No spark, HELP!
 

Ok so here's the sequence of events:

1) Took car out for a drive, after about 2 miles of driving perfectly fine, car decided to shut off. Tried starting the car up again, no luck(engine rotates but wont fire up. Towed it home.

2) Decided to try a new coil pack, although the resitance indicated my current coil pack was fine.

3) Installed new coil pack, car started right up. Idled for about 15 mins., then hit the throttle, instantly the car shut off again! Wouldn't start up. Same thing as before, turns over but no spark.

4) Tried troubleshooting codes, however my check engine light doesn't want to light up, tried a different bulb, still no light.


Any suggestions as to what may be the problem? All suggestions are welcome!

P.S. I have done several spark tests and every so often we can get just one spark, on occasion, not enough to actually fire this thing up.

Why don't you list the mods you've done to your car so those knowledgeable can help?

Things like, are you running an MS?

More importantly, if you are running an MS did SCOTT build it?:eek3dance

nope! I only messed up one.....:x:

I'm running the greddy turbo kit with bipes, lot of other mods, but I don't think they'd affect spark or the ecu. Thanks in advance!

yeah, the bipes would never affect spark

A loose connection on the Bipes will give you this problem.

yeah id have to blame faulty wiring of something somewhere. never heard of anyone killing coilpacks on a stock ecu.

if the CAS wire on the bipes is broken then you'll never start the car again.

Tested the wiring harness leading to the coil pack, and it has power going to it, so it seems I'm frying the coil pack. Any ideas?

Are your plug wires staying seated on the coil pack?

If they come off, it will cause the coil pack to fry.

yes it will. i had that happen this summer

wow, someone with a variation of drift in their name seems to be intelligent and is getting help from scott, wow, im impressed lol

if your getting signal at the wiring harness and the coils were good it has to be up to your wires not connecting properly...are you not getting spark on every plug?
i assume you did inspect all the plug wires for damage, if they are in good condition and connected properly i cant think of anything else...

check over all of your grounds too

Have you tried removing the bipes from the system?

Did you mount the ACU in the engine compartment, or somewhere it might have gotten wet?

I've had fun experiences in the past with ECUs that got wet from unknown leaks in cars and made engine troubles REALLY hard to diagnose.

^^^You do realize that this thread is over a month old?
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I had identical symptoms two years ago. I replaced the CAS with a used one, problem solved.

Since we resurrected this.. please see this idiot asking the same question on CR.net and saying no one on mt.net helped him.

http://clubroadster.net/forum/viewto...69&no=1#195869

Yes, but the car is currently FS in the Classifieds, with this problem unresolved :)

then why did you post here?

If the car is still FS with the problem, it would be nice to know what sort of attempts to fix it he has undertaken. I figured a discussion among those who know more about a turbo'd miata than me might help me know what I am getting in to if I decide to buy the car.

I've spoken with the owner on the phone a few times... but bringing up this thread (since the question is still unresolved) seems acceptable to me.

I find it interesting that the person posting on CR sounds like a completely different individual compared to his posts here.

(clubroadster)
Tougelabs: o sorry im in ny the car is in bethal ct.

(here)
350drft: Bethel CT, which is in the Danbury CT area.

Maybe there's a filter that adds +20 intelligence here... On the other hand, they may have to dumb things down to "Jimmy-speak" on clubroadster :bowrofl:

multiple personality drifter, lol

1st of all, this thread was started by myself, the owner of the car, that thread by tougelabs on CR, a friend of mine, is also trying to help resolve this issue. 2nd of all Newbsauce, thanks for being so helpful, you've had so much intelligent info to contribute to this thread. Your quite the problem-solver.

Back to the issue at hand, the ACU is under the dash, where it has never seen and rain or anything that might get it wet.

I'll check the ACU's connections now and follow the FAQ's from bipes and see if this is the source of our problem.

Thank you fussball.biturbo and everyone else for helping to get this whole thing resolved.

Yea sorry guys, I am always trying to help my friends out. I would like to pick it up but i cant really have another non-running project. THANKS THOUGH and thank you for those that take the time to help.

I have a feeling it is your CAS. Worth looking into, especially if you are trying to sell a non-running car.

