Miata 1st start issues?
 

I would like to start off giving a brief intro on what I have done to my car so you guys may understand the height of my problems/thought process.

I bought a 91 miata thats harness had been on fire at some point, however it still ran. I found wires throught the harness to be burnt. So I picked up a 1.8l and a full harness from a 94 miata. Tore my car down and began the swap. I delted, or rerouted some of the wiring. The engine bay fuse box is now in dash, and I used a mil-spec connector to feed the wiring to the engine.

I removed the egr sensor from the assembly and it is sitting in the dash by the fuse box, the sensor that is suppose to keep fuel from boiling in the rail is also sitting in th dash, the sensor that goes to the charcoal canister is also plugged in in the dash. There are 2 other 2 pin connections that are placed really close to the charcoal canisters original location. I am not too sure of their fnctions right now but I dont believ them to be important to the engines opperation.

The ecu is an early 95 that used 4 pin coils, so I dont believe it to be a problem with the 94 harness.

To set the fp, I jumped the green wire and a ground from the diagnostic connector. Turned the ignition on, and adjusted the fpr to 45psi. I thought this would be a good starting point to get the car running.

I had problems getting the car to start, I had to give it gas for it to start, and it ran like shit. eventualy I kept playing with the cas and the tps to general points and started the car without depressing the gas pedal. The car starts and runs below 100rpm, if I let out the clutch it dies. My guess is along with the low rpm, the added weight is just too much for the engine. If I hold the clutch in, the car continues to run, and dies every so often.

I thought spark may be an issue, I pulled a wire off of the coil, were 4 is, cranked the engine and it sparked over to the coil bracket. I put it back on and pulled the wire off of the the second coil, cyl 3 and cranked the engine again. It didn't spark to the coil bracket.

At that time the battery was almost dead and decided to stop for the night. I would love to put another coil on and try it but I dont have any spare coils. The junkyards were I live dont have many miatas, the cheap ones dont have any. The more expensisve ones who might have one want $100.

So I was trying to think of the least expensive way to fix the coil problem, I have seen people use dodge neon coils on 1.6's but I haven't seen it done on a 1.8l. I am really looking for a cheaper alternative to the miata coils. Looking for something I could easily find at the junk yard tomorrow, or possibly even new from an auto parts store. I believe you can get the neon coil for $50 at autozone, and they have it avaliable.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated, thanks guys.

Thought I would post pics of the dash fuse panel location with the sensors next to it, and a pic of the engine bay. Engien bay pic is old, everything else is of course hooked up now. Intake and everything else is on.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1352608226
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1352608226

My car puked oil out of the passenger side baffle so I capped it and ran the other side to the can.

Neutral safety switch issue?

Do you have a wideband to see if you are providing enough fuel at 45psi?

I will deffinetly keep that in mind, thanks for the heads up.

No wideband, I dont believe it is a neutral safety switch problem. I would have to believe it would shut off immideately. It feels more like just the extra weight of the clutch when it is disengaged is too much for the engine to handle.

I really would like to eliminate spark as an issue, I will text the coil right now.

You should sext the coil, show it who's boss!

I found out the spark problem was, I had the wires on the second coil backwards. Depinned it and corrected the wires. I adjusted the tps to spec, and put the cas at about the middle position. The car started and sounded great, all cylinders firing, idled for about 8 secconds and just shut off.

What would be a good fuel pressure to start at? To adjust it with the pump running but the engine off?

Started the car again, giving it some gas, tried to keep it just under 2000rpm. And after about 8 secconds it died, almost as if it just lost spark.

From the looks of that picture, it seems you have your intake piping off. Are you still using a maf?

That was an older picture, have an intake on it, and still using the factory maf.

I started the car again today giving it some gas and kept it just under 2000rpm for about a minute and let it come back down to idle. Despite needing to adjust the timing, it ran ok.

One big problem, the valves were extremely loud. It wasn't a tick, much loder. Almsot as if it wasnt getting any oil at all. I will double check the lines for the remote filter and oil cooler, I will make sure the in and out on the block adapter are correct.

Just took a look at the oil lines right now, they are in fact backwards. I am using a bosh filter, which I de believe has the spring in it to keep oil from draining back into the engine. Not sure if it is possible. But I'm thinking that since the oil was being forced the opposite direction, it was pushing on the opposite side of the spring. So oil didnt go thru.

I hope that no damage was done to the engine witht he first initial revving at startup.

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