Hi everyone,
Well here here is the issue I am having. I recently bought this 10ae from the original owner. It ran poorly when I picked it up but I saw the coupler from the intake pipe to the turbo was cracked and loose so I figured it was that. So I took this time to do a few upgrades. I removed the air pump and did a full emission removal. I did leave the air control valve but bypassed the coolant hose. The throttle body is stock. I removed the upper intake and removed the metal spider and bypassed all solenoids but I kept the twin scroll. I bought a cork sport intake tube to replace the plastic factory pipe. I also added a cooling fan system. I replaced the plugs with brand new NGK as well as the wires with NGK. New fuel filter as well. While I was doing all these upgrades I noticed I piece of speaker wire being run from where the fuel pump resistor/relay was under the air box to the back of the car. I did more looking and found the resistor/relay was relocated to back where the fuel pump was and had an additional relay wired in. It was a mess, all done with wire nuts.... So I removed everything they did and put the fuel pump wiring back to stock! Resistor relay and everything.
Well it came time to start the yesterday. I put everything back together and started by testing to make sure the fuel pump runs. I put a jumper in the yellow connector on the passenger strut tower and I keyed on the ignition. I heard the fuel pump prime up and I felt the fuel line was rock hard. So I removed the jumper and attempt to start the car. The car turns and cranks all day long but I can not get it to pop off. I can hear the compression bumps I can smell fuel out the tail pipe, I pulled the wires and I do have good spark. I did not think it could be flooded because I had removed all pressure while doing the filter. None the less all my searching and research said it was most likely flooded. I tried the simple deflood procedure by removing the green EGI fuse, cranking the car for 10-20 seconds with gas pedal held down. That did not help. I then pulled the plugs to see if there where dry. I found the top plugs to be soaked in fuel, the bottom plugs had much much less fuel but still a little. I did not notice any coolant on any of the plugs. I then added just a little squirt of trans fluid into the bottom plug hole, reinstalled the plugs and tried again, still no start! I made a code checker as per the online directions and the ECU is not flashing any errors. I tried to pull the air filter and push on the intake flapper and when I push it I can here the pump kick on. If you watch the flapper inside the AFM while cranking it isn't staying wide open but it opens and closes with the compression strokes it appears.
I think that is everything. I have tried searching quite a bit and I have tried a few things as you have read. It sucks when many months of hard works ends with a non functional ride, but I haven't given up yet! Your advice and ideas are much appreciated. I call upon the rotory experts in my time of need! Lol
Thank you all.

 

Is it possible that it is getting too much fuel and that would be the cause? Due to removing all the emissions.

 

You might want to try unplugging the fuel pump and start the car w/the aid of some starter fluid (one to two seconds at most sprayed into the air intake). This should effectively unflood the engine if there is presence of spark. Sometimes a wet plug means it is fouled while other times they still tend to work (some use a hair dryer or heat gun to dry them off).

 

is it possible the leading and trailing plug wires are backwards? also, since they went to the effort of jimmy rigging the pump to such extreme lengths, is anything else related to fuel spark "engineered" IE, ecu ground, grounds in general?

 

Plugs are wired as follows: trailing on top, leading on bottom. Rotor #1 is front towards front of the car, #2 is back near firewall. I completely reground every connection and replaced the battery terminals as per the online wright up. As far as I can see the only other wire modification was a extra ground wire added to the boost sensor harness. Again with wire nuts and very poorly so I returned it to stock with solder conections and shrink wrap coverings.

 

Update:
Ok so I figured out the problem. The car was not getting enough fuel pressure. The reason for this is rust in the fuel tank. I pulled the pump and what I found was about 1/2lb of rust chips and chunks and lots of fine rusty silt. It had completely clogged the pump strainer and under acceleration the pressure would drop. I removed the fuel tank and cleaned it out good, replaced both filters and now it runs great.