Hello from maui!
 

Hi everyone! I'm Jayson, and about a year ago, I picked up a beat up 1992 sunburst yellow 1.6 miata (80k miles) from a friend, simply to be project to take apart and slowly learn/experiment and rebuild. As for me, I'm 29, have a job, and daily a 2016 subaru forester xt (i needed something big enough to go to costco). And no we dont live in huts, nor do I surf.

The Car:
It has a stock motor, cone filter, and what I believe are tokiko or eibach struts/springs, and previous owner used it primarily as an auto x track car until it overheated and popped the head gasket and sat for a few years. He had the head decked, after reassembly I believe it was compression tested to be a little out of spec but held. He got new timing kit/gaskets/waterpump/radiator installed, but timing was off a tooth for a bit. While I know a new motor or 1.8 swap is probably a better overall decision especially given the overheat, I dont have much space for a spare block or any major work for now. It has/had a few reliability / electrical issues I'm working out and have since ordered a ms diypnp from brain for diagnostic purposes with future upgrade plans. Currently, its not on the road/legal as i'm not 100% comfortable with its state.

Currently, car will start cold just fine. If i kill it and try to restart, it will turn but not fire (continuous cranking). No CEL.
Unplugging what I believe to be the injector harness (harness connector between intake manifold and firewall) then starting will cause the car to start and immediately die after fuel burns off (thats what it feels like anyways).
The car will start normally (gas pedal floored) after reconnecting the harness. This problem/solution was present before its last overheat.

I feel like this could be the ecu temp sensor behind the head, even with no CEL present

Future plans:
Install ms diypnp / swap in new thermo sensor / check all the grounds a third time
get car stable/reliable
wheels/tires, currently barely hold air
bodywork/paint - I love sanding.
learn how all of this works.
ev14 injectors (one day sequential)
Coil on plugs.
AC rebuild - because Hawaii is hot.
maybe build a new head
then ultimately, a baby turbo because i live on a mountain and going uphill takes power, BUT I dont want to go too fast and die.
then to find the elusive hardtop for less than the price of a miata.

It's a project with virtually no deadline, where reliability is my priority, downtime isn't a big deal, but I dont have a garage to slowly build anything crazy.

Done:
new plugs
cleaned up / relocated grounds -x2 (rust causing weird rough starts/running)
Brake master (leaked, peeled paint causing rust)
Timing belt (had to get it running)
Thermostat housing bottom ( the parts that connect to small coolant lines had pin holes)
Soft top (not as hard as it sounds)
ISCV (under tb) - would stall out if you looked at it wrong (ac, lights, radio, braking, etc), even not in gear (replaced with used ebay unit)

It's going to be a fun project!

Welcome to the forum. I don't recall any other members from Maui but there's a couple on Oahu and one just relocated to Kauai. But having lived there I know that being on a different island is about as far away as the mainland so it really doesn't help much.

Good luck with the project.

Welcome Jayson; you live in one of my favorite places on earth before the condo buildings erupted. If you have access to another AFM, switch them out and try the starting thing again.