turbovr6

Greetings to everyone, I've been away from this forum and my FD for a long time but it's nice to be back. Unfortunately it's with a problem.

After 13 years of storage I've finally started working to get her on the road again.

When I put the car away everything was fine, I just got busy with other things in life and before you know it 13 years passed.

I'll start with the basics and then get to the running problems.

Engine is a large street port from Judge Ito of the shop formerly known as JR's rotary performance in NJ. It was not the engine from the car, it was an engine he built
for me so I have no idea what it came out of. The engine has maybe 10k on it since i put it in.

T04s single turbo
Stock primaries
1600cc secondaries
Upgraded ignition
Apex'i power FC with datalogit. Tuned by Steve Kan back in 2006 ish?
Tons more stuff but that's the engine basics

So the car barely wants to idle when cold and it has a misfire, If i don't keep my foot on the accelerator for the first few minutes it just hunts and dies but starts right back up. Once up to operating temps it will idle but I can feel a misfire. Driving it is iffy as it wants to stall when you let off the gas.

Here is what I have done so far since trying to get her running again:
Dropped the fuel tank, had it boiled and sealed, new fuel filter. Removed the injectors and flushed the fuel lines. manually fired the primaries and the pattern looked good.
New battery
New plugs and wires
Changed the oil/filter
Rebuilt the engine harness (mice)
New O2 sensor

Compression test done at operating temp using the compression tester from rotarycompressiotester.com
front rotor: 94 101 98 psi corrected at altitude and rpm
rear rotor: 87 96 85 psi corrected at altitude and rpm

no idea what the compression was 13 years ago.

I did a smoke test and there are no vacuum leaks.

Wideband shows about 13:1 at idle

So that is where I am. I tried loading the base PFC map to relearn the idle and that made it even worse. I used the instructions posted here to adjust the throttle and the idle air screw under the elbow as well to get a fresh start.
Went back to the Steve Kan map and here I am.

Car starts fine but cold running is garbage, after warmup the car holds idle but something is just not right. Not sure if i should ATF the engine to see if some seals
are stuck or do I come to the realization that something went wrong after sitting for so long and the engine needs to be pulled.
Minor smoke out the tailpipe sometimes but I pre-mix and the car always did that
No coolant burning or compression passing into the coolant passages.


Any advise would be appreciated, I can provide more details on request. just a life long rotary guy trying to get his car back on the road where it belongs.

Here are some videos of the car running to hear what it sounds like right now.

Thank you,
Jay

FDAUTO

iTrader: (4)

You did everything right. I would start with 3 possibilities: it just needs to run, your fuel pump is compromised somehow or your power fc is is doing what power fcs do which is slowly die.

I would start with replacing the fuel pump, letting it run and doing some driving. Your idle afr isn't really all that important. Every car is different. What you can do is go under the settings on the commander and add fuel for the lower water temp until the afr richens up or the idle smooths out.

Do the fuel pump first along with some idling and light driving then move into messing with the tune. Just the fact that it fires right back up, you're in a good place. This one should be pretty easy to sort out.

turbovr6

Thanks for the ideas. Sorry i forgot that I did do a new Walbro HP pump because the original one was a rusty gummed up disaster just like the tank. I have pressure on the manual FPR set at just under 40psi.

I guess I will have to grow some nuts and drive it more than just around the block. All these years I forgot what it's like to have an FD and never know what will happen next . I'm just worried it will die on me in the middle of the road, and need a flatbed and all that stress of getting it home.

FDAUTO

iTrader: (4)

Well... sitting for 13 years or 13 minutes, a flatbed is always a possibility lol

Set your base pressure to 45 with the car running and vacuum line off the regulator. Since the pump can be ruled out, just put some miles on it. Drive it easy and stay in the neighborhood. Consider this a little rehab session. Ideally it will just get better and better.

Please report back on how it recovers. It should be pretty easy to get this situated if just driving it doesn't bring it all the way back to "normal".

turbovr6

Update #1. I have taken her out a few times to see if I can shake off the cobwebs. From what I can tell I have an issue with the secondary injectors, wiring, or Power FC injector drivers. If I try to go hard on the throttle there is no power, she falls on her face and I have to let off a bit to get any power back. Not sure if there is some easy(ish) way to check if the Power FC is actually pulsing the injectors, or what I can do to diagnose and not just throw parts at the problem.. The secondaries are 1600cc, old school low impedance Bosch, as I had to wire in resistors back in the day when I installed them. Also worth mentioning that when I rebuilt the engine harness this summer the wiring for the injectors was the main reason I had to rebuild (damn mice nested in there). Any diag advice and/or next steps would be appreciated. Thanks

FDAUTO

iTrader: (4)

you would need a datalogit to check. you can see in the log if the signal to turn them on is being sent. alternatively you can use a 9v battery and some alligator clips to pulse them manually if you can fit your hand in there.

