Lost, help needed
 

Any advice would be great. I will try to be as detailed as possible. Long story short my car is in the shop and will not start properly. It ran before I dropped it off at the shop here is what was done:

-Flipside Custom Intake manifold w/70MM TB
-272/272 Kelford Cams (I think is the problem)
-Whole new turbo kit

They went to start it and all they kept hearing was a popping sound and wouldn't fully turn over and start. I am assuming it has something to do with the cams, I was thinking even with the cam swap the car should still start? Does anyone have any clues? The builder said the cams where a simple swap over, is there anything more to installing cams? They said they checked valve clearance it was good, and the cam position sensor was also good. :vash:

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_XkxLua5W3H0/S2...ears%20JC2.JPG Does this image apply to B6 motors? Could this be the problem?

Reply removed 'cos it was dumb

quoted BCar - ninja edit got me...

all cams line up like that man if your shit is not lined up like that then it is wrong.

Well I don't even know IF that is the reason, I have to check tomorrow. But what are my other possibilities for the car popping and not turning over other than the cams not being lined up?

you cam GEARS are lined up, but are the cams themselves properly aligned within the gears? The little nub should be slotted in the "I" on the intake side, and the "E" on the exhaust side. Please confirm your crank is positioned correctly with respect to the cam gears as well.

This is your problem. I had the same issue on my car.

http://www.boostedmiata.com/gallery2...2/knockpin.png

^^ Can you send the full photo, thanks for all the help, hopefully this is the problem.

Thats the bast picture I have. My mspaint skills are not that great.

What you need to do is make sure that the knock pin on each cam is pointing up and then put the cam gear on. If you have either cam gear off 120degrees the car will not start even though timing looks like it is perfect.

I'd be seriously worried about a shop that cannot even install camshafts in the correct orientation.

Ouch.
I think shuiend hit the nail on the head: it sounds like your cam gears are not properly aligned with the cams.

Well just got back from the shop, he said everything is correct on the cams they marked them before they installed them etc. He said the car is having problems with erratic spark and it could be the AEM EMS because it has been sitting so long and it could have lost it's previous tune. I sent them my tune and hopefully this will fix the problem, if not I don't know what I will do. Anyways, here is a picture of the motor from today, at least it looks nice :jerkit:
http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/3995/pict0623.jpg

Did they put a timing light on it? I bet they didn't.

That pic looks like the intake cam is off (advanced) a tooth...but I digress.

Blaming the engine management after touching mechanicals is surefire bullshit. You diagnose what you've changed...and work from there.

If they've properly set timing and can show you that, and the cam timing is 100% (nice that they've already buttoned it up), then start checking tunage.

After two motor swaps, and getting this car going on three different ECUs I can tell you they are finicky, and your cams and ignition timing have to be spot on for a fresh fire, especially how fast gas goes bad.

You drove it to them on the new COP setup right? So we know for sure that the AEM and them are playing nice setting wise and whatnot.

Belt looks correct. And I agree that it sounds like exactly the same symptoms Lars had with misaligned cams. With the motor at TDC and the timing marks aligned properly, look at the cam lobes. If I'm not mistaken the valves on #1 cylinder should all be shut, with the lobes on both cams pointing outwards from center.

Also in your pic right by the CAS is an unplugged connector. Is that something useless like a factory EGR pigtail, or something more important?

A tune doesn't "erase" itself to the point of the car not starting.
They messed up something

The lobes pointing outwards I believe is only for 1.8 motors. He has a 1.6 so I do not think that is correct.

I am still going with one of the cam gears is off.

with cylinder 1 at TDC, both intake and exhaust valves should be closed - so, lobes should be pointing outward no matter what.

also, the OP picture is from m.net's garage section, and is accurate (at least in the half dozen timing belts I've done..)

spare connector near the cas looks like the o2 sensor, which would be gone from the wideband install.

My backseat wrenching suggestion - pop the valve cover, doublecheck the cam lobes are pointed outward with cylinder at TDC. Also do a compression test.

(and the first timing belt I did, 180 degrees backwards. Wasn't until I realized I was sucking from the exhaust manifold and wondering why my intake manifold was warm that I figured out how badly I had screwed the pooch)

No, it was on stock coil set up with 8.5MM wires, they didn't try starting it on COPS they tried with stock ignition.

Yeah, I brought up the cams being done wrong and they keep insisting they didn't do anything wrong. I will have them take a picture of the cams and I will post it on here. Thanks for all your help guys, and that picture was for reference.

Exactly how can it be off 180* if all the marks are aligned properly?- Crank mark at 12 o'clock/TDC, cams with I and E correct and the cams pointing out etc...

Stop taking it to this shop before they screw something else up.

YOU take off the valve cover.

YOU remove the 14mm cam gear bolts.

YOU take pictures of the cam lobes improperly aligned.

YOU then take the pictures to the shop owner and tell them that they fucked up and that you want a partial refund for work you had to do yourself because they screwed up.

