definition of insanity

[broxma]

Performing the same action with no external changes and expecting a different result.

Yesterday, 379 ran. It even moved down the road under it's own power. It started every time I turned it over and near the end of the night was doing so with no hesitation. I went inside, went to bed a woke up.

Fast forward to this morning. The GD car will not start. It has not started a single time this today. It turns over totally fine. I have fuel pressure. I have spark. I changed absolutely nothing. It has not leaked any fluid. It has remained virtually untouched until I tried to turn it over, and now, will not start. So I doubled checked timing. I checked the CAS, again. The TPS, again. Every Fuse, 3 times. Nothing. I have been trying to start the car incessantly all day expecting it to just kick over. No. Nothing. Every time I turn the key, I run through every sensor and component, in my head, is it on right, is it tightened, it is in the right place. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Will it start? No. Has anything changed other than the passage of time? No.

I am starting to look for a cliff. Either to jump off of or roll this thing off of.

I'll start taking video again to show the extent of my insanity. It is almost complete now.


/brox

 

[Brianawd]

Check the coolant temp sensor for the ecu. Some times they go bad or come unpluged and the car will not start

 

[Olson]

I ran into the same thing when i was working on the car. i had fuel pressure and spark. my injector resister pack was unhooked. check that

 

[broxma]

I checked the injector resistor pack and even replaced it with a known good but I appreciate the advice.
Now. Which Coolant temp sensors are you talking about? There is like 5 of them, well 2 at least. Two on the thermostat housing and one on the radiator.

/brox

 

[524of1000]

The one on the radiator is the fan switch, IIRC, the one to the ECU has a single spade connection (or an small 2 spade connection?) but it's on the bottom half of the Tstat housing...

 

[broxma]

I assuming your car is properly connected as far as the sensors are concerned so if it's possible can I stop by tomorrow to take a look at things and take notes?

/brox

 

[alansupra94]

List what has been done to the car. A little background would be nice to help diagnose your problem.

Is your ECU okay?

 

[The_Big_Weave]

Leaky caps?

 

If the coolant temp sensor is not hooked up properly the ECU sees -59C which will add so much fuel that the motor will not start.

 

[broxma]

list what has been done....That would take a very long time. A better way to give you an idea is to point you here.
click
if you read that post you may get the feeling I am not new at this. That feeling is well supported and is why this particular issue is so confounding to me.

My current course of action has me focused on things that would specifically prevent the car from running outside of the normal fuel/air/spark ideas. The suggestion of the coolant sensor earlier sparked my interest for example but is not the cause.

The issue is more closely related to the car running totally fine yesterday, and not at all today. Well not totally fine yesterday. It died coming off throttle but that was due to not having the idle switch connected. The ECU just had a chip installed and has had the caps replaced. I had a spare anyway and hooked it up with the same result. The car is also not throwing a check engine light when I crank it and it cranks totally fine. It just doesn't sound as if it is even chugging when I do. I pulled the plugs and they are not fouled but I cleaned them anyway. I have tried two different ignition systems, both known goods. I even replaced the fuel injectors and got new injector rings. I pulled the valve cover, I replaced the CAS, I changed the TB to a tested known good, I checked every clip, connector I can think of. I replaced the ignitor, replaced the resistor pack, double checked the engine grounds, checked ground on every relay. I tested the individual ignition wires both for resistance and spark. I double checked every IC connection, triple checked every fuse. It has compression, new rings, new everything. It ran, not 24 hours ago.

I'd find it hard to believe that something would go so wrong as to cause this issue, over the course of 8 hours of sitting in my garage untouched. This is the basic timeline.
Car is driving at midnight.
Car is running at 3:00 am.
Go into garage at 10:00 AM next morning, car will not start and hasn't started all day.
Nothing has changed.

That's it. So I am close to rolling it outside, throwing the cover on it and abandoning it until I get the motivation to work on it again. If anyone can think of any other thing that could cause this, that I have not replaced, tested or swapped with a known good I am all ears. Any widget or sensor which might prevent the car from running, that's what I am looking at, because I know it's not mechanical, not fuel related, not ignition, not timing and I didn't forget a sock in the IC pipe. If I can't get it to start tomorrow, I'm putting it in the driveway and waiting until I get the Evo 8 ECU for it before I work on it again.

I do honestly appreciate all the suggestions. Do bear in mind I am looking for an obscure reason it won't start. The common ones I assure you I have already been over 100 times today.

/brox

 

I know it seems as if the temp sensor would not even be a possibility but check this out. Just this week I drove my car with no problems and yesterday morning I needed to move it for yard work. It would not start, so I checked the usual suspects i.e. TPS idle switch and such, no luck. Once I plugged in my logger I saw that the temp sensor was reading -59C. I could wiggle it around and get intermittent working condition but not enough to start the car. I had to rewire the harness side and vroom!!

Good luck.

P.S. Shoot me an IM with my bill please.

 

[524of1000]

You are more than welcome to swing by sir.

 

[alansupra94]

I mean things break on cars. I wouldn't just roll the car down a hill because something is broken on it.

