Car not wanting to start(story inside)-just cranks

[deedo]

Alright guys so heres the story, My gas gauge has been a little of AS OF late, but nothing thats to bad. On my way home i am coming up a pretty decent incline on the freeway, and towards the very top its start sputtering and losing power...(running low on gas i thought) im less than an 1/8 of a mile from my exit and a gas station and its all down hill, BUT I DONT MAKE IT. so i make the call to AAA (first time since ive owned this girl), they come out give me some gas and it just cranks, and cranks, and cranks. So after a few words with my galant i get it towed home and start to rip it apart. From what i can tell so far, I do have spark(pulled the plug and cranked it and saw a spark) i checked all the fuses(mpi, and all that jazz) I pulled the cover off of the fuel pump and i can still here it spinning when i try to crank it. I thought maybe MPI relay, but i thought if that was out my pump wouldnt work... so i pulled the fuel rail and tried cranking it... no injector cycle. Nothing what so ever, i hooked a battery to each one to make sure there working and there still cycle with outside power. I had to get dropped off at work today and am not near the car, Ive tried reseting the ecu(thought id try) and am running out of ideas, so in this boards expert knowledge, where shouldi look next.


edit: i did try cranking it a few times at the top of the hill hoping that it was the incline that drained the line(is it possible that i maybe burned the motor out and its not giving proper pressure)
TLR
Car ran out of gas,AAA gave me some gas, now car cranks, has spark, and the fuel pump is running, but im not getting any thing to fire. from what i could tell the injectors arnt cycling

 

[EHmotorsports]

you can hear the pump running but are you getting fuel to the rail? how new is the filter? do you have battery voltage to the injectors?

 

[deedo]

the filter is only about 6-7 months old, so im 90% sure thats not the issue. and i did pull the fpr(also 6-7 months old) off and had fuel come out of the rail, plugged it up and pulled an injector after another crank or two, and had some more fuel in it, I didnt see it pumping but its clearly getting fuel to the rail. how many volts should be going to the injectors? i wanna check to see if there even getting a signal

 

[deedo]

also i didnt have my volt meter on hand yesterday so i took a little buzzer i had from radio shack and hooked it up the injector wire, I didnt get any signal, not sure if that takes to much(the buzzer) and the wires wont give enough

 

[MellowVR4]

if ur injectors arent firing, most likely its the CAS /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif

 

[deedo]

ill pull it when i get home and check to see if it fires the injectors or not(just saw another thread here where they say to pull the CAS and spin it and listen for injector cycles) will that work?

 

[MellowVR4]

Yes it will, spin it while theirs power going threw the system. Dont here the injectors clicking then the cas is bad.

 

[deedo]

Awesome, Thank you for the quick reply. Looks like im gonna have a fun night ahead of me. Now heres a question that i hope i wont need answered... but assuming this dosnt work, what would be the next step? resistor pack? maybe?

 

[MellowVR4]

hmm, maybe. Check the ecu if all fails, Or maybe even the transistor.

 

[deedo]

Yeah i know the caps have been replaced on the ecu but ill pull it and check for other wear. I tell ya if it wasnt for people like you and this site these cars woulda died out long ago, thank you sooo mcuh

 

[MellowVR4]

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gifNo problem man, these cars are not for everyone, I learned that awhile ago.

 

[deedo]

hah i learned that after buying one haha, its only been three years now but i wish i coulda slapped myself back in the day for wanting this as a dd and project car.... new turbo, crank and main bearings,and a few other parts later the car was running great, only to have this happen. But i guess ive gotten use to it and almost feel a sense of excitment i get to pull something else apart on her and make her run right...for a while

 

[EHmotorsports]

If it sparks then your CAS is sending the signal to the ecu. But the ecu is not sending the signal to the injectors.

 

[deedo]

alrighty... so i checked the CAS and once i started spinning it you could hear the injectors clicking. so it would appear thats working. upon listening to the relay in the car(90%sure its the mpi relay) it only clicks when i turn the key to crank the motor, and once after i turn it back about 3 seconds after, and the fuel pump is only heard after as well. And just to be sure i checked the ecu and everything looks normal, so i think that can be ruled out.(edit:may still be bad but it looks fine I should say)

 

[deedo]

alrighty just a little update, So i rented some noid test lights from the parts store and after hooking them up to the injector plugs, I confirmed that the incjetors are infact getting no signal. The fuel pump does run while cranking although not as strongly as when turning the key to acc after cranking. Plenty of pressure coming through the lines too. So boys where should I go from here? The CAS is capable of cycling the injectors and does when manually rotated but once everything is hooked up the injectors do not cycle while cranking(thats what really gets me, if the CAS cycles while spinning it why dosnt it work when cranking). I have no check lights or anything like that.

 

[deedo]

and another update... So I thought i would try the CAS again. This time it was a little quieter out so I picked up a strange sound pattern for the injectors, When spinning the CAS it was popping the same injector multiple times in one spin while only seeming to give partial clicks on 2 more.. sometimes(very erratic). I then check the codes that the ecu was giving and i got one for the CAS and the injectors(which individually work). One more thing i tried to(still waiting on my volt meter) i hooked up a buzzer to the positive side of the injector pigtail, and ran a line to the negative battery terminal, i got sound, when trying the opposite(negative pigtail side to positive battery) i get nothing(even tried spinning the CAS while testing and nothing). So with all of this info I have gathered... anybody got a clue? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/uhh.gif

 

[toybreaker]

D,

... slow down man ...


The injector is fired by the ecu by grounding one side of the injector


This means that you'll show a complete circuit on the power side of the injector harness 24/7. (Your "jump test" shows that side of the circuit is operational)


... but you won;t see jack or sh*t on the other leg untill the ecu deems it righteous to fire the injector off by grounding the other side of the injector. (this means your jump test aint gonna work)


This also may not have been a "bad" thing, btw.

The injector drivers in these ecu's aren;t all that robust. They will fire an injector all day long but it's possible that you would damage one driving a buzzer.
(I've seen several damaged by techs getting "creative" with this and that/sh*t had they laying around)



Your best bet is to take a calm, logical approach to this problem.

If some injectors "sound" different then others, wait for your meter to show and then Ohm them out.

If they have ~approximately~ the same resistance, you may have a couple with plugged last chance screens.