My car is currently been there, it has been there for 2 months. I am going over there with my own tools and pulling it my self and will take pictures.

Before you pull VC and stuff, if they are mentioning sporadic ignition stuff... test with oem ignition and then COPs again. I wonder if there is something funky settings wise/wiring wise running the AEM.

The COP setup is for oem wiring harness PnP. The one picture near the CAS wiring showed what looked like some custom wiring?

The thing is everything worked before I started pulling stuff off my car, I never touched electrical stuff, only intake mani and the exhaust mani. That picture I showed you before was just for reference and wasn't my car. But they tried with both COPS and Stock and had the same problems, car would try and start would kinda start make a BRPP POP POP sound and that'd be the end of it. They say it's timing, it sounds like timing and the only thing changed on the car to adjust timing was the cams, so that's where my focus is currently. They did mention the spark was all over the place and sometimes sparking, sometimes not which makes me think something in the ecu/tuning. The car HAS been sitting with the battery disconnected for a year, so it IS possible I think that the AEM lost some of it's tune somehow I have read somewhere that this has happened to others.

When my exhaust cam was off 120 degrees it would occasionally pop and timing would jump around and be sporadic when I tried to watch with a timing light.

Update: Just called and told them basically what everyone is telling me on here; I also asked about the timing light and they said they haven't because they haven't got the car to run.

lol at an ecu losing its tune just becouse it is powered down. Thats like a sd card lossing the stored info after sitting for a while in a drawer.

Yeah that makes no sense to me as well: you can't just "lose part of a tune".

unless they did electroshock therapy on the ecu then it stays just like any other powered down device, the aem ecu is not like a oe ecu that learns etc, and even if it was how long had the aem been learning a few days? And it ran fine at the start of those days right? This tells me the mechanics you are dealing with are idiots and you should set fire to there shop and lock them inside for failing atlife.

If you realy wanted to be mean you would have hustler run an aids train on there wives and moms and make them watch while they burn.

in the actual pic of your junk your CAS isnt plugged in.

He has no COPs or plug wires either ;P

i mean it will make noises if it turns over and you still have no spark... but until you get a light on it to verify spark it could be something as simple as that.

my CAS plug has one pin that seems to be a tad loose that needs to be pushed in whenever i reinstall the plug... could be that going over the harness you could plug in a sensor that isnt reading right now.

you should be able to plug the computer into the ems and verify you are getting stat sync and that rules out the ECU.

you should be able to turn the car over to verify that your ign timing between the ECU and the physical engine are the same (i know just changing the CAS oring my timing was off something silly like 9 degrees with very, very minimal CAS movement)

besides that it should be cam timing.
-check to see if you bent a valve... high lift may make your engine an interference engine.
-try checking to make sure that the cam gears are in the same orientation as specified above.
-try moving the intake cam one advanced or retarded and the same with the exhaust cam....just to try and see if it helps at this point

the hot side wont do much to the starting properties.

do you have VTPS on your throttle body, and do you have Idle air control with the new intake manifold?
i would be interested in checking out your calibration to compare your start map to mine...

reading this over, go plug your laptop into the ems, set fixed timing at 10 degrees to get your timing sync'd and set your throttle range (with a VTPS). I bet you can get it to start assuming that they installed the cams properly.

If you don't mind me asking, which shop did you bring your car to??

One 6 Motorsports, http://onesixmotorsports.com/blog/

Yeah, Monday hopefully I get more of a word.

I just don't understand how they messed up the cams and gears, it's not that hard. The "I" faces up on the Intake and the "E" faces up on the Exhaust, cyl 1 camshaft lobes are horizontal and face away from each other, and cyl 1 is at TDC. If they got that wrong then wow.

Also feud for thought I have completely lost a tune on my MS after a month of downtime, but that is a different story.

You said the car has been sitting for a year? Do you have new gas in it? Over time hydrocarbons will slowly oxidize when it reacts with oxygen in the air.

Check to see if the coils are plugged in correctly and get new gas. Onesix has been around a while doubt they could have messed it up that bad.
If you need help it seems like there are more then a few active IL members that can help out.

Just an update, they uploaded my original map and it just cranked and cranked never started or anything. They're going to double check the cams tomorrow, if this doesn't solve the problem the car is going into the garage until next spring. I am so sick of it at this point.

Also, I am using a 5.0 Mustang TPS sensor with a Mustang TB, if that matters?

shouldn't as long as they set it up correctly. I am running a ls1 tps on my hydra.

They haven't touched anything on my ECU, they don't mess with that stuff and refuse to touch anything in my ECU.

Would this make a difference in starting? I was under the impression that TPS was more or less an on off switch and would only matter during WOT?

Have you taken off the valve cover yet. I'd bet money on that. Take a pic and post it.

