rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

I've been working on Speed_Monkey's car for a while now. I've got a complete new harness built and installed. Today with Ken's help on the phone I even completely redid the software from square one. Here's what's going on now.

I verify that I have working temperature sensors. The map sensor works and this can be verified. It is picking up a crank signal perfectly. The fuel injectors fire. The thing that it is not doing is firing the coils. The LED that corresponds to the leading (17?) does blink when cranking. I have also tested continuity through this wire and verified it is hooked up correctly. I have also verified that the coils have power. Can low battery voltage be a reason why the coils aren't firing? When I first try to crank it, I can get one very quick weak spark but that's it. The LED does keep flashing though as long as you are cranking.

Brad's battery was going dead right as we tried this. I ran out of daylight and had to quit. We even pulled it down the street in gear but no luck. No ignition. I'm wondering if the coils can't recover and build up enough of a charge to fire off again when the voltage is low. Is that possible? I'm using Ken's .msq file for cranking settings. Since our cars are different I have changed the settings for the missing tooth rather than second trigger and I have adjusted the injector values for ours. Just no start and a fairly dead battery. Does that sound plausible that it's the battery being too weak to get the coils charged up again after an initial spark?

turbosa22c

is this a FC? i have noticed that the FCs with a weak battery, have a hard starting issue. often leads to a flooded motor. ive noticed that a battery voltage at 12.0v on my car can sometimes not be enough. if it drops to 11v, i would have to put a jumper on it. it would crank but the spark is to weak. i also noticed that actual voltage drops quit a bit on cranking. i think there is something in the factory coils or ignitors that makes starting difficult w/ lower battery voltages. i was planning on deleting the leading coil ignitor and replacing it w/ some aftermarket spark box. something that can generate a spark with a battery voltage down to 9v

speed_monkey

Yeah, its my FC. Just from the fuel pump running, the voltage would drop down to like 10.6 lol

Tommorrow I am going to charge the battery and try to start her up.

muythaibxr

I will be calling you guys back tomorrow too. I missed your last call today b/c my phone was charging.

Ken

speed_monkey

Ok, charged the battery. I cranked it a few times and now I dont see the LED blinking..

turboefini88

iTrader: (1)

What voltage you have at the batt disconnected from car with a voltmeter? if its below 12.5V I would replace it. It honestly sounds to me from your previous post you have a bad batt or possibly a bad ground for your fuel pump if its puling it down to 10V

T2GTUS

I have successfully started down to 10.6v or so ... I'd pull a leading plug wire and check for spark while cranking ...

turboefini88

iTrader: (1)

Im not saying a car cant start on a low voltage battery, or even one with a dead cell. What Im saying is it can and will cause issues with all sorts of engine performance issues. (coil not energizing, sensors not getting the right coltage ect ect)

What Im am saying is its pointless to try to troubleshoot anything with a dead or bad cell batt because it will cause your readings to be skewed and the PCM/MS will not be getting the right voltage ect ect

turbosa22c

i was thinking of also trying one of those voltage stabilizers on the market.

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

I'll get back on the car again on Monday. If it comes down to it, I may just pull the battery out of my car to try to get it started.

muythaibxr

ok, feel free to call me as usual after 6PM if you have a question.

Did all that software stuff we did get rid of your warnings at least?

stevensimon

iTrader: (11)

i just had this problem lastnight. i found out that it wouldnt spark at all or just do one quick spark and thats it. i reset the gap on the magnets and teeth in the cas and it fired right up.. i still have other issues but it idles. so check your gap between the magnet and teeth

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

Yeah all of the error codes are gone at software startup. When I downloaded your .msq file, it said there were 22 error codes then though.

muythaibxr

hmm, that's a bit odd too, but they shouldn't hurt anything, I just used that msq last night with 029w... I didn't get any warnings when I loaded it, so I'm not sure why you are.

In any case we're getting the software problems fixed up at least... and then we'll figure out what's keeping you from getting spark.

Ken

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

OK I feel about stupid right now!

I go back over the car and check some things. I find that the cas is misaligned. It was off by 2 teeth. No big deal. Easy fix. A spark plug wire on the leading is also bad. No problem we'll just use a trailing for the time being. After double checking all of the settings I decided to try to start it up. Nothing. The fuel pump was running. The sensors all worked. Tach signal was fine. It was getting spark. Plugs were clean. Compression was good. It even said that the injectors were firing. Nothing. This made no sense. Maybe it was flooded? I didn't smell any fuel though.

We decided to pull it down the street. If a rotary has fuel and spark, it will fire this way. We pulled it around the block probably 3 or 4 times. Nothing. This was getting frustrated. After talking to Ken on the phone I was getting a little lost. I decided to go back to an old trick to see if the injectors were actually firing. The computer said they were. I touched a long socket extension to an injector and held my ear to it. I have speed_monkey crank it over. I should be able to hear the injectors click this way. You can even listen to your seals sliding through the engine if you do this on a rotor housing! I heard nothing. Now I was starting to figure things out.

