Well i finally finished hooking everything up in my 88 GXL, rebuilt my engine with some Rotary aviation seals...new ACT street/strip clutch and some other goodies. Well i haven't put a whole lot of time into this thing yet, but i can't get her started up.

So after finding out my battery was bad, and wouldn't hold a charge (not at all suprising) i swapped out batteries with my brothers car which is just sitting right now with a stripped out hub. Well that gave me enough to crank the engine over for awhile. Tried it 3-4 times for about 20 seconds or so each time, didn't want to go too hard on my starter, and nothing happened. The engine sounds good, decent compression at least. I checked for spark and it missed a little bit, but i was getting spark. i tried dumping some more oil down in the combustion chamber to build up some better compression, and still nothing. But i was leaning towards no fuel.

So i figured id throw the battery on the charger, and check for fuel. All i did was pull the clamp off the hose coming from the fuel pump on the drivers side of the car, as soon as i lifted the hose a bit, it squirted fuel everywhere...so the pump is working. Well time constraints wouldn't allow any more working on her until tonight.

So tonight i go out to try it, and my damn starter isn't turning over...what the hell! Battery is a full charge, headlights are as bright as can be, i can hear the starter relay clicking underneath the dash, so i figure my starter is burnt up...damn. So my dad suggests we pull start it, good idea cause i can get the rpms up higher and build some better compression. Being sure we have flashlights to check for leaks as soon as its running we tow her out onto the street. I had the rpms up to about 2k and absolutely nothing was happening, no sputtering at all. Only good thing that came out of tonight is that i know my oil pressure is up there so that was one worry out of the way.

So im guessing im still not getting any fuel, i know primary injectors are plugged in, but honestly i don't know where to go from here to troubleshoot why im not getting fuel. My MAF is plugged in (or whatever the sensor is right behind the filter is called). Im stuck and need a some suggestions, im sure after some poking around ill figure it out but some ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

easy way to check for no fuel, spray some carb cleaner down the intake and then crank it over, see if it sputters or tries to fire up.

 

yeah i was searching all over for my starting fluid to do the basically the same thing, i couldn't find it until i had of course buttoned up my car and moved onto a different project...figures lol

im going to try the starting fluid tomorrow, but when i pulled my plugs after cranking it over the first day, they were as dry as could be...so that tells me obviously no fuel

 

any other ideas on why my injectors wouldn't be shooting any gas for me....i know they are hooked up, is there some sort of safety check type thing that could prevent it from shooting fuel? Maybe a ground that isn't connected well??

 

gee a ground problem in an rx-7... I've never HEARD of such a thing :P



hehe but yeah, grounds cause all kinds of problems. May wanna run a ground from the battery to the body, battery to the engine, and engine to the body.. That seems to help a lot of people with different foibles.

 

Do you remember attaching the ground terminal to the top of the rear rotor housing when everything was going back together?

 

yeah actually i replaced that one with like a 6g wire

and i know what you're talking about with the ground haha, thats why i grounded that one!

 

ONE 6 gauge wire? You do realize that 3 seperate ECU grounds terminate at that point, right? (Actually, only 2 make it all the way to the terminal, the other splices in closer to the ECU)

 

hmmm sounds like i found my problem then? yeah i only replaced ONE wire, lol ****

only one i remember was from the rear housing right to the firewall, where exactly are the other ones grounded to, the firewall or the rear housing?

im guessing i missed a wire coming from the wiring harness on the drivers side...is that right?

 

Well, if you want to test this theory out real quick, just get to the ECU, and run some temporary jumper wires from those ECU pins (which on an '88 GXL would be 2R, 3A, and 3G) directly to a chassis ground near the ECU. .032 safety wire would work, or something similar. Crank her up, if she starts, then you've nailed the prob

 

lol, first thing in the morning ill give it a try, thanks for the help man i really appreciate it!

 

Just so you know, the ground it sounds like you're talking about goes from the tranny bellhousing to the firewall, and is a totally different one than the one I'm talking about, which bolts down at the rear rotor housing, on top, under the UIM. It's part of the same harness that feeds the primary injectors.

If you'd like, you can still make your own grounds at the ECU to see if it helps, just wanted to make sure we were on the same page about which ground wire we're talking about

 

well i've spent the last couple hours checking and rechecking all grounds in the ecu, they are all there, so i guess i did ground everything

now im going to start pulling off my uim to see if i can quickly jump the injectors to get any fuel coming out, i don't know maybe they are stuck or something...

this really sucks and i hate my car!

 

You might want to check if the ECM is giving ground to your injectors. Also. CHECK FUEL PRESSURE! Always be sure. But check the ECM ground circuit. See if its working correctly. So check for BATT power at the injectors.

 

Did you zero the timing??????????? I hate to ask, but did you line up the timing pulley mark witht he pointer on the front cover and then make sure the pointer inside the CAS is in the right position when you put it back together???