It is being taken off first thing tomorrow morning, I will have an update then I can bet money they installed the cams on the exhaust stroke when the engine was TDC and made the cams 180 degrees off.

jothawhat just for shits change the firing order of your coils for me, and try it. oh nvm only do this if the cams are realy fubard. i forget to move to the next page before i posted

Just an update, they claim valves are closed in cylinder #1 lobes facing outboard, the cam gears match the picture I posted previously 19 teeth etc, all at TDC I am going to take pictures of this now. If the cams are installed perfectly I don't know what the hell the problem is.

Look the cam gears can look perfect as in the original picture and a Cam can still be off. It is possible to put the cam gear on in 3 different places on each of the cams. So you can have the Cam Gears correct and the actual cams off by either 120 or 240 degrees.

I still say remove the cam gears from each cam. Then make sure the knock pin is pointing straight up on each cam. Then put on the cam gears correctly. If all that is done and you still have the same problems then I am at a loss. Although it could be the after market cam's knock pin is not in the right spot. Highly unlikely, but possible.

Right cam lobes on cylinder 1 point right, left cam lobes point left. If this is correct, and your timing is identical to the pic earlier your timing is correct. When you post a pic I'll tell you in 3.5 seconds if it is correct.

Attachment 193890

Do you have fresh gasoline??

Here are the pics, tell me what you think.

http://i51.tinypic.com/11cgjg9.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/zo85l.jpg
http://i56.tinypic.com/28rcbo7.jpg

Edit: I have not changed the gas out of the car, I think that will be the next step...But then again that doesn't explain the erratic spark

If cylinder 1 is at Top Dead Center, then that is 100% correct. Those cams are massive :bigtu:.

If you mean the popping you were getting at first, it could be there are still enough intact isooctane molecules to ignite, but not enough for a full, complete combustion. It would be good to fill with premium, run the fuel pump to circulate the old fuel out of the rail, and see if that works. If you already have a lot of old fuel in the tank, you can disconnect the fuel "in" line at the rail, run the pump, and drain a few gallons. If that doesn't work then I'm out of ideas. Good luck :)

So here is the run down, when the first map was in which was a start up map the spark was all over the place it would backfire from the manifold and from the exhaust. They uploaded my last map into the car yesterday, very little backfiring just would crank and crank but would never start.

Massive Vacuum leak?
Bad CAS?
Just needs to be tuned, maybe too much overlap on the new cams?

These new Kelfords have about 1MM more lift than the last cams I had, and are 272/272 in duration compared to 264/264. These cams are a lot bigger and a lot more aggressive than the last ones also. I just called them once more and they stated even with the fuel in it being old it should still start. :ugh2:

They (the shop) keeps insisting it is electronically related, which I am starting to think after the cams look to be installed correctly. Maybe this is something that can just be corrected with a proper tune? It is supposed to be tuned the in 3 days, so I am on pins and needles.

Agreed.

Stick a long screwdriver in cylinder 1. Crank it over by hand and wait till the screwdriver reaches the top before it goes back down. This is top dead center. If at TDC your marks up top still line up it is not your timing.

It is at TDC, I checked the mark on the crank and verified. Could it just be the tune? I mean, I changed the whole exhaust side, and the whole intake manifold and TB/TPS and added a massive cam?

Also, could the injectors being in the wrong order cause the car not to start? I did install the injectors and chances are they're not in the correct order. The mechanic said this wouldn't cause the car not to start, but just an idea?


EDIT: They did do a compression test and all the cylinders are very low 50-60 psi in each cylinder, does that mean a timing problem? Car seemed to run fine last year and was very strong. I started taking stuff off of it last year, he said it might be sticky rings since it was setting for a year.

Injector order does not matter.

your compression test numbers with mega cams will be crazy low since there is so much overlap.

Change the cranking out rpm to a higher rpm and check your timing compared ecu to the engine. set your tps range and then try.

Seriously.

ps, this is the first thing that is says to do in the AEM manual... so having changed both of these things i would assume this to be your issue... doing this only takes 10 minutes once your hooked up

Can you explain the timing compared to the ECU and Engine a little further? Do you mean, check the timing with a gun and compare it to the ECU read out? What do you mean by setting my TPS range? Even without touching my TPS range it should still fire up, correct? I just want to make sure it is able to be tuned on the 5th. It seems that it isn't a mechanical issue, which is good news.

Is this the same on the 1.6L motors as the 1.8L motors? Only reason I did not suggest just looking at that was because I was not sure.

Also have you reloaded your tune from last year on the car? I do not think the bigger cams could cause the tune to be so far off that the car would not start.

if your tune has a flood out mode and your ecu thinks its 100% th then no... it wont start.


Set stat timing to 10 degrees, make sure the engine says 10 degrees with the timing light,


you can change the base timing in the ECU coarse or fine. make the engine say 10 degrees with static timing at 10 degrees.

Good to go, I will have them do that Monday first thing. What exactly is a flood out mode? Thanks man