Hey so I don't know where to start really... I'm having electrical issues with my car that I have spend countless weeks and nights of this summer trying to sort out. I'm about to lose my mind!

Okay so it all started with buying my car 4 years ago. '92 RHD FD, few mods like exhaust, pfc, intake, basic stuff. I enjoyed it for two summers until I blew the motor in the spring of '11. I parked it for the summer due to lack of funding to rebuild. Winter comes along and I rebuilt the engine, gave her a great big street port, installed a single turbo, all supporting mods etc.. That brings us to this spring of '12. Car started and ran good, I got a base map sorted out and was starting to get some miles on it. I had the thing running decent, and had about 500km on it already so I figured it was time to change a few more things (it never ends does it...)

I picked up an Odyssey battery to replace my old Optima Red top, and decided to install a new sound system I had sitting around for a while. (Side note, leading up till now I had noticed some noise coming from my turbo when spooling down and did some oil pressure testing while the car was parked for my stereo and battery install.) So I got my speakers wired up, battery installed, (old battery was already located in the hatch, so basically plug and play), and took an evening to test my turbo's oil pressure.

The car ran great, started awesome on the little odyssey battery, and didn't notice a thing. We buttoned it all back up, I finished the radio install and I thought it all went pretty smoothly. That's when the problems started...

I noticed it idling poorly, but I was out of gas so I went and filled up a fresh tank. Drove around a bit and the thing just wouldn't run right. It smelt funny, didn't have the brappy idle that it used to, and kept stalling on me when I came to a stop. I asked some guys on the PFC-DL-Tuning group some questions and they suggested I do a few tests. Everything checked out, my PFC internal regulator was good, alternator tested good, (even tried a new one to make sure), tried running with my old battery, etc and so on.. Nothing worked. The only thing I could fix was the stalling, and that was by initializing the PFC. For some reason that would stop it from stalling. One thing I did notice is when I would run it just on a big battery, it ran almost (so close) to normal. As soon as I hook my alternator back up it runs like absolute garbage. This confirmed mine and others suspicion of a faulty alternator, but I have tested, and replaced it to no avail.

Here's the symptom's I'm having:

-Low idle (I have it set to 1400, and it won't idle above 1100rpm's)
-Hunting idle
-Labouring idle
-Low vacuum at idle (-10mmhg, due to labouring I'm assuming)
-Funny exhaust smell that really burns in the nose
-No more lumpy brappy idle that I used to enjoy
-Seems to miss all the time
-Starts hard

I have so far:

-Tested my alternator to prove the diodes and regulator were working
-Tested to make sure my PFC internal regulator is working
-Unplugged my radio wiring, power wire to deck and amp is disconnected
-Checked, rechecked, triple checked all grounds including PFC ground
-Tested TPS
-Dismantled and checked my whole interior twice already for anything that I might have missed or screwed up during install
-Basically reversed as much as I can from what I did to the car
-Talked to who I can, searched forums day and night
-Lost my mind over many nights of trying to figure out where my gremlins are

Mods before symptoms:

Large street port, Greddy Type RZ BOV, Greddy 1.3bar rad cap, Greddy V-SPL intercooler, Greddy intake elbow, Greddy underdrive pulleys, Greddy oil catch can, HKS carbon/titanium Hi-Power Exhaust, custom 3" downpipe and mid pipe, Koyo radiator, RE-Amemiya AST, ULTRA M.D.I. Ignition, Magnecore spark plug wires, GM 3-bar MAP sensor, Garrett GT35R turbo with anti-surge compressor housing, custom undertray and radiator shrouding, CJ Motorsports billet fuel rails, Aeromotive FPR, Aeromotive stealth fuel pump, 850cc primary and 1680cc secondary injectors, Apexi PowerFC and Commander with Datalogit, Apexi turbo timer

Mods done when symptoms started:
Pioneer deck, amp, speakers. Odyssey Extreme20 battery, re-routed and spliced a few ground and power wires(I swear I did a good job with soldering..) and that's pretty much it. I know I did cut out the plugs under my seat because there was nothing to plug into, but I separated and shrink tubed them properly. I think I did a very good install, using all new wires, solder everywhere, shrink tube everywhere, I don't know where I went wrong. Especially considering most of this was done and the car ran great then! It only went to crap after it was all buttoned up and put back together.

