Please help me not blow up my miata!!
 

Sorry for the long post, but please read.



I am getting to the point that I just want to blow it up!!! So some of you guys may remember back in Feb I over heated my motor and warped the head. ClubRoadster.net I had gotten that all fixed and the car running then one of the little coolant hose going to the throttle body blew and the car over heated yet again. Added bonus it happened the 2nd time driving the car after fixing it. So at that point I decided to just do a stock rebuild on the other 99 motor I had in the garage that had 147,XXX miles on it and keep the motor NA, til I get a daily and house I am trying to buy.



That gets us up to the point I am a now. I took out the other motor and put the new one in. I connected everything, got all new hose, M-tune coolant reroute, big aluminum rad, new plugs, and wires. Then when I tried to start the car, NOTHING. So I checked to see if I had fuel going to the motor. I did an injector pulse test and fuel pressure test, both came out fine. Then I went to spark, I tested to see if I had any spark coming from the wires with the good old screw driver test and that was fine the first time I tested it. The car still wouldn't start. Checked the engine for codes and P1345 came up. So I checked to see if I had power/signal go to the cam sensor and the crank sensor, both came out fine. Car still wouldn't start! So I decided to get a new cam sensor. Still nothing. I did another test. Took off the cam sensor and put a tester at the end of spark plug wire #1, had someone trying to start the car while I waved a wrench in front of the sensor, I got spark!! So now I have no clue of what could be happening. PLEASE if anyone has any clue or ideas of what it could be please post.



Thanks

Rudy

number one mistake when building an engine is putting the timing belt on wrong.

true. I doubled checked it. It seems right, plus I would still aleast be getting spark

here is a pic of it. The 2 front lobs are pointing out too.
Attachment 203691

is it safe to say you have an NB car? It's easier if you tell us all the details of the car rather than us having to assume.

i count 20 teeth between marks = wrong.

yes its a 99AE

I have never heard about that. What do you mean?

There are supposed to be 19 teeth between the two marks that are at 12 o'clock, your picture shows 20. I THINK it'd start if a cam or the crank sprocket were off a tooth, or at least sputter a little bit. There were two slots in my cam sprockets behind the washer, and I had forgotten to mark which way they went on. Of course I installed them incorrectly, and it wouldn't start at all.

I will fix that, but I don't think that should stop the car from starting. Maybe just from running right?

Seems to me you need to steep back and check out one problem at a time. You don' have spark "the first time" than look for a problem where the spark went? WTF, we need better details.

PS: it will run with 20 teeth between cam gears, when I bought my car it was that way.

I'm not familiar with the NB's, but have you tried moving the Cam angle sensor around and see if it starts then? If a car is out of timing at the belt, and out of timing at the sensor, it won't start.

Oh and check your engine grounds as well.

One more stupid thing.... check all your connectors. It's really easy, to forget to plug a plug back together when doing the motor swap....

Starter is working? Turning over, just no catching?

Grounds?

Sounds like something simple. Triple check all of it....

Dave,

can it be the timing plate behind the crank pully being backwards?