Yea, that's what I'm thinking right now. Tried playing with the Bipes like the FAQs instructed me to and still didn't do me any good.

Well, hopefully we can figure something out tomorrow. I want to bring the CAS and coilpack from my '93 with me to try to get yours fired up, but unfortunately I need my car running right now!

Alright, hopefully we can dig this thread back up again, as I am almost the proud new owner of 350drft's Miata (still not running, obv).

We've tried the following (with me troubleshooting and sending parts from a distance):
1. New (used) CAS: After swapping the CAS, the car still wouldn't start, but decided to finally throw a check engine light. The code it threw was for a bad throttle position sensor.

2. New (used) TPS: 350drft swapped in a different TPS. condition unchanged.

I'm going to drive down to CT this Saturday to see if I can resolve the issue. I'd like to hear any other thoughts before I head down. My prime suspect is the Bipes, even though 350drft checked those connections, so I'll probably take it out of the system and see. I'm also going to check the TPS readings with a multimeter and see if I can find a short or bad connection anywhere.

Any other ideas?

Make sure the fuel pump is running. Jump F/P and GND in the diagnostic box and listen for it when you try starting.

Since no one else has pointed it out - you sure you still have a timing belt :-P Open the oil cap and have someone hit the starter - verify the cams are turning (if they arn't you get no spark, or it could have slipped and you get no spark - happened to me). If timing is ok then cas would be a big suspect.

///tonic and I went down to work on the car yesterday, with mixed success.

We got the car fired once, had it running and revving while on the dollys in the back corner of the garage. We shut the car down and buttoned everything back up, but once we rolled it to the entrance of the garage it would no longer start.

We fiddled a bit more and got the car started again, but once the throttle was opened, the car stalled. It would idle, but that was it. However, the car is back to not starting again.

We are 90% sure the problem lies in the wiring somewhere.

So far, we have confirmed:

CAS OK
TPS OK
Bipes ACU OK (re-wired twice)
Plugs OK- though the old ones looked a bit black, so we threw in a fresh set
Fuel pump running
Fuel OK
T-belt okay
timing questionable, but at least close enough to get the car running

There is some questionable wiring on the car, and we think some of that might be our problem. For example, there some wire with a female spade connector tapped into the 02 sensor wire near the ECU, but the spade is not connected to anything. There is also some odd shielded grounding wrap on the air flow wire. I should have taken pictures, but it slipped my mind.

The miata variously threw codes 2, 10 and 12, but we had cleared all of them by the end of the day. They were more or less intermittent, so I tend to think this problem to be wiring related. The last code we got was 10.


Does anyone else have ideas on what (other than wiring) might cause the problems we are having?

Maybe the ECU itself is damaged in some way?

Swap in a known good AFM.

Thanks olderguy,

Just found this yesterday, which sounds similar and was AFM related:
http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread...=270943&page=1

fussball, go pick up your car so I can borrow that AFM.

+1

Man, getting so excited to get this car home to Boston and *running*. I'm planning to tow it up this coming Saturday.

As soon as I get it up here, the plan is to recheck all grounds, then swap in fussball's AFM and see if it starts up.

However, uh-oh: I've got a new ECU + megasquirt + AIT + wideband all on the way. I'm really tempted just to pull the current ECU, Bipes, and AFM, install the MS, and see what happens.

I vote we swap in my AFM first...

non-running car with mostly stock engine management = challenge

non-running car with far from stock engine management that you have never used before = bigger challenge

Update:
I towed the car home Sunday.
Yesterday, I charged the battery for about 20 minutes, tweaked the AFM wiring harness (which looks to be in pretty rough shape), and then she started right up and has been running perfect since! I even got her registered and drove to work today, top down and laughing all the way.

The GReddy is running ~ 8PSI right now and feels pretty good, but the car definitely needs a tune: It's not as fast as I expected for ~160 HP, and low-speed drivability is less than spectacular (of course, baseline here is my M3, which is unfair). Time to get that Megasquirt installed!

Also, I'm getting all kinds of compressor surge. Is that normal?

Maybe your BOV isn't adjusted right, or is leaking?