--HKS Twin Power problems :(
 

Has anyone had their twin power ignition system's "little red light" not work?

Ive had my twin power ignition for about a year and a half now with only about 8k on it and the small red indicator light no longer comes on. I'm wondering if the twin power is working at all?

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Josh

just an additional note, Ive been running my PF Supercars tune on my large street port, and r85 (like) turbo for about 6 months now and it just started a strange intermittent issue:

Sometimes after boosting, the car will want to rune extremely rich. Under engine braking the car pops and backfires like a srt4, and if I try to give it part throttle when this happens the car makes bost and noise but goes nowhere. I don't see and unusual knock at this time either.

If I let the car idle at this time it idle very ruff and at a much lower RPM than it is set to. The idol reminds me of starting the car after it had been flooded without changing the spark plugs.

The only way I have been able to make this go away is either wait it out while driving it or rev it up or floor it and give it some real boost. That seams to clear everything out.

This entire problem led me to look under the hood at the UIM. That's when i noticed the light on the HKS Twin power ignition unit.


Any suggestions?

Sounds like you might be onto something with the ignition amp not operating. Almost sounds like under hard boost you are fouling out the plugs and it becomes noticable when the rpms get low enough for the plugs to start effecting the idle. Any chance you could get a known good ignition amp for a few pulls on the highway or something?

that would be key... I suppose ill have to look around.

Still, has anyone experienced the power indicator light not working on the HKS Twin Power Amp?

Oh, have you verified the 12v input to the amp?

I had an HKS unit fail on me and the car backfired like a shotgun going off. I could easily smell the burnt internals of the amp and the light was not operating. Your best option is to try another unit or test the current one.

Would you know exactly how to test the amp?

How would i go about this?

If you have the directions to the amp just verify which wire leading into the unit is the 12v source and hook a multimeter to it and ground the other end. Pretty simple, hardest part will be to find which wire is the hot wire. Make sure the car is running when you do it.

This could be a simpler problem also, I was just thinking it could be the ground for the unit itself. Verify the ground it proper, ie not trying to ground through paint or something really corroded.

ah yes, that is simple. As soon as I have a chance to check that i will post the results.

Make sure the unit is grounded and test the white wire for 12V output...

Update:

The unit has a very solid ground, and has got its required 12v power. Upon trying to take the gold box apart I did find that the small wire connecting the LED light to the unit was broken.

So, I know that the unit is getting power and that the light that should denote if the unit is working or not isn't coming on because it is not connected. Thus I'm back where to the original question. how do I know the ignition amp is doing what it is supposed to be doing?

Is there anything else that could cause my engine symptoms that I am overlooking if the ignition amp is in fact working?

The only reason I have to believe that maybe it isn't broken is because I have never been able to smell any burnt up electronics smell like G's 3rd Gen had.

How do your plugs look? have you verified that all 4 wires/plugs are getting spark? They aren't burned or heavily fouled are they?

well heres n update:

The car is burning through plugs. now plugs only last about 10 miles before the car starts to miss and run rough. could this be a bad coil issue? how would i go about checking the coil packs to see if they are working correctly? if this is not the problem than i know the issue is in the unit itself.

coils??? anyone?

Are the plugs fouled or burned up? What heat range plug are you using? There's a way to test the coils as described in the FSM look it up. You need a multimeter