JP3 Motorsports

Welcome back ... I say take the injectors out and get them cleaned/tested. Would be a good opportunity to replace o-rings etc.

Molotovman

iTrader: (49)

You mentioned viewing the spray pattern on the primaries- did you do the same to the secondaries?
The idle clips sounded like normal PFC operation to me, I would be looing at those old secondary injectors hard.

iceman4357

iTrader: (2)

I agree with JP3s suggestion. If your pump and gas were gummed up, could be in the entire fuel system.

Alternatively, if you are going to drive it I would suggest going to Autozone and getting Techron Fuel system cleaner. I would run a few large cans through your car. If the injectors were gummed up, it will help the issues. It did on my car that sat for 2 years, so I can only imagine 13.

Eric

gracer7-rx7

iTrader: (16)

Welcome back!
+3 on sending the injectors for cleaning
+2 on datalog to see what the injectors are doing

This is going to be a hard one to address given the wiring changes

turbovr6

Well I finally got the opportunity to go for a drive and grab a log. I'm not exactly sure but it looks like the secondary drivers are dead based on the log. I'm attaching the entire logfile if anyone wants to have a look. Here is a quick screenshot of what I see for the secondaries (nothing on the far right) . If I'm reading it right any recommendations on who to send it to to repair?

iceman4357

iTrader: (2)

I would suggest https://www.rcfuelinjection.com/ for cleaning/rebuilding injectors. Will also give you a flow chart and dead times table.

scotty305

iTrader: (2)

I'm not a PowerFC expert, but I think you're simply using the wrong tool to view the log data. It's tab separated data, and Notepad doesn't space the columns nicely. If you open that file with Excel (or LibreOffice Calc, or maybe Google Drive Sheets) you'll see data for the InjFrSec column. It looks like secondary injector pulse is 0 for most of the log, and numbers in the 2.0 - 3.0 range(presumably milliseconds) in boost. I do see the wideband AFR looking scary lean around that time, but that could also be caused by a fuel pressure problem since the secondaries tend to activate at high load when the fuel demand is highest. I agree it's a good idea to get all the injectors cleaned and flow tested, if you can. A quicker test might be to disconnect the secondary injectors to see if the behavior changes. If you happen to know someone who has an oscilloscope and knows how to use it, ask them to monitor the secondary injector signals. That's a difficult task and requires an uncommon combination or skillsets, but it could identify bad ECU drivers. Or install a fuel pressure sensor and add it to one of your spare analog input channels. I wouldn't bother with a fuel pressure gauge, since it's a complex relationship to see if the pressure is rising correctly with boost you should be checking that in datalogs.

I would check with the PowerFC guys to see what software they use for viewing datalogs. I think it's helpful to see the data plotted on charts so you can look for trends and easily rearrange things the way that makes sense to you, rather than trying to find relationships between a lot of numbers from a spreadsheet. The screenshot below shows a log from my car, with most of the basic channels I would check when diagnosing a situation like yours. Your log file contains most of the same channels, except for fuel pressure and lambda target.

FDAUTO

iTrader: (4)

The shortest and simplest method here is to put 9 or 12v to the injectors directly and see if they pulse or put an inline fuel pressure tester and go for a drive. It would point you in a more defined direction. If the injectors are simply not pulsing then its likely problem solved. The pfc sending the signal for them to fire is almost a definitive clue but not quite.

Either of those tests will provide answers on what to do next

scotty305

iTrader: (2)

Those are both good practical ideas, I tend to overcomplicate things. I suppose if the fuel pressure is so low that it's causing the engine to run 20% leaner than usual, you would probably see the pressure drop off when watching a gauge.

Be careful if trying to pulse the injectors directly. If you're doing sketchy things like running wires to the battery, I would get a 5A fuse from the parts store and use that inline with the temporary wires. It can be hard to reach the two pins inside the fuel injector without shorting the wires together, be careful.

turbovr6

Thanks everyone for the input up to this point. So far I have checked the injectors and they do fire when I apply 12v. I also checked their resistance, and the resistance of the wiring from the injector plugs to the ecu plug to verify my in line resistors are still ok. Everything looks good. I have a manual FPR w/ a gauge and rigged up a gopro to record and pressure stayed solid at 40psi . I do see on my wideband that I'm hitting 17+ when this happens. I'm still trying to learn how to read my logs in FCdatalogit because I agree that using the txt file is not the best way to review the data. I think at this point I will send the injectors out to be cleaned and also send the PFC out to be checked. What the hell, can't hurt.

FDAUTO

iTrader: (4)

fuel pressure is supposed to rise with boost. it staying constant should point your towards your regulator. where do you have the vacuum line routed and what brand is it?

turbovr6

Hmmm good point, I forgot about that. Guess I'll go out there and manually pressurize it at idle to simulate some boost. Its an Aeromotive FPR Vac line direct to the UIM where it has always been.

turbovr6