I'm stumped. I just got my engine rebuilt and put everything back together. The car ran good for having two apex seals gone. Now I have a rebuilt tranmission and Engine and it idles fine, but when I step on the gas it acts exactly like its timing is wayyyy off. The whole engine sputters and feels like it wants to die, and sometimes it does. I set the timing 4 times, right on the dot. I even went out and bought a voltmeter and tested my TPS, its perfect between 1 and 5ohm. I took the upper intake manafold off like 3 times now. I made sure all the injectors connectors were in the right place, and made sure that the incomming fuel line is going into the primary rail. I am completely stumped. Maybe my CAS is suddenly bad? Or possible my AFM? I doubt it, it ran fine before. Anyone experience something similar? I already searched, found nothing like my issue. I need input. Thanks guys.

Turbo II S4
Walbro 225,
Ligthen Steel Flywheel
Centerfore Dual Friction Clutch
Grounding Mod
Brand New Stock Injectors
Full Catless Exhaust.

 

any chance you switched the front pullies from one engine to another? timing marks are specific to the engine the pulley was originally installed on. swapping pullies means your marks could be off quite a bit.

 

Thats what the guy at the Rotary Reliablity told me to do. (BTW awesome service) Was one of the first things I did. Thats how I finally got the car to idle, was with the pully that came with my car. But even then, I set the timing on the dot and the car still doesn't want to Rev up. As soon as I give it very little gas it sputters. I know its timing related, and I'm ripping my hair out over it. I am so desperate right now. = (

 

any mods done to it??

 

No porting done, all stock. Only things I have done that may affect it is:

Turbo II S4
Walbro 225,
Ligthen Steel Flywheel
Centerfore Dual Friction Clutch
Grounding Mod
Brand New Stock Injectors
Full Catless Exhaust

 

are you sure the injectors were installed correctly and you put the pintle caps in when they were installed?

 

Yeah I did, they are all installed right. I thought maybe I had them on backwards. But when I tried to switch them they didn't reach where they needed to be. But just incase, the primaries are the ones that connect to the coolent sensor behind the water pump right?

 

I just noticed something interesting with my pullys. I reset my timing like 6 times at least now, but every time I get the engine TDC, I stabb the CAS and it comes out to be wayy off from the center of the bolt down line on the base of the CAS. Does this mean the pully that came with my car is wrong now? The rebuilders gave my another pully with marks completely different from the one that I put on now. The one I have now though came with the car. Should I swap pullys again back to the one that came with the rebuild and try to do timing again?

I'm a little bit confused now because they told me to use the one that came with my car, and NOT the one with the engine? Maybe he was wrong?

 

Remove both rear sparkplugs. Using a mirror and flashlight, center an apex seal in the trailing plughole. mark your front pulley adjacent to the locator pin. repeat for the leading plughole.

Now remove the pulley from the engine so you can work with it easier. Measure halfway between your 2 marks on the shortest side. This is true TDC. Now you need to add 5* ATDC to obtain your leading timing mark to actually set timing with. You can do this one of 2 ways. 1) measure the circumference of the pulley, divide by 360 to find the distance that equals 1 degree multiply by 5, and measure that distance in the counterclockwise direction to make your mark. 2) use a degree wheel to add 5 degrees counterclockwise and mark it accordingly.

Now make a permanent physical mark on your new 5*atdc lead timing mark, with a cutoff wheel, saw blade, etc. and remove the other 2 marks you previously made. You might want to use paint, too.

Now reset your timing, when properly aligned I usually find that the cas adjustment bolt sits closer to the left side of the slot in the cas.

 

Aweomse thanks, I'll try that. I just swapped pullys again, I get the same problem. Also, I just tested my coils with an Ohm meter. They test ZERO resistance. My CAS was right on the dot at 185ohm. I have spark, and upon watching the arch it does it on Queue. Even though it sparks on queue, could it still mean I have bad coils? Thanks Rotary, I'm going to try that pully reset right now.

 

HEY, my car does the same thing. ive talked to a few different people, and cant get much of an anwser different than yours, ive reset timing 1,000,000,000 times at least, i did the turbo swap and all that stuff. my car runs to 4000 rpm, then starts to stall really bad, so were in the same boat dude!

 

So I set measured my pully at 5 degrees off TDC, and the car actually idles better now. If I give the throttle anything less than 20% it burps like its missing. Anything over that and holding it sounds fine. The car idles perfect. I'm not sure what it is now. I tripple checked my TPS today. I think its actually driveable now, but I'm still scared the timing is wrong and one day POP! all my money out the door. I'm starting to lean to removing my entire wiring harness and getting a Haltek, I spent a **** load of money already, whats another 1400...

 

If you cant get it to run properly with a simple stock efi system, you can forget doing a haltech yourself.

 

Just for you guy's to know we are having the same problem
Starts and idle's fine stomp on the gas it will go 1k more and thats it.
If I rev it slowly it will go to roughly 3k to 4 k then even if I put it to the floor you hear the throttle body openning starving for air but does not rev up WTF everything was working fine before, can seem to pin point the source of the problem

Will check the TDC and see

J-P

 

Well mine revs up fine, It doesn't stop anywhere. I get this horrible part-throttle-low-RPM misfire going on now. Other than that its fine. I'm thinking its my ECU or wiring harness that may be the problem. Thats why I'm considering doing the haltech.

oh... also, I tested my coils again. They are actually fine.

 

I added extra grounds to all the grounds on the current wiring harness. I think I need a new wiring harness and/or ECU. The harness looks really iffy. I have an N332 ECU.

 

Well I think I found my problem. I ripped my harness out and bought all new bosh style clips from car quest and sardered the bad wires with fresh wire. As I was doing it, I noticed my injector wires were faded and briddle half way down the harness. Then I realized that the primaries and secondaries were wrong when I had them installed. The colors were not very decipherable till half way down, I don't know how I identified them in the first place now that I'm looking at them in clear light. I had a primary and secondary on the main rail and a primary and secondary on the 2nd rail. Grrrrrrrr! At least I now I'm confident about my engine harness. So I got new wires there and fixed everything else. Hopefully this was the problem, and the only problem. Updates soon.

 

Re-did my harness and grounded the boost sensor. Car runs awesome. The end.

 

injector issue or injector wiring issue, the injector clips inside the connector like push back inside the injector so you may have partial connection but fails once there is a significant increase in duty cycle. other possible causes would be fouled spark plugs or arcing ignition cables.

 

thats awesome buddy! i hope i can say that my rebuilt motor runs great. also great advice RR. learned something new and you answered a very important question that i will now not have to ask.