wierd timing issues...
 

so i have my car completely together now, but it starting acting up today. I ran it 3 days ago with out much trouble, set timing, but the only thing not finished was the charge piping was disconnected, it idled smooth and everything just coasted up and down the driveway a few times and everything seemed normal. today however all i have done was calibrate the throttle. it flooded on start because the throttle was way off for some reason, and then i got it running, idle was smooth, i but a timing light back on it and it was intermittently flashing on random wires. both leadings didnt even flash and only one trailing flashed most of the time. i got both leadings to flash on a couple of times, but my question is do u think it is just a bad timing light, or could fouled plugs have anything to do with it?

like i said car ran fine 3 days ago all plugs worked with the timing light, and now only one shows flash on the light part of the time. i havent messed with the cas or anything. any ideas?

bump, i know this may not be haltech related, but someone has to have an idea on it.

sometimes my timing light wont pick up a signal too, especially on T1. for some reason pulling the plug wire off the coil slightly so that the spark arcs helps, but dont drive around like that, its just so you can get a decent signal on the timing light

i hope this is the problem then, coupled with fouled plugs.

i should be impossable for L2 to not be getting spark while L1 is sparking. but both trailing coils show no spark.

i dont think i could blow 2 and 1/2 coils in a day. lol

At least pull the plugs out and see what they look like. Sounds like they're fouled. If they are and not firing then you'll have troubles with the timing light.

this is what i was wondering. so if a plug is fouled then will cause the timing light to not light?

the plugs were definitely fouled, i didnt have the throttle calibrated correctly, and it caused it to flood. i took out the plugs and cleaned them off, recalibrated throttle, but it has ran like crap ever since then. i think the plugs are shot for sure, i pulled them out again and they were all wet. i already checked the resistance of all the coil packs and the CAS, all within spec, so i ordered new plugs to put in tomorrow. i had NGK bur9eq platinums all around, im going back to stock NGKs for now.

i put new plugs in it, rechecked the timing, and it ran pretty good, its low on gas so im going to go put a few gallons in it to get it to town and fill it up. the TPS might be messed up, i went to re-calibrate it and it showed current position as 96, full throttle was 98. when you looked at the data output it showed it jump 20% increments till 100. which caused the car to almost die when you blip the gas. i unplugged it and plugged it back in and it showed current position as 3, with full throttle being 65ish re calibrated once agian and actually showed 1-2% increments while pressing down the throttle. wont probably run it till tomorrow morning, but i will post an update then.

follow up:

ran car up the road and it was randomly missing out. realized it was only in left turns, up hills or over bumps. started datalogging and did some left turns. i noticed from the logs that my throttle position seemed weird. it changed when the missing out happened so i stopped the car and noticed the wireing was comming out the back of the tps connector. took it apart and re wired the connector and took the car out again. ran perfectly! have been driving the car every day with no problems what so ever. finally glad to have it back on the road!

Yep having the TPS out of cal or not hooked up can wreak havoc on how a car runs. Even though it's technically a non-critical component, it's needed for an effect (acceleration pumps) on every single tip-in. If it's not there, the car will stumble everytime and feel like it's demon-possessed.

B