420A 96 Eclipse no spark on 1-4 and no fuel DURING CRANK

[calrewirematt]

Hey, I registered here to see if anyone knows of an issue that would cause this problem.

I am working on a 96 Eclipse bone stock and well maintained. I came to me from another electrical shop after their only guess was that 3 pcms in a row were bad. The owner said I dont think so and left.

So heres what happened, Driving along on the freeway the car just dies instantly. No noises, smoke just like you cut the key off. Now the car wont start.

Heres where Im a bit concerned. I have a fully functional scanner and I can activate the coils, injectors ect at will. With key on engine off I have spark at all plugs and have functioning injectors. Now when I crank it, I have spark on 2 and 3 but 1 and 4 are dead. Injectors also stopped. Put a test light on and verified power at injectors during crank at its good, and put a noid light on them and nothing.

On the scanner I get an rpm signal while cranking and the cam and crank sync both say yes. I thought maybe there was an issue with the harness that was causing a failure while the engine was cranking that did not show up with it at rest so I bypassed the leads fwith jumpers from the pcm direct to the components still nothing and nothing at the PCM connector.

Im fairly stumped at this point now considering that the components all function properly but not without being commanded on. Ive read over quite a few other posts about bad PCMs and in my line of work Ive replaced my fair share but this issue was never resolved by good used PCMs nor factor remans. I am pretty certain thats not the issue.

No codes set for this and I even checked the timing belt but its dead on. If you can help out with this it would save my day.

Thanks again

Matt

 

[joe sobo]

cam angle or crank sensor bad. if the cam angle sensor is bad, it will not get fuel during the cranking of it. and as soon as i read that no spark at 1 and 4, i bet all in that it is the cam angle sensor. i completely rebuilt a car recently, and it took almost 2 weeks to figure out that it was c.a.s. so let me tell you, it is a bi*** to change cause you have to take the timing belt off. what i did was swap to a 1g cam angle sensor.
just read through my recent threads, and you will see all the headache i had.
one other tell tale sign is that it is not showing a check engine code

 

[calrewirematt]

Ok Im a bit confused by you saying that changing the CAS was a bi*** and behind the timing belt. The Crank sensor is on the back of the motor above the oil filter, was able to pull it and examine for damage just by feel. Cam sensor is on the drivers side part of the had at the end of the exhaust cam and easily comes off with two bolts. Now am I missing something?

EDIT are you refering to a 4g motor or a non turbo 2.0?? Your sig says Talon Tsi, different motors if that is what your referring to

 

[joe sobo]

oh, my bad, i seen that is was a 96, but did not see that you have a n/t. sorry. i thought you were refering to a turbo model

 

[calrewirematt]

oh, my bad, i seen that is was a 96, but did not see that you have a n/t. sorry. i thought you were refering to a turbo model

quite alright. And yes the 4g's are a much larger PITA than the n/a models. At least the turbos are stout little motors when they arent hampered by the crap ass electronics supplied by Mother Mopar. The naturally aspirated ones suck regardless if they are running good or not.

 

[420adude24]

Ok i had the same problem not to long ago with my 98 nt i changed every possable sensor on the motor as well as the coil an still nothing !My last option was to change my ecu an that was the problem from the get go give that a try an see what happens

 

[calrewirematt]

Ok i had the same problem not to long ago with my 98 nt i changed every possable sensor on the motor as well as the coil an still nothing !My last option was to change my ecu an that was the problem from the get go give that a try an see what happens

PCM has been changed 3 times, as stated in the first post. Each time it was the same thing, no start.

 

[southrneclipser]

change the coolant temp sensor. Its the big one under the thermostat housing. Not the little one, that is for the gauge. If that doesn't work, try the relays on the top driver side of the firewall under the hood. There are two of them.