ECMlink 1G Eagle Talon Has Fuel and Spark Will Not Start!

[Cj Anderson]

@chrisman287 I just check continuity on the 1g to 2g maf adapter all wires are good.

 

[We're on Boost]

Now that we can see your Battery voltage, I can see a very weird thing happening with it.
While you are cranking the starter, the voltage is good, even high, it's about 11 volts, in the low 11's.
But then after about 2 seconds of cranking, the voltage drops all of a sudden to about 8 volts. I don't recall ever seeing that in other cars or my car. There could be something drastically wrong about that.
When the voltage drops like this, it stays low for about a quarter of a second. During that time your KeyStart value is still "1". So you haven't let go of the key yet (according to KeyStart anyway).
But then at the end of that quarter of a second your voltage is coming back up and KeyStart goes to "0" so you have let go of the key. Then after a pause you try cranking again and it does the same thing.
So anyway that sharp voltage drop that happens, it could be from a heavy short that draws enough amps to drag the actual battery voltage down that far. That would be a very heavy short. A lot of current.
Or it could be something else.
Maybe it's a problem in the ecu.
Whatever it is it looks wrong to me.

In the earlier log (Feb 15) where your car did start, it started so quick (less than a second) that it didn't have time to get to this point where the voltage drops.
In the first crank of today's log you did have one voltage drop that happened almost immediately but you plowed right through it with the key still on Start and it kept cranking.
But the rest of the cranks in today's log went like I described above.

 

[steve]

You can turn on enable idle switch operation.
I usually expect the intake temp and the coolant temp to be close on a cold startup but that wasn't the case here. The coolant temp is dropping when the battery voltage drops so I believe the change in voltage is real. AirflowPerRev is still out of line by quite a bit.

I'll look more tomorrow

 

[We're on Boost]

The coolant temp is dropping when the battery voltage drops so I believe the change in voltage is real.

Yes I was looking at that too.

If we need to sort out whether the actual battery post voltage is getting dragged all the way down to 8 volts, he
could connect a voltmeter of some kind directly to the battery posts. He would need to be able to shoot video of it, or at least be able to watch it while sitting in the car to log some cranks.
An inexpensive multimeter will likely have a very low sample rate like 3 samples per second which is not very good for something like this. A cheapo analog 0-15 volt DC panel meter might actually be better (about $9 Amazon Prime), overshoot and all it might still be better.

a heavy short that draws enough amps

Probably "short" is not the right word because a short would normally blow a fuse or cause some smoke or blow something up. But heavy current anyway, if the voltage right on the battery posts is going down to ~8 volts.
In normal operation, the only thing I can think of that drags the battery to 8 volts is the starter, when it first engages the flywheel and the engine is not rotating yet, just for an instant the battery voltage will be about 8 volts. Like for about 1 sample which is 1/25th of a second or something like that in ECMlink.

 

[Cj Anderson]

Yes I was looking at that too.

If we need to sort out whether the actual battery post voltage is getting dragged all the way down to 8 volts, he
could connect a voltmeter of some kind directly to the battery posts. He would need to be able to shoot video of it, or at least be able to watch it while sitting in the car to log some cranks.
An inexpensive multimeter will likely have a very low sample rate like 3 samples per second which is not very good for something like this. A cheapo analog 0-15 volt DC panel meter might actually be better (about $9 Amazon Prime), overshoot and all it might still be better.


Probably "short" is not the right word because a short would normally blow a fuse or cause some smoke or blow something up. But heavy current anyway, if the voltage right on the battery posts is going down to ~8 volts.
In normal operation, the only thing I can think of that drags the battery to 8 volts is the starter, when it first engages the flywheel and the engine is not rotating yet, just for an instant the battery voltage will be about 8 volts. Like for about 1 sample which is 1/25th of a second or something like that in ECMlink.

I will purchase that cheap analog meter today and wire it to my battery, I agree the meter will be more accurate to check the battery draw. I'll go back and check all my grounds to make sure they are clean and tight. I believe the factory manual shows all the ground locations under the hood. I do have a second starter if the starter that is installed happens to be going bad but I think it might be a grounding issue or my new battery might be having issues. @steve I'll enable the idle switch before the next start-up. Do you think the AirflowPerRev is causing over over-fueling problem? As far as the coolant and intake temp I'll look into that.

