Scaxx

I'm not sure if it's a normal one, I know it's got a different pigtail and seven wires instead of 5 for the normal ones. Just went ahead and bit the bullet, luckily my sister has a prime account so it'll be here on tuesday. Gonna put the car up in the air again and look for anything loose or that might've shifted on my little drive down the block tomorrow. The shitty part is school starts tomorrow and lemons is this coming weekend so my time that I can spend on the car will have to be spent wisely.

NBoost

Careful.. I am sure they sell the replacement sensor, you know what I am getting at. Try setting the ECU up for the right sensor and see if it works.

First start video is epic.. I even grabbed my 10 foot RCA cable to run my computers' audio to my big Mirage tower speakers and auxiliary subwoofer for the video haha, I wanted the full perspective!

Scaxx

That is a good point, I'm definitely gonna test it before I open the new one. I'll probably invest in a wideband guage in the future just to keep an eye on it either way. And yeah, it sure as hell felt epic, sorry the video quality isn't amazing but god damn the thing sounds amazing in real life.

Also Lemons is this weekend, gonna put in some good hours on the car this week. School also starts back up today which is a bummer but at least I got the car "done" before it started! I'll try to post some pics of the lemon

Scaxx

Lots of text incoming, just a warning for those of you who didn't make it through the fourth grade. Weekend was a success for the most part. We all got some good seat time, had a ton of fun and didn't place last which in my books means we did alright. Started out the first day with a problem with the brakes, audi pulled some real bullshit with the 90 because they put a specific offset rotor on only the 20v and now they're impossible to find. We had one of the best parts guys in Seattle working on it as well as one of the best vw/audi guys in the area and they both came up with absolutely nothing. The night before we ended up getting a set of g60 calipers which are dual piston and more pad area. The problem was our rotors were the wrong offset still so the carrier was dragging on the caliper. Nothing a grinder couldn't solve at the track and so I took a couple millimeters off. I got to drive first since I had put in more work than most the people on the team and everyone felt more comfortable with me going out first I guess. Anyway, none of us had ever driven the car or the track before so obviously I took it as slow as I possibly could just to get a feel for the track. On my fourth lap when I was coming down the main straight and going into turn one all of a sudden the steering got a little harder and pretty much all the lights on the dash turned on. I lost power steering, power brakes, and the alternator cause the car had thrown both belts since the team idiot tensioned them waaaaaay too tight. In all honesty, though the brake feel and steering feedback felt ten times better with no power.

Brought the car back into the paddock and had one of my teammates run to orielly's to get some new belts. One of my other teammates went out next and we wanted him to come in for fuel pit after he had been out for a lap. After he came into the pits we told him to return to the paddock to fix all the water he was dumping. Just turned out to be a hose so we fixed that and then sent the next person out. She got to drive for about 30 mins and then brought it in for someone else to drive just so we could get turns. He went out for about 35 mins, I went out for about 45, and the other guy went out for an hour.

The second day we had to modify the rollcage to fit the other two drivers. The problem was the girl on our team was 5'1" and the tallest guy on our team was 6'3" and since he never showed up to work days I pretty much designed the seat mounts around Katie who was the short one. I made sure Trevor could fit but when he was sitting in the seat he didn't have his back fully straight and he was all the way back in the seat so when he sat how they tested us he was 1/4" too tall. If it had just been the idiot then I wouldn't have cared and told him I couldn't fix the cage but since Trevor couldn't fit either I went and talked to the judges to see how I could fix it. If I lowered the seat it would work but I'd also have to cut out the harness bar because it would screw up the angle. They suggested adding a piece that stuck out of the roof so that's what I did. Not sure if it would fully work in a roll but it got us the green light for them to drive. Second day was pretty eventful. Trevor got a few laps in before the wiring to the killswitch shorted because of this damn resistor that was heating up to like 1500* that was included and was apparently not even needed. It then proceeded to light the killswitch wiring on fire and luckily Trevor killed the power to it and was able to get off track, and out of the car with the fire extinguisher in hand. Nothing else burned which was good but we also found a gas leak in the rear of the car that was going into the cockpit. Fire and gas really aren't a good mix. Turned out the guys in the morning overfilled the gas tank in the morning and it for a puddle which then leaked through the seam sealer between the trunk and back seats.

