lost all engine power, broke down, died.
 

So I was happily cruising along the highway a few minutes ago at about 60mph, 15pct throttle when I felt the car loose all power. I coasted down to the side of the road and when I put the clutch in and dropped to neutral the rpm when all the way to zero.

Checked the plugs and they look ok. My new gates timing belt also looked ok from what I could see without taking off the cover. Wtf!?!? Suggestions? I am out of AAA tows for the year :( I am thinking maybe clogged fuel filter but the plugs were a bit wet so I dunno what's up. Everything looks aok in the hydra. FML

Come on I know you guys love helping out on mystery bullshit problems like these.

Will the engine turn? Check spark? Running out of fuel generally kills it slowly, not suddenly, although the two times my fuel pump cut off on me I was idling. Plus as you said the plugs are wet.

Yup I can crank it but it doesn't catch.

Noob question. How do you check for spark? Read the suggestion a bunch o times but never learned how to do it

Pull a spark plug, put it back in the wire or COP, lay the threads on the valve cover so you can see them from the driver seat, and crank it. You should see a spark jump across. If you have the time, do it with all four, you can do it all at once too.

I would suspect something like a cam position sensor and imagine that your Hydra has some sort of diagnostics mode when hooked to your laptop which would allow you to check for cam and crank signals coming in.

The pushing in the clutch precipitated the stall?

Just for kicks, try to wiggle your crank pulley a bit.

My guess is sensor related too though.

The no start is rather a simple problem.
It's either air, fuel, or spark.
You'll need a helping hand (or two), and, just crank it over while checking for spark.
If that doesn't work, pull the fuel lines to check for fuel.

I once had to be towed because the plug for my coil pack was not on 100% tight. A nice $80 lesson. :)

Any updates?

OK updates. No good news.

I have spark

I have fuel pressure at the rail

Timing/compression is aok (160 dry while cranking across all cylinders)


Problem is

No injectors are firing :( :( :(

Not sure what to do. :|

Just to clarify, you have fuel at the rail, and by fuel I mean correct pressure not just fuel getting there? You are NOT getting fuel past the rail through the injectors?

righteo.

You tried pulling the injectors out of the rail, and putting in another set? I dont know much about your engine management so I have a feeling its possibly something dealing with that commanding the pulsewidths. Sorry I cant be much of help.

If I can find my factory injectors, I will but the thing is all 4 are dead. My wiring for the injectors looks ok (plug and play rc750) so my guess is something with the hydra itself or the hydra wiring :(

You checked the injector fuse under the hood?

I have a set of 99 injectors if you want to give them a go.

Log a crank session. Is the Hydra at least trying to send a pulse to the injectors?

You mean like does the noid light flash? It does.

OK I think I have an idea of what this could be.

When I bought the car, it had a aftermarket alarm Directd Viper installed. There's still a bunch of wire fuckage from that install underneath the steering column. My thought is that some anti theft bullshit activated.

The problem is that it's a real rats nest under there-- the install doesn't look that clean. Tracing all this crap out is going to not be fun. Does anyone have a wiring diagram for the immobilizer system etc? I just want to put this antitheft system shit back to stock. I checked at the directd website but of course I need a login/pass to get access to the actual install docs.

Dumb question - but do some accessories not work as well? fan for instance? You may want to check your Main Relay by the engine fuel compartment.. I had mine go out and it killed the entire car...

Ok so new info

Its not the alarm- that just disables the starter not the inectors

Spark is ok and validated via curly method

Injectors are ok I can smell the fuel

Crank angle sensor is ok since rpms readout in the hydra aok

There is no CAS

When I try to crank it goes eh eh eh eh eh whirrrr then repeats. Does this mean timing is out of phase? Ideas pleeez

For engine to fire, you must have spark fuel, and compression.
You have spark, you have fuel, have you checked for compression?

Get a compression gauge (pressure gauge), screw it in place of spark plug, and try cranking it.
You may have skipped a toothe on the belt, and the valves aren't closing fully.
You may have a burnt valve.
(That is, if you don't have good compression numbers, over 100 psi)

Are there any hydra 2.6 folks in the area who wouldn't mind trying to run my ecu in their car?

here is my thought... check the ground wire behind the intake manifold that leads from your coil and injector harness. Seriously, no cam angle sensor? Thats what my problem was this morning, I had a broken ground wire to my CAS and it did what yours is doing... always check grounds is my opinion.

Edit: speaking of harness, check and clean the connections.

Thank you, but there is no CAS on my 03.

Here is what happened: When you were cruising and then applied throttle, something probably happened to the timing belt, the engine stopped running, but the rpms still showed because you were still in gear and the crank sensor was still picking up a signal until you shifted to neutral and the engine stopped and rpms went to 0 because the engine wasn't firing/running due to something wrong with your belt.

You said that your belt looked okay, but did you make FOR SURE that the cams are turning when cranking?

It could also be a jumped tooth. IDK if this applies to you VVT NB people, but to check your teeth easily, all you have to do is remove your valve cover, set cyl 1 to top dead center by putting a rod down the spark plug hole, and look for 19 teeth between the grooves on each pulley.

Good luck

Welp I did a compression test and compression was 160 across all cylinders so that rules out timing problems right?

Make sure your intake cam is turning - when you put the new timing belt on, did you remember to torque the cam gear bolt down to 45 ft-lbs? if your cam gear is turning, you will get spark and fuel, b/c your ECU sees your engine position based on your intake cam gear. If the cam itself isnt turning, you will get no intake charge, and no fuel in the cylinders.

OK so now it's update time.

Hydra is aok. FML don't know what to do now.

Perhaps it's a dead MAP sensor if you've converted to map. That's about all I can think of.

What happened to the injector theory. My car did The exact same muther fucking thing (driving nice one minute, the next it feels all sorts of weird when I step on the gas and then dies when I take it out of gear), we even towed it home. She wanted to start but wouldn't. I eventually found one of the wires on the harness for the injectors came off. Soldered that bitch back on and was good to go on the second try.

MAP sensor is ok as confirmed in Hydra and gauge. There is no MAF.

Wut?

So one fucked wire made all your other injectors fuck up?

OK let me eyeball every motherfucking wire on them bitches. Annoyingly I have clip in injectors, they weren't soldered in. This did happen shortly after I fixed an injector vacuum leak tho...

One fucked mutherfuckin wire fucked me over for a solid 3 hours of checking every other ---- hair in that bitch. I hope that helps ;)

They all should have 12v on one side of the plug, while the PCM grounds the other side...... If the hydra is built like most OEM PCM's that is.

Hmm how do you check for voltage? I've never messed with electrical stuff before so I need noob instructions plez.

With a digital multimeter. Do yourself a favor and hit up your local community college. They normally have decent automotive programs for new guys.

i know this may not be the problem but your alternator could be dead, and when your cranking, your cranking from the battery and not getting enough juice to get it going...... :dunno: just throwin that out there..

Erm how do you check if your alternator is dead? :|

Pull it off and take it to an auto parts store. Flip your lights on. If they don't go dim while your cranking, you still have more then enough juice.

Measure voltage with engine off, cranking, running, and revving.
Report back.

if the battery is struggling to crank the engine after it died, then it could be an alternator issue...

otherwise, the battery should fire the coils and injectors and the rest of the engine management just fine. The starter probably requires more than 90% of the current draw at start up.

Take the 2 minutes to pull the valve cover and look at your intake cam

Did you do this?

Started a new thread, same subject for sanitary purposes:

https://www.miataturbo.net/general-miata-chat-9/lost-all-engine-power-died-dead-still-dead-48391/