And technically, your definition of insanity is not 100% correct as there are many factors you are not adding into the equation to just assume "nothing" has changed. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I mean I had a problem with Talon with a coolant sensor....car wouldn't start....replaced it and bam the car started up fine. Also is your radiator temp sensor plug in? That use to come undone for me quite a few times.

 

[iceman69510]

I had similar once when I had the ecu on the floor and one plug was just not quite locked in. Worked fine one minute, no start the next. Just a thought.

 

[prove_it]

I can tell your completely frustrated at this point. It sucks to be in your shoes, but it happens. Being frustrated is not good when diagnosising this kind of odd thing. Keep a calm mind otherwise it's easier to miss something that is completely obvious.

You said that at midnight in texas it was running just fine, but at 10am the next morning nothing happens right?

Was last night the only other time it has run, or have you been driving it more than that?

Also how hot was the inside of the car at 10am this morning? I'm thinking maybe your MFI relay went bad. It ran last night because it was cool and the relay worked just fine. Then this morning the relay got hot and broke a solder joint and now it won't start.

Also you need three things to run an engine, fuel spark and compression. You said you had compression and spark, so then you have a fuel issue. Since you have fuel pressure, put a noid light on the injector harness and make sure the injectors are getting a signal.

Let's us know what you find.

 

[broxma]

The car is just getting finished. I wrapped up the last of the rebuild a few weeks ago and have been slowly making progress towards starting it. Sometime last week I turned it over for the first time. It had normal initial startup issues which I have been slowly addressing. I have changed so many things on the car with upgraded or new parts that it is hard to suspect any single item. All the sensors have been replaced. basically everything you can imagine replacing has been done. Again, this is not new territory for me so my confidence in my mechanical and build quality is very high.

The car has started and ran for at least the last three days. Temps over those days have been relatively constant, in the 70's. The car is garaged and does not sit outside. Over the night in question, it was parked with the intention of waking up and driving it down to get an alignment, since the entire suspension has been replaced. I wake up, it turns over all day long but will not kick over. Not even struggling. It's as if all signs pointing to everything being normal are correct yet something in the chain is clearly broken. This failure happened without external cause or indication. I assume the issue to be incredibly simple in whatever it is, however, I have not unplugged, replaced or changed anything from its former running condition. I have spent two full days struggling to think of any reason and have come up with nothing.

Whatever the issue turns out to be I am sure I will have caused it. I am just unable to determine where I screwed up.

/brox

 

[chucklesas]

Have you actually check the plugs? I've had idling issues. Finally got the car to start and run for a bit. Then went back the next day and nothing. The plugs were completely fouled out. Just another thought.

 

[broxma]

I have. I pulled them last night, they were clean, not covered in garbage but I regapped them anyway and put them back in.

Here is the list of things I have done to find the problem. If a part is mentioned that means I have either tested it, swapped it with a known good or it is brand new.

Plugs and wires, ignition(Tried two, both are known good), CAS(Tried two, both are known good), TB(Tried two, both are known good), Injectors(Tried two sets, one from my personal Lancer Evolution, both are known good), Maf, All temp sensors, FPR, Cleaned the fuel rail, fuel filter, fuel pump, fuel lines, all fuel connections, every fuse in the engine bay, every fuse in the cabin, timing, bolted the maf directly to the TB to eliminate a foreign object in the intake path, Alternator, every engine bay relay connection, every engine ground, pulled the valve cover to check the valvetrain, swapped to known good ECU, checked all the ECU plugs and wires, injector clips, CAS and TPS plugs, idle speed switch, pressure tested the intake at the TB, every IC connection, knock sensor connection, O2 sensor connection, Oil pressure connection, PS pump connection. This may give you an idea as to what I have been doing the last two days. I may have missed something but I think that's most of it.

I have, through deductive reasoning, come to the conclusion that it is in fact an electrical issue. There is no way in hell I can replace, change, test or otherwise deem working every single part I listed above, and not have a working motor, mechanically. As always I am open to suggestion. I have looked at the MPI relay but have not tested it.

Any other suggestions not related at all to the physical aspects of the motor are greatly appreciated. Something small, with a possibility for failure in a null state. This is a 17 year old car and many of the electronics are that old. It is possible that something failed under initial driving. Something shook loose or otherwise had not experienced any voltage in many years and said its final goodbyes.


/brox

 

[H05TYL]

Have you checked for compression? I didn't see it in that list anywhere.

I had a similar issue years ago, car had been running fine for 6 months, then one morning it turned over but wouldn't start - I eventually traced it to having zero compression because of bent inlet valves, caused by the timing belt tension not being set correctly 6 months before, it seems with the belt slowly stretching over time it finally had enough slack to allow the valves to contact the pistons on turning over (on turning the engine slowly by hand the timing marks still lined up too).

 

[broxma]

It has compression. It is very very low. Because the motor was just rebuilt, the rings have less than a mile on them and the motor is cold. But all have about the same compression, enough compression to allow the motor to run for sure.

/brox