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Dynatek ignition issues

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Boostintalon93

Probationary Member
9
1
Sep 21, 2019
Copper city, Michigan
Going to make this story as short yet detailed as possible. I have a 1g drag car. Basic mods that could influence this are, haltech platinum ecu, COP, battery located in back of car. Full drag setup not much stock to speak of. When I bought the car it was already wired just needed some things buttoned up. I finished the car up and it ran great. Did a couple short 2 mile cruises testing to make sure things were in order, everything was great. Parked the car in the garage a month ago and went to start it the next day and it ran terrible. Seemed to have ignition problems. I have since done everything I could imagine trying to resolve the issue but it remains unsolved. I have spoke with dynatek many times and they say that the status light should always remain on with key on. Mine lights up nice and bright until I engage the starter. It then seems to go out in a bit of a pulsing fashion with the starter. I can still get the car to run, and at times it will run perfect. Other times won’t even run. I now have also tried to set the timing on the car as well and can not get the timing light to flash at all. When I first got the car I had no issue getting the timing light to flash. Also seems that cylinder 3 is the one with the most ignition issues. Even when it runs good that plug will come out wet. I have tried everything under the sun to solve this. Hoping someone with a much better understanding can help me out. I have swapped dynateks, dynatek harness, coils, complete cop plates and wiring, rewired the dynatek to the battery countless times. Thanks for any help. Anything I left out that could help please ask and I will answer to the best of my knowledge. The car wasn’t driven before me. There is maybe 8-10 miles on this setup.
 
Are you using the Dynatek plug in harness for the Eclipse? Or the universal install harness? If you are using the plug in harness, did you try swapping the tach adapter that is built in to that harness?
 
Are you using the Dynatek plug in harness for the Eclipse? Or the universal install harness? If you are using the plug in harness, did you try swapping the tach adapter that is built in to that harness?

I am using the eclipse harness but it has been cut short. No tach adapter, just have the tach wire feeding my auto meter tach.
 
I am using the eclipse harness but it has been cut short. No tach adapter, just have the tach wire feeding my auto meter tach.

The wire that goes from the coil 12V wire on the car, should be removed from the coil and wired to the orange coil 12V wire on the ARC-2 harness. This wire goes through the tach adapter too, so if you cut that tach adapter out, you need to make sure that wire is still connected to the ignition switched 12V going to the coil. A bad connection there could cause a flickering status light.

Also, did you keep the factory power transistor wired in?
 
This car has a haltech wiring harness. I have the orange wire from the dynatek wired to a keyed source. It has a good 12 volts going to it. Just now I noticed with the 2 signal wires from the ecu disconnected from the dynatek, then I can crank the car and work all functions without making the light go out. So the dynatek only goes out when the signals are telling it to spark. Ruled out something else draining the power. Still don’t know where to go from here. Electrical is not my strong suit.
 
Sorry forgot, I did not include the factory power transistor in the wiring. It was wired this way when I bought it and ran without issue at first.
 
I don't know the coil output settings on the Haltech. Is it set in software to directly drive a coil? And the switch settings on the ARC-2 are set as recommended in the install guide? Have you checked your timing?

I'm not sure that the settings are your problem. But it can't hurt to step through it.
 
I don't know the coil output settings on the Haltech. Is it set in software to directly drive a coil? And the switch settings on the ARC-2 are set as recommended in the install guide? Have you checked your timing?

I'm not sure that the settings are your problem. But it can't hurt to step through it.

It doesn’t have the ability to directly drive a coil. My settings on the arc-2 are restrike, falling edge, cam. But I have tried crank as well. I did check timing and had it set right before this issue started. I cannot get a timing light to light up anymore to recheck it. I have attached pictures of my settings for trigger and ignition on the haltech.
 

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Early in the development, the ARC-2 had some issues with triggering off an aftermarket ECU, where the ECU was only putting out 5V signals because it was driving a "smart" coil. Do you happen to know if the coil output signal on the Haltech is 5V or 12V when it is high? IF you can verify that is the problem, it may be fixed by installing a PTU back into the system, and letting the PTU trigger the ARC-2.
 
Early in the development, the ARC-2 had some issues with triggering off an aftermarket ECU, where the ECU was only putting out 5V signals because it was driving a "smart" coil. Do you happen to know if the coil output signal on the Haltech is 5V or 12V when it is high? IF you can verify that is the problem, it may be fixed by installing a PTU back into the system, and letting the PTU trigger the ARC-2.


