The Main relay is located near the trailing coil and has two plugs to it. If the relay was working properly, with key to on the B/Y wire at either coil would have voltage and the B/W wire at the Green check connector by the leading coil would also have voltage as well.

 

Just got the thing towed back and started prodding around with a multimeter again.

Everything satch listed above has battery voltage w/ key to "on"

Even the B/L wire at the comp fuse on the engine bay fuse box has batt. voltage with key off.

 

So it seems I don't have spark. My battery is getting too low to turn over the starter effectively so I will have to get that charged tomorrow, but I pulled a plug out and turned it over and could not see any spark while it was cranking. Checking the coils now...

 

Ok, so if I did this right then I've got a bad leading coilpack....

Somebody check me because the picture of where to check for continuity in the FSM is really really bad. I checked resistance between the two pins at the connector for the coilpacks and the resistance was 1.6k ohms, FSM says it should be lower, under 1k....

Can somebody confirm that you are measuring resistance between the pins at the connector?

 

The lack of spark "may" be a function of the low battery. Another thing, each fuse at the engine fuse box has a wire connected to it that is provided constant 24/7 voltage to it. You might want to test the voltage on each wire as you jostle or shake each fuse/fuse box and see if you can keep a constant flow of voltage on each wire. The wires to focus on would be the wires from the fuses which are necessary to actually run the car. In this case that would be the EGI INJ, EGI COMP and the Main fuse. EGI INJ fuse wire, which is Black/Green, runs to the Main Relay. The EGI COMP fuse runs to the Main Relay also and is White/Blue in color. The Main fuse has a Black wire connected to it and it drops downward below the fuse box to a connector which can be disconnected to check for constant voltage on this wire. Lastly, if you can get the car started you might want to jiggle the fuse box in addition to the relevant individual fuses and see if the car continues to run or not.

 

Well it magically fixed itself.

I check all the connections off the main fuse block and everything that was supposed to have voltage had the proper voltage to it.

That black wire w/ the connector had proper voltage on it, and I couldn't find anything loose.

It's gotta be a loose connection somewhere, most likely at the engine fuse box, most likely pushed back in when I was back-probing to check for voltage but I couldn't find anything loose at all. I've got no real idea though. When I was checking for spark today with a charger / starter hooked up to the battery I could only get one spark, then nothing from leading or trailing plugs. After putting the plugs back in and hooking everything back up, I went to start it just for grins and it fired right up....

I'm going to do a compression test tomorrow just to be sure, but it is a very new rebuilt engine, broken in now for a few thousand miles and it shouldn't have any reason to flood if that is just what it was. I dunno.... maybe the primaries are dumping fuel and flooding it out randomly. Grrrrrrrr.

 

Found it!

Checked the connections to the Main relay again; pulled the connections apart after removing the melted plastic and this is what I found:





Cant believe I missed that...... must have burnt out when i was running the fan directly off the b/w wire to the 6-pin check connector. You live you learn, sooooo happy to have found this. Who's got another relay lying around?

 

No luck. The car is stuck out in my buddy's apartment parking lot not starting. I picked up a new relay, swapped it in and replaced the burnt connector by splicing in a good one. No go, still not starting.

 

You know that if the relay was working properly, that w/key to on, the B/Y wire at the leading coil would have battery voltage as well as the B/W wire at the Green diagnostic connector near the leading coil. Do you have voltage on both of these wires w/key to on?

EDIT: Also, what was the color of the wire that was damaged at the relay?

 

I didn't have a multimeter on me at the time. I will check it again tomorrow when i get over there. It was the B/W wire that was damaged.

 

The B/W wire comes from the Engine fuse in the interior fuse box so double check the 15 amp Engine fuse and see if the B/W wire at the relay has battery voltage w/key to on.

 

Yup, that's the one thing i didn't check after swapping the relay over..... I'll give it a look see when i get over there today. Thanks.

 

Fuse was fine, voltage was at batt levels on the B/Y wire at the coils and the B/W wire at the check connector.

I'm stumped. I'm finally going to get it towed back to my garage tomorrow morning so I have some shade and more tools at hand. I'm suspicious of the coils and will try swapping another set on tomorrow, and I'm also wondering if the back of the fuse box where the "engine fuse" connects with the B/W wire isn't damaged and burnt out as well.

 

security system?

 

If you were to question the Main Relay then you could just jumper the B/G to B/Y and W/L to B/W at the relay connector and bypass the relay altogether although the voltage at the coils and diagnostic connector as shown indicates it to be working effectively. The Engine fuse powers the alternator and Circuit Opening Relay as well so see if the B/W wire at the back of the alternator has voltage w/key to on and plug removed, and w/key to on at the Circuit Opening Relay located in the top row center pin position of the 6 wire connector. The alternator B/W wire does not need voltage to start and run per se, but the Circuit Opening Relay B/W wire does.

 

Forget the items that are powered by the Engine fuse as mentioned earlier. The B/W wire, which was previously damaged, powers up the emission components as well as the ECU. You might want to check the values at the ECU to see if they are within spec.

If the Boost Semsor were turned over to take a reading from the plug w/key to on and the Brown/White wire had about 5 volts to it, that would indicate that the ECU was being powered up and also sending out the proper Vref voltage to the appropriate sensors.

 

Problems with the values at the ECU:

Key to "on"

"3J" should be at 12V, its below 2V

3J is a W/L wire, according to the wiring diagram it's coming from the EGI fuse on the main fuse block, correct? Fuse is good though.... I'm just guessing here.

EDIT: jsut saw the rest of your post above satch, ill check there as well real quick...

 

Brown / White has 5 volts to it off the boost sensor with key to "on"

 

Pin 3J is connected to the Battery so voltage would be constant plus it feeds through the 7.5 amp Meter fuse in the interior fuse box. Pin 3J doesn't need voltage to start but it's indicative of another problem.

Also, does the car turn over?

 

The starter turns the motor over all day long, it just won't catch and start up. I need to refresh my wiring diagram skills, I thought the W/L wire from the EGI fuse was the same wire that goes to 3J....

Monday I'll check the ignition switch and the coils just from a hunch. I removed the factory security computer today to no avail either...

 

The 30 amp EGI COMP fuse has a short lengthed wire, White/Blue, that runs from the engine fuse box to the Main Relay and that is it. The W/L wire that runs from the Meter fuse to pin 3J is a separate and different wire powered by a different fuse having differing repsonsibilities.

 

I see... I remember you mentioning that earlier now that it is re-iterated. I have a feeling I will have a much more intimate knowledge of the wiring in this thing once I get it fixed. Tomorrow I get some real time to throw at it. Thanks for the help so far satch.

 

Fixed it...again. For the last time I hope, after finding out that burnt out connector anyway. The car flooded very badly and it wasn't until I again physically removed and checked the trailing plugs for spark did I notice it trying to fire up and a strong spray of fuel ejecting from the plug holes.

Test driving and everything seems a lot better. Idle is better, it doesn't cut out randomly while I'm driving, everything is acting like the coils, ECU and fuel pump are finally getting the power they have been missing from a badly connected main relay.

Thanks for the help again, satch, everybody.