I'll attach the map I'm using and some logs that I have taken both before and after the symptoms happened

Log running - Taken before symptoms, car worked fine
Log running 2 - Taken when car would stall, before initializing
Log running 3 - Taken after initialized, no more stalling
Log running 4 - Car starting and stalling after installing full size battery
Log running 5 - Disconnected alternator, ran just off odyssey battery
Log start and run 3 - Cold starting car and idling until fans come on (won't let me upload, pm me if you wish to view it)

Okay, so is there anything I can do besides tear the whole car apart and re do everything? I love my car, it's been my dream car since I was a kid and now I own one which is awesome, but can't drive it. It sucks, I enjoy working on it, but not when it seems like I'm not getting anywhere. I don't have anyone in my area who can help, as far as I know I have the only rotary for over a hundred miles. Please save me and my car...

 

I dont know what all you have checked under the hood but i would start with coils and the harness leading to them check the wiring under both wheel wells this is a problematic area for these cars as it tends to rub through and cause shorting... very wierd things happen when there is a short under either wheel well. This is the only area i can say to start at if you havent yet.

 

Whenever it starts running funny, especially stalling at idle and what not, step 1 is just about always going to be the scary two words: Compression Test.

 

I've lost two engines so far. Both times thought it was electrical and chased demons for months. In both cases it had bad idle issues but most predominant of all the symptoms....bad, unusual smell. First time was an apex seal, second time was a side seal. Perform a compression test now before you pull out all of your hair. FYI: I had your exact symtoms with the failed side seal.

 

This is my first reaction

-Geoff

 

Sorry guys forgot to mention I did do a compression test right away. Now I only had a cheap regular tester but I had 3 solid even pulses on both rotors that peaked at 100psi. Now with a fresh motor I don't think that's too bad. And when I drive it it has good power, revs nice, so I can't see it being the engine.

It literally went wonky over night which is what confuses me. One day I tested my oil pressure and it ran PERFECT, I even remember commenting to my dad about how well it was running while we were doing it. Fast forward a couple days when it's all put back together and its terrible. I'll check my harnesses and coils because I haven't yet, but I never got near any of those during the install.

 

Thats alot of amperage being drawn. Can you disconnect the stereo power and try?

 

Don't have a tool to look at your datalogs, but the first thing I always look for when a car isn't running/idling right is if there's a vacuum leak or if the map sensor isn't connected.

 

Stereo and amp are both disconnected, I have reversed as much as possible. I noticed a bunch of areas were wonky including, Inj +/-, IGL, IGT, FuelT, PC%, WG%, WtrT, AirT, Knock, and BatV. If you look at log running vs. almost any of the other logs I took you can see some major differences between the two and some very inconsistent numbers.

The Logs are .txt files, you shouldn't have any problem reading them but yes a vacuum/pressure leak test is another thing on the to do list for me. Thanks

 

What MAP sensor are you running? Stock 2 bar or aftermarket 3 bar?

 

I am running a GM 3bar. I seemed to have it calibrated correctly, but a problem there could also cause my symptoms.

 

perhaps you are inducing electrical noise into the ECU.

 

It almost seems like the ecu to me too, why else would initializing and re-uploading the same map get rid of some of my issues when they arise? Also what is weird is when the alternator is unplugged, the car runs better too. I was thinking that my diodes were shot and I was getting ac coming out of the alternator but we proved that was not faulty. I'm going to go and check my ecu grounds tomorrow and see if there is something going on there. Thanks

 

Because when you reset the ECU, the PowerFC tries to relearn the idle.

thewird

 

you know how you let it run really low on fuel by accident, could it be possible that the fuel pump is kinda wrecked now and not sending the right amount of fuel to the injectors, etc etc..
just something easy to check..

 

Okay so here's a funny one. Tested my coils for spark, and my leading coil didn't have anything. Traced it back to my M.D.I. ignition and it wasn't getting any power. A little more searching and I found an inline fuse and guess what, it was blown. Replaced it and she runs better then ever. I feel dumb Thanks for the help

 

LOL, I've done that before. I sent my M&W box all the way back to Australia to have them look at it and they said it was fine. Came back and realized the fuse was blown. I felt stupid.

thewird