Schuyler

iTrader: (1)

I am having issues with my car "cold" starting. Quotations included however, as cold simply means like 60 degrees (SC Summer). Basically, I go to start the car to leave for work, no luck. But it will fire right up when I get home that evening. When I say it won't start, all that seems to be happening is the starter motor is spinning. No hesitated attempts to start or anything like that. The tach also never leaves 0.

I can update this thread later tonight when I'm home with screenshots of settings, but I'd anyone is willing to just look at the msq now I'll put a link below. Car is running the stock 99-00 injectors.

Current Tune

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

sensors.

Schuyler

iTrader: (1)

Cam sensor was high on my list of possible causes since I had that issue before with it losing sync at higher RPMs initially until I adjusted the pot, but why would it work fine in the afternoon and not the morning?

EDIT: Though my battery did die after like 40 seconds of cranking attempts... Maybe she just isn't up to it anymore and should be replaced. Though I believe I had the same problem when on a charger.

Zaphod

Pot adjustment.

Had this before (but only when really cold like 0°C) - adjusted pots - works.

Schuyler

iTrader: (1)

Alrighty. I'll leave the battery on the charger tonight so there's a nice strong(Well, as strong as the poor old girl can get) battery to work with, and unmount the MS so I can adjust the pot until it starts tomorrow morning.

Thanks, will report back on what happens.

Zaphod

Please adjust to what the manual says.

Copied from Franks site

Mainboard
- Turn R56 about 12 turns to the fully anticlockwise position (you may or may not feel a “click”) and then turn R56 back about 10½ turns clockwise.

MS3X card
- Turn both pots (R11 and R32) full anti-clockwise – approx five turns.
- Turn the top one (R11) 3½ turns clockwise.

Schuyler

iTrader: (1)

I have another thread in which I was having issues losing cam signal above 4500rpm when using Frank's default settings, and after talking with Frank and Braineack the problem was resolved by tweaking these settings slightly. I will probably go back to these and start over and try to get the car to start, the tweak it from there again, just so I know I have a solid place to start.

New piece of the puzzle though:
The car will not run with the stock ecu. Popped it in after getting fed up adjusting pots to no avail this morning. 10 minutes or so after last trying to start it on MS3X, I started it on the stock ecu. Would not idle, but I attributed this to the minute changes made to the TB screw when I had issues with my idle (though looking back, that should just make it idle higher). So I figured I'd just idle it with my foot at stop signs etc (was already quite late to work), but revving seemed to only occasionally work. Other times, I could be WOT and the car would still just sputter and die. CEL is on due to the rear o2 sensor that was pulled for the wideband, so I will have to get out the OBD-II reader tonight and see if there are any more codes it's throwing. Hopefully all these starting attempts haven't fried a coil. Smelled strongly of fuel when I walked away.

Any other advice, recommendations, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Schuyler

iTrader: (1)

Scott are you sure about that? I had someone else with a 99-00 and MS3 (one of Reverent's MS3-basics) observe the tach while starting their car, and they said it did not move from 0 during cranking. If I just need to adjust my cranking/priming pws, and in reality just flooded the motor while trying to crank it for so long, this could explain why the car was not running properly when the stock ecu was hooked up.

Schuyler

iTrader: (1)

Should change the name of this thread to "Car is undriveable, even on the stock ecu" lol. Plugs and wires ordered, fingers crossed it's not a coil.

Video of the symptoms:

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

did you looked at a composite log and verify it wasnt?

sounds like youre on 3 cyl now.

Schuyler

iTrader: (1)

I haven't, I swapped to stock ecu and then kind of forgot to go back and check a composite log while cranking (since it can't start) with MS.

I've just never had my car be a cylinder down without throwing codes. I let the car run (had someone keep it running as best they could, it seemed to be content staying semi-steady at 3k) and pulled plug wires one at a time to see if the car died, sputtered more, etc. Honestly, and probably just related to my inexperience in this sort of thing, I couldn't tell a difference. I did notice however that each plug wire (spark plug still in the cylinder) arched to the block when they were pulled out, was hard to tell if any single wire or pair of wires (1-3/2-4) was stronger than the other.

I did forget to plug the MS3 MAP line, and when I realized this after trying to get the car to start for a bit got excited thinking that would fix it in a snap. However, the car honestly seemed to run no different with an exposed vacuum line vs. plugging it.

I guess my mental course of action at the moment is to swap the plugs and wires this evening.

If that doesn't fix it, use starting fluid in the intake and see how it runs then to help diagnose a potential fueling issue.

Swap back MS3 and do a composite log, though given that I can't start at all with MS, idk if this would potentially be a different issue or not.

Then there's a place in town that has a coil I can borrow from one of their cars, swap them for a few minutes to see if replacing the coil fixes it, then swap them back. Would have to find a trailer though.

Schuyler

iTrader: (1)

So. I was thinking. A few months ago, my roommates 2.5RS randomly shat the bed and wouldn't run, and then while troubleshooting, he pulled the MAF and it ran fine, thus a dead MAF.

After spark plugs and wires didn't work, I thought about this. Car ran FINE. So, MAF is bad.

I'm going to redo all the pots and hopefully fix my cold start issue, tweak my cranking/priming settings a little, and put MS back in.