I checked all of the wires. They all had continuity. The fuel pump was running. The main and return lines weren't mixed up. I called Ken and asked how to check them. In the process the issue dawned on me. Instead of wiring up the injectors to power, I wired them to ground. Doh! That's why the computer told me they were firing. They were in fact getting a signal. They were just running a ground to a ground. This is why you can't always rely on what a computer tells you! Sometimes you just need to get in there and find an issue yourself.

Tomorrow I'll wire this up through a relay and we'll try again. Hopefully this will take care of it this time. I can't believe I made such a dumb mistake. When I wired mine up a couple of years ago, it started up on the first try. This one has been kicking my butt.

renns

Congrats on the successful trouble-shooting. It's often those simple things that take the longest to find!

Are you running a resistor pack with those injectors? Now's the time to add one if you choose, as it gets wired in with the +ve supply to the injectors. Be sure the injector pwm settings are correct for whatever method you choose.

muythaibxr

I recommend using a resistor pack also, especially if the secondaries and the primaries are not the same... You can get weird issues because you can't tune different PWM settings for the secondaries vs the primaries.

speed_monkey

It's got low impedance primaries and high impedance secondaries. Do I need to wire in resistors to all 4? I don't have any on my car (all high imp injectors) and it works fine.

EDIT- This is RG logged is as SM.

speed_monkey

Reverse that. They are high imp primaries and low secondaries. It is also a V3 board.

muythaibxr

I would put a resistor pack on the secondaries.

T2GTUS

Good find! I'm sure you were with the whole thing, just goes to show its sometimes good to step back and re-look at everything!

I would just run resistors on the low imped injectors only, wherever they are.

speed_monkey

Ok, I got all low impedance so we wired the resistor back in to all 4.
She starts every time now!!! Just got to get a timing light on it and work on the maps.

renns

Great news! Amazing how a powered injector or two can change things! Good luck with the tuning. Take your time, make frequent backups of your settings, and datalog everything.

muythaibxr

Awesome! You were supposed to call me up when you got it running! I wanted to hear it!

Anyway, good job getting it running.

Ken

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

It's not running good yet and definitely not drivable right now. It's still doing some weird stuff. I can't seem to get the idle down below about 1500 rpm or so no matter what I do. I'm not sure why yet. I've checked everything for vacuum leaks and can't find any. That's a bit frustrating. I'm at a loss right now on this one so I'll probably have to just think about this one over the next couple of days.

His setup is extremely clean and simple. It's a Turbo II engine and manifold. There are blockoff plates on everything. We've been over those to make sure they don't leak. The holes underneath the plates are even epoxied closed for good measure. No air is getting in through those! The upper to lower manifold did at one time have a leak but it has been cleaned and has a new gasket. It's known to seal good. The upper manifold to throttlebody has a plastic spacer between them. This is normal. I verified this was in good condition and seals properly. The throttle plates close all the way. I checked this too. Any vacuum nipples are either in use of blocked off. There could be a slight leak from a cracked rubber plug on one of these though. I'll have to take a very close careful look at these. The only area I can't check easily is the lower manifold to engine gasket. That would be a nightmare which would require the removal of the engine's fluids, the exhaust, and the turbo. I only pray it's in good shape. When I let the engine run, I can stick my hand over the throttlebody to block it off and get the engine to die. Wherever extra air is getting around, it isn't that much. I'd even be happy if I could hold 1000 rpm as idle. Problems like this can really suck.

I didn't have a timing light but did find that the more advance I dialed in (to a point), the better it ran. I'll get a light on there next time I work on it.

The fuel maps really have me scratching my head. I can't seem to get it to idle any leaner than about 11/1 right now. That probably goes back to the timing being off though so I'm not too worried about that. What is weird is that it can be holding steady (relatively speaking) at about 1500 or so and then stumble and fall off in rpm. The strangest part about that though is that it might go REAL lean lower in the load range even though the map says it should be much richer. Again this probably goes back to timing issues. I really need to verify it before I draw any conclusions from the strange behavior so far.

Does anyone know what settings would be good for map_dot acceleration? I can't get that dialed in to save my life. Even on my car (which has a tps), when I've tried switching over to map based acceleration I can't ever get it setup even satisfactorily. This area really has me scratching my head. Any tips here would really be appreciated.

It's getting closer. At least it can start now. We did try taking it for a tuning drive but it wasn't very useful. Too many other issues to tune out right now. We did get some fantastic backfires though!

It'll be Thursday before I can get back over there again. I want this damn car done!