 

[steve]

Do you think the AirflowPerRev is causing over over-fueling problem? As far as the coolant and intake temp I'll look into that.

Yes, I think the two are tied together since the ECU decides on how much fuel based on how much air is going in.

Please capture the barometric pressure too.

WRT the voltage, I suspect one or more loose/dirty connections on either side of the battery.

It might be a good time to show us around under the hood.

 

[We're on Boost]

WRT the voltage, I suspect one or more loose/dirty connections on either side of the battery.

Yeah maybe he just needs one of those round wire brush thingies that you clean up the battery posts with and clean up the hole in the cable clamps that go onto the posts.
Everything in his pics looks so clean though. I'm impressed! All those underhood pics, stuff looks brand new.
The inside of the ecu looks clean and good.
@Cj Anderson it looks like you sent ECMlink a non-socketed eprom ecu for them to socket and put the chip in. Is that how you did it with them?

 

[Cj Anderson]

@steve I’ll capture the barometric pressure, sorry I didn’t see that in the earlier post. I’ll snap pictures of the engine bay maybe there is something I’m missing. I bought the car with an empty engine bay and 5gal buckets of parts, I used a combination of manuals and factory manual’s, the forms to hopefully assembly this correctly. This is my first DSM I was trying to save it from the junkyard so I apologize I don’t know these cars like you guys that’s why I appreciate your help.

@We're on Boost Yea I sent the ECU to ECMLink and they installed the chip new for me. There is some freshly painted parts maybe the grounds still have some paint on them but I tried my best to clean them off first. I have done a lot to this car I don’t know if it would be helpful to try and post every part added and every step relating to the engine and accessories.

 

[We're on Boost]

yea I sent the ECU to ECMLink and they installed the chip new for me. There is some freshly painted parts maybe the grounds still have some paint on them but I tried my best to clean them off first. I have done a lot to this car I don’t know if it would be helpful to try and post every part added and every step relating to the engine and accessories.

Did ECMtuning do anything repair wise with your ecu when they had it? Did they say anything like "replaced the capacitors and cleaned some electrolyte off the circuit board"? Have the capacitors ever been replaced? Quite often it happens that a person's problems trace back to something wrong with the ecu, and usually it's pretty cheap and easy to get those issues repaired by ECMtuning.

Paint on electrical stuff, yup, my car at one time had battery cable ends that were painted! I had to remove the paint on the contact areas with a file. Then I bought new lead alloy ends that aren't painted at all and have 4 bolts going into them so you can attach 4 wires to each one. Even with this setup I have to check and slightly snug those bolts pretty often because the lead "creeps" which lets the bolts gradually loosen up. In my pics you can only see the + one, barely.

Your ground wires in the engine bay, should be 3. One big ground wire from battery to a starter bolt, one medium gauge wire from battery to firewall, and then another medium gauge wire from firewall to the intake manifold. I've gone overboard with mine which shouldn't be necessary but what the heck - Since I've got a 4 lug cable end on the ground too, I put one big wire to each starter bolt, and 2 wires to the firewall (going to different pre-existing threaded holes in the firewall, M6x1.0 threads in the holes). I bought a PITTSBURGH AUTOMOTIVE Hydraulic Wire Crimping Tool so I could make up my own cables with whatever wire and whatever ends I want.

Right now your Specs and Photos page is pretty good! It's better than most, as far as content and quality of the writing and pics and so-forth. If you have time you could add more info to it. I think it's good to have a lot of info on that page because then people can find basically everything on one page that they might want to know. Some people have many pages of build thread which can be interesting but it's not the easiest way to find specific info. So with mine I decided to put a lot on my Specs and Photos page, and I don't have a very long build thread. BTW my 2 profile tiles go to the same car but one is historical now (up to 2015) and the English Racing one is current.

 

[steve]

Did ECMtuning do anything repair wise with your ecu when they had it? Did they say anything like "replaced the capacitors and cleaned some electrolyte off the circuit board"? Have the capacitors ever been replaced? Quite often it happens that a person's problems trace back to something wrong with the ecu, and usually it's pretty cheap and easy to get those issues repaired by ECMtuning.

If that's the ECU it's had it's capacitors replaced. If there was any leakage it's been cleaned up well. It's also the correct ECU for the year and configuration of the car.