I am going to look into it some more today. But I did check the output From the haltech and get 12v.
 
Update, now got the car back up and running. Timing is dead on, the dynatek status light stays on still a little dim. But the car fires right up. Now runs on 3 cylinders though. Cylinder 3 plug comes out wet. Other three plugs are burning perfect.
 
It is starting to sound like the running problem isn't the box. I can't comment on the LED lighting up, I have zero memory of how the program was written and I know they did several changes to the ignition after I left there.

You are getting a misfire on coil 3, but not 2? How did you wire the COP? Did you wire the 2 coils on each channel in series? I've seen a bunch of people here talk about wiring them in parallel, which could cause misfires.

Check the cyl 3 plug for any burn marks on the outside of the plug, and try to do a visual spark check on the cyl 3 coil output.
 
It is starting to sound like the running problem isn't the box. I can't comment on the LED lighting up, I have zero memory of how the program was written and I know they did several changes to the ignition after I left there.

You are getting a misfire on coil 3, but not 2? How did you wire the COP? Did you wire the 2 coils on each channel in series? I've seen a bunch of people here talk about wiring them in parallel, which could cause misfires.

Check the cyl 3 plug for any burn marks on the outside of the plug, and try to do a visual spark check on the cyl 3 coil output.

Getting a misfire on 3, 2 is firing great. I have swapped coils, plugs injectors in case of overfuel. Problem remains with 3. I agree at this point I have no reason to believe the arc-2 is performing anything but normal. The flicker with the status light seems to go with a misfire. Maybe something they programmed in later. The COP is wired like this thread https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/coil-on-plug-wiring-and-install-with-pics.290665/
 
Did you make any headway on this issue? The ARC-2 only has 2 channels, so I would expect a problem with a channel to show up on both of the coils, in this case 2 and 3. But the Haltech could produce timing that is off for just cylinder 3. I have heard of CAS issues causing a problem with just 1 cylinder, not sure how common that is though.
The only other thing I can think of related to wiring would be to make sure the head is properly grounded. This matters more on the COP systems where the coil current return path goes through the head to the system ground. Doesn't matter as much with OEM coils. And you could isolate the wires going to the coils from the ARC-2, just in case the 2 output channels are having some sort of crosstalk from the 500V, high current firing pulse.
 
Seems to be pretty well figured out. I appreciate all the help. When I posted on here I was betting on you having the answers. I had multiple issues going on here. Several of the settings in the haltech got changed somehow which caused most of it. Ignition, trigger, home and injector main setup settings were all out of whack. Once I took care of all these the car straightened up most the way. The only remaining problem was cylinder 3 not getting a good burn. At this point I have figured that out to be oil. I have a bad valve seal causing this. So just gotta replace that. Thanks once again for all the wisdom.
 
@brads, not to hijack this mans thread, but when I was following along, I think I saw were it was said to use the falling edge on the Arc2. I am using the leading edge, what difference does that make? I am only asking because you were involved in its development and figured that if anyone could explain the answer, it would be you.
Thanks Brad. (need some connectors too, will be getting in touch).
Marty
 
Glad that I was able to help a little with some pointers, but it sounds like you figured most of it out on your own.

Marty, The edge you use is pretty much just based on your ignition output. Your ECU puts out a signal to dwell and fire the coil. On a car with the PTU still intact, the voltage at the coil negative goes low (falling) to begin dwell, and goes high(rising edge) to fire. On cars controlling smart coils, and the DSM signal before the PTU, the signal goes high(rising) to begin dwell, and low(falling) to fire.
You want the ARC-2 or other CD ignition to trigger on the firing edge, so you adjust the setting so it recognizes which edge it is supposed to fire on. If you get it backwards, your timing will be off a good bit from what you expected, since the ignition will be trying to fire when your ECU is telling you to start dwell. And it will also change a lot more with RPM, since the start of coil dwell duration varies vs RPM on most computer controlled vehicles.

There are some other really small details that could make adjusting your system to one edge or the other SLIGHTLY better. But these are really nuanced things that probably matter more on an oscilloscope, and don't make a real difference in the real world

Not sure why the term "leading" was used in some literature, pretty sure I didn't do that. Leading and trailing edge aren't as clear, IMHO.
 
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