We were able to figure out the gas thing after about an hour or two but the other guys were struggling with the killswitch wiring. They never ended up getting it wired right so it would actually do its job and kill the car but our team idiot Hank decided to drive the car away while all of us were telling him he couldn't go out on the track and even thinking about it was stupid. Yeah, we weren't happy. This ****** never showed up to workdays and the two times he did he cut off a bunch of water hoses that were in fine condition, note the cut part, oh and the other time he showed up, he pulled the timing belt off without returning it to TDC or marking anything. This ************ is an engineer at Paccar and works with engines all damn day, you'd think he be a little ******* smarter. He also got black flagged within like two laps of being out so he got yelled at by the judges. We decided to go karting at their track which is an exact replica of the large track with the correct elevation changes and everything. Really really cool track and it was really cool to go from an audi with ALL the body roll, shitty street tires, shitty suspension, and shitty brakes to a kart with none of those.

Obviously, the team idiot isn't coming back next year, he's done. However, my buddy who's an aeronautical engineering major and just got back from field training really wanted to this year but due to the fact he was going to be gone for almost a month before the race because of field training he wasn't able to join. But everyone on the team likes him and he's probably gonna replace Hank.

As for how my track time went, had a ton of fun. Got passed a lot by most the people but at one point I out braked and out cornered a c4 which felt nice. He was braking way too early and so I overtook him in the turn which felt absolutely amazing. Also passed a couple other cars and got to pass an e30 on the straight which was fun as well cause I got to draft and then at the last second pull out and pass. Despite the fact that we were working on the car most of both days I think it was a fairly successful first lemons race, we'll definitely be going back next year and we all had a great time.

The morning we left for lemons I had a pretty bad morning, Audrey fell slipped off the jack and fell a couple inches, the problem is it fell and landed on the wheel that was sitting under the fender so it crunched the fender. My fault, I shouldn't have left it on one of those jacks that come in the back of your car. Stupid mistake, been making a lot of those dumb mistake lately. So that fender is kinda fucked up now Life goes on though, this was never meant to be a show car, just have to realize I learned a lesson and not repeat it. Have a few options on how I can fix it but I'm still deciding on what I wanna do with it. In the meantime I unsuccessfully trying to get my car to start. I got the O2 sensor in, still wouldn't start. Yesterday I got new plugs cause I had cleaned them up pretty well they still were kinda dirty. Really not sure what's going on now. I am getting spark, we pulled one of the plugs to check it but maybe we need to check all of them. Plugs smell like gas. Only other thing is air which it's obviously getting and compression. Compression realllly wouldn't make any sense and scares me, but its kinda hard to test correctly without the engine being warm. I'm betting on something got unplugged or the fuel-air mixture is wrong, but it won't start on starting fluid either which kinda points at spark. Somewhat confused. Also tried clearing it out in case it was flooded and I still got nothing. Any ideas? Johnny, I may send my tune to you to see if you see anything, the thing is, it's the same tune as before but with the correct O2 sensor selected. The team will also be contacting you about brakes, we were in fade central with our pads lol

Anyway, audi 90 pics:

The team. From left to right front row: Trevor, Hank, Stewart (me), Katie. In Back left to right, Max and Christian

Apparently, I give people this look when I don't trust what they're doing on cars

Getting towed after the fire, you can also see the rollcage modification the judges suggested



Some of the carnage

This **** is rated for 1300* sustained and 2000* in bursts. ******* resistor turned it white in no time and eventually exploded.

Scaxx

Can't catch a ******* break with this car right now. It's making a knarly noise after the starter disengages now. Really hope the starter is just loose or something stupid. Don't have time with schoolwork to pull the engine or trans. The thing is though, I was extremely methodical when putting on the clutch/flywheel because I didn't wanna **** that up. Everything is torque'd and had blue loctite on it. Maybe I did miss something, not even going to think of the other possibility which is the engine.

Scaxx

Had a couple of buddies over last night that I trust, one builds engines, the other is a tech at a chev dealership. We played around with the tune a bit, we started by advancing the timing, that made things worse so we retarded it a bit and now it's coughing but still won't start. It definitely has compression. We did find a couple of other things in the tune, the map sensor was entered in wrong so we corrected that. I think it was pure luck that it ran before because of a combination of things being wrong. It also seems to crank slow and has kind of a high pitch cranking sound, I think we were seeing about 120rpm as the highest while it was cranking. The battery is for sure good. I did check my grounds as well, really stumped on this one in all honesty. Anyone have any other ideas?

adryargument

iTrader: (1)

Surely the sensors like map etc only really count when the engine is idling. Those tuning settings ain't going to stop it from starting?
Dial it back to basics. Timing, Fuel, Spark, Cam angles/sensor, timing belt etc?

Composite log?

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

Fuel spark air compression. Which one is missing.

Plug wires incorrect order?

Is the battery actually good? Is it new? Have you jumped it?

Scaxx

So digging around some more I found out if the base map has the wrong map sensor then the entire spark/fuel map will be wrong so you have to start with a base that has the correct map sensor. The way holley sets things up is that you basically choose a tune from a folder of tunes that's close to what your engine is and then you tweak that tune for your engine. Once you've tweaked it you turn on the learn settings and the ecu will figure out how best to run. During the break between classes I started with a different base tune that had the correct sensor and tweaked it a little bit, I'm gonna try that one after I get home today.

You're right about most the tuning settings won't make a difference as far as starting. I'm sure I have spark. I'd like to verify fuel pressure, since I don't have a fuel pressure gauge I have no way of knowing whether I'm at 58 psi or not. Also since I know I have spark/compression/air, that's kinda the only thing left. I am getting an rpm reading so my crank sensor should be fine, I verified that cam is plugged in last night. And composite log? What do you mean?

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

Composite log is a megasquirt thing

Scaxx

Aidandj, definitely thinking fuel. The battery is good, well I had it hooked up to one of our spare car batteries and then to make sure I was getting enough I jumped it with my girlfriend's foxbody battery. Plug wires are all on correct, although I did find an injector wire that was on the wrong injector last night

Scaxx

Alright so I tried the new tune on friday, my battery (ies) were getting a little low towards the ends of things but it was coughing a bit more but still not starting. When the batteries are fully charged I'm seeing a max of about 120 rpms while cranking but it's closer to 80-90 most of the time. Seems pretty slow, but I've also never had a readout of the exact rpms while I was cranking so I don't know what's slow/fast. Can't really find much from searching around on the web and I'm guessing it varies from engine to engine. I'd like to double check all my grounds and maybe add another because it seems like it's either cranking too slow to start or there's a fuel pressure problem. After that I think the only thing it can really be is the tune. Don't have much time to work on the car this week cause I have a bunch of work for school but I'm hoping to give it another shot this weekend.

Scaxx

Well after finishing an exhaust this afternoon I decided to go ahead and try to start the miata and what do you know it fired up. However it won't stay running, dies as soon as you take your foot off the gas. Obviously an idling problem, but the good news is that it starts which gives me something else to figure out now...yay lol. One thing I did notice is that I'm having to start it with my foot to the floor which means it's in flood mode. Also I was just noticing that the timing should be at 20* for a stock cam apparently for idle. I think it's closer to 10 currently. One other thing I noticed is that my ground from the battery to the body seems really hot, maybe it was just because I was trying to get it to start for a while but none of the other wires were hot, might try adding a bigger ground back there as well.

RalliartRsX

I may try to get into Lemons, but the rules are...........how do you say......lax lol!

Glad it started. Atleast that gives you a baseline of sorts

Scaxx

Lemons was definitely an experience, great group of people and yeah, definitely a little lax on the rules haha, that said we're definitely signing up for next year. We all learned a ton and I'm hoping that we can prepare the car to be a little more competitive/keep it on the track instead of in the paddock more. They're also a little lax on the whole $500 rule, we thought they would really inspect our car closely but when we got there we were pretty blown away by some of the cars and they didn't even ask about receipts.

Definitely glad it started, hopefully gonna have a little time this weekend to work on it, still wanna ensure that the fuel pressure is right.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

Being competitive in lemons involves packing 30 beers into a 24 beer cooler.

RalliartRsX

Is that Brian from OGRacing??

Scaxx

We packed pies from the family business instead.
Johnny

Scaxx

More reading shows that the black loose wire in the harness is supposed to be connected to the engine so that another thing that could be hindering the car. It's the ignition ground which would sure make it harder to run if the ground is bad. So much trouble shooting lol, I swear I'll drive it one of these days!

Scaxx

My buddy dropped by with a fuel pressure gauge, pressure was spot on 58 when it primed. I also connected that ignition ground to the engine with a jumper wire since I didn't have a big enough terminal and we decided to see if we could fire it up. It fired up after about three seconds of cranking and a little throttle modulation, it still doesn't want to idle but it also hasn't had much time to learn. Definitely feeling better about things, hopefully I can try to drive it again this weekend!