So since MiataSlow2005 and I are supposed to go for a cruise/photoshoot tomorrow, this afternoon I decided I’d clean up the car. When I finished, the fiancé was headed off to work for the night so I decided why not go for a drive since it was nice out. I grab the dog and head out. The car runs flawlessly like usual for the first 20 minutes or so…it idles nice, it pulls to redline without a hitch, and the afrs are spot on to what my target table was set to. Then out of no where while in boost the car fell flat on its face, not a hiccup/blip, I mean it went from pulling hard to feeling like it stalled!? WTF. I regain my composure and then start to think about what the hell had happened and then I noticed my afrs were WAY rich. It was like my tune had completely changed (No laptop at this point). While cruising I was now at 11.5-12 where before I was at 14.5-15.5. In boost it went way rich ~10 where before at full boost it was a steady 11.5, WTF. Now keep in mind, the car did not consistently fall on its face, it was quite sporadic….to the point that it really pissed me off because one minute its fine, the next it acts up. With no laptop I was screwed, so I went home and grabbed it to see if I could figure out what was going on. I loaded my last know good tune (probably from a week ago) and I get this crazy message about the over boost protection. Now how the **** did it change in TunerStudio if I didn’t touch it? I obviously kept the controller value and off I went. Now the car is not rich, but much leaner than how the car was originally. While cruising the car was now at 16-17 where it was 14.5-15.4 before and in boost it was at 12.5-13 where it was 11.5 before. Now ironically enough, one positive thing that did come out of this…I ended up noticing how much harder the car pulled with it running a bit leaner in boost (without detonation…I had my polski det cans on ). Anyways, this still didn’t help me as the car was still not running as it should. Like before, the car would run GREAT for a bit and then out of no where fall on its ***. I have absolutely no idea what is going on, but I gave up for the night…..I mean the car is drivable, but I just don't want to **** something up and it just plain pisses me off, WHAT COULD BE GOING ON?!!

Error Message I got:
WTF.jpg?t=1273975508

Here is screen shot of where the car falls on its face:
WTF2.jpg?t=1273975475

 

does it still build boost? blown coupler or stuck open BOV?

btw i didnt read ur entire post, too many letters in there...

 

Lol, it is long. Yeah, as I left it an hour ago, it drives like normal now and ocassionally it'll fall on its face.

 

looks like a 'reset' right when it goes crazy. any possibility that the MS settings are getting corrupted as well?

You said you chose 'controller settings' when prompted about the differences. are you sure that's correct? your over-boost hard cut of 14.3 psi (tunerstudio version) seems more reasonable than the 20psi in the controller..

u also mention that it runs leaner now.. if u chose the controller fuel map, it makes sense b/c it looks significantly leaner in most of the cells.

 

I'm running 18psi though which is why I chose the controller settings. Also, that 20.6 (Random number by the way...) is what I have had for a value since the day I got the car.....

 

sorry, must've misread your log image.

in that case, i'm not sure what happened that would case tunerstudio to show incorrect values all of a sudden w/o you altering them..

if u have a few minutes, try putting the VE numbers from your image back into your controller and see how it runs.

did you ever export a 'known good' VE table that you can re-import?

regarding the initial experience when it "fell flat on its face" then ran super rich, my car did that a couple times after hard acceleration.. not sure what caused it.. it was almost like it was running on 3 cylinders for a few seconds then it was OK again. maybe the cylinder got flooded? (i have no idea what i'm talking about) or you have spark blowout?

 

Yea, I got like 30 good tunes (I'm a freak and always save when I make changes)

It does only fall on its face when I'm accelerating in higher boost levels. Maybe I will check my plugs and lower the gap on them a hair to see if it helps...

 

maybe they just need a cleaning, or your wires are on their way out? (or are you running cops..)

i dunno - my concern is that you have that MS reset there..

this thread is intereseting:
http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83652

 

Well I just checked my plugs...they were at .034" so I closed them up to .030" and cleaned them up a bit. Now, one interest thing I found while I was doing this was that my coil was not bolted down....I must have forgot to bolt it down after installing the STB . I'm not sure if this could have contributed to the issues I was noticing, but I figured I'd throw it out there since that was the only thing I could find out of the ordinary. Maybe if it shifted just the right way it did something?? IDK but that might explain why the problem was sporadic.

 

You, Hustler and I all have recently experienced that a coil pack (or COPs) not bolted down will cause issues. I had my OEM coil pack pretty loose and the car fell on it's face between 6000-6500rpm on track.

 

I think that the coil not being bolted down was the issue. It didn't happen at all today and Miataspeed and I were running our cars ragged Lesson learned!

 

Sounds like an issue I'm having, I'll have to check my coils. I don't have any logs yet though, weather has been terrible for driving. :(