Trouble with COPS
 

OK I finally finished wiring, drilling and all that other good stuff to get my COPS all set up. I am having trouble. When the I start the car I only get a single spark. I get nothing else after that. I have a 97 with MSPNP. I set the cranking to 3.5ms and the 12v to 2.5. Currently my minimum discharge is set to 1 ms. Could this be my problem.

FYI I set the cranking back to 8.0 and the 12v to 4.3 and installed the ignition coils and no spark at all.

Any ideas?

ok we did some more checking and troubleshooting. When my battery was fully charged the 12V would read around 12v, the ground would work properly and the trigger would remain around 7v (when the 12v would be grounded to the Trigger). Forgive me if I sound stupid, I am not an electrician. The trigger does not oscillate even under cranking. For some reason my trigger is not relaying the signal to the coils to fire properly. It maintains a steady reading throughout the cranking procedure. Could I have fried something between my Megasquirt and my coils? If so does anyone know what it could be?

Hey Big Boy; I'm sorry but you're going to have to wait for some of the gurus to check in.

FWIW, I don't see how you could have fried the MS or the wires. I'm sure it has to be a simple thing like 1 of the wires not properly connected.

I had tons of problems getting my toyota coils to even start on my 97 using 3.5/2.5 numbers. It never ran. I use 4/3 for cranking/running without any problems and I also added 10000uf capacitor to the 12v line on the coils.

I NEVER could get my car running on cops for some reason. Did you add a 10kuf cap to EACH coil, or just one for all 4 at the main connector?

For those of you who have set this up before with Megasquirt, could you tell me whether you get a voltage through the trigger when you set the key to the on but not cranking position? I know this is an annoying thing to ask but it would tell me if my trigger is stuck open. Which might explain why only one spark fires?

I added the 10kuf cap for all 4. BUT... That was several months after I got it successfully running on the stock cranking/running dwell. I added the caps just because everyone else was doing it, I didn't even need them, and they gave me no improvement.

Boom!!! Does this look like something should be there?

^^ mmm...cheez-its

Hey! Get your own box!

LOL! :bowrofl::bowrofl::bowrofl:

I dont know too much about miatas yet. But is there a problem with the stock ignition that you would need to use a COP set up? I come from hondas where the Distro and plugs can usually handle up to 4-500 whp before really getting a good benefit out of a COP setup

the main reason is that some people start seeing spark blow-out at +14psi.

I'm gonna tell my mommy you won't share!!

Well here's the latest update. What I thought was dust from a blown part on the daughter board may have just been residue from the cleaning solution they use on the board.

I do know that it is MS though. I plugged in the stock ecu and did the voltage test on the 12v, ground and trigger. I got a good 11.82v signal from the 12v. The ground worked well. The trigger returned a .01v signal.

When I have MS plugged in I get over a 4v signal. Quite a difference. I am working with the DIYAutotune guys to try to figure this one out. I haven't had any luck.

I tried reflashing the board but that didn't work. I am charging up the battery on trickle charge to get it up to a good 12v signal. I'll try reflashing again tonight.

Can this be upgraded by just adding and MSD distro to it instead?

OK, so here is what happened. When I installed the cops and harness I had unintentionally crossed the trigger with another wire on one of my harnesses. This proceeded to blow out one of the trigger transistors on the main board. The car ran surprisingly well off of 2 cylinders. When I switched harnesses to trouble shoot the problem I blew out the other transistor. Crap. DIY Auto Tune to save the day. I worked with Justin to try to troubleshoot the issue further. I eventually sent it in and they discovered the transistors. Supposedly the transistors were integral to another chip. They were able to solder in some additional transistors. Meanwhile back at home base I rechecked my harnesses and reassembled the incorrectly wired one. I got the ECU back, re-burned my msq, set the dwell to 4 cranking 3 running as Sam had suggested and plugged everything together. Started up right away. It would have been nice to take it for a spin to give it a thorough test but there was a snow storm and the only snow my car has seen was the few flakes we encountered while driving through the rockies on the trip home after buying her. Needless to say yesterday was a good day.

Congrats dude.

Try setting dwell to the proper 3.5/2.5 though.

I'll give it a go. Thanks.

Sorry to bring back the old thread, but I installed my COPs today.

Does the Cap go in the +12V line? Do you cut the line and splice it in, or do you just add it in-line? I've searched for an hour without much luck.