, not decide where it goes.
Your NA has a voltmeter, does it not?
That would settle the alt question easily enough.

Diagnosing stuff like this from afar is difficult and you have to be wary of inflating coincidence into cause. I once did an oil change and was blamed for a non functional radio because the owner decided that the last person to work on the car must be responsible for anything that happened subsequently.

Looking at my engine and trying to imagine how an alternator swap might have messed things up, the only thing I can see that's even remotely connected to the way the car runs is the thermosensor, which is sorta close by.
Might want to check that connector and ensure it's not fubared.

 

It's possible that I busted a connector in the dark. It was late. And even years ago the car would always flood on very hot days.

Buuuut a 2nd guy said fuel injectors, so I dunno probably fuel injectors. We'll see.

 

It's rather easy to affect the Water Thermosensor when working on the alternator if you're not careful since it's right under the alternator and when loosening it it will then sag downward right on to the sensor.

 

Oh that area, ya I think I twisted the **** out of all sorts of things around there while fumbling in the dark. As an update the shop is replacing a broken coolant temp sensor and then they're going to see how it is before they consider the fuel injectors. Would the sensor be thrashed or merely disconnected? Because that might save me a part.

 

Until you look at it you won't know. You can take a reading at the ECU pin 2I (Green/White wire) related to the Thermosensor and it should read 2 to 3 volts cold engine w/key to on and about .5 volts w/key to on and engine fully warmed.

 

yeah t hat will cause difficult cold starts

 

I had a very similar problem last year. Very difficult cold starts (40-50 deg. F air temp). Local rotary shop suggested comp. test which I had done (I forget the exact number, but it wasn't bad for 160 K miles). Replaced plugs and it started right up when I left the shop, but the problem was still there the next morning when I started the car. I had recently tightened my alt. belt, and after searching this forum I came across a similar problem. I checked the sensor and it was broken. It seems I got a little over enthusiastic while trying to get my wrench on the alternator bolt and damaged the sensor. Replaced with Mazdatrix part and problem solved.

 

I can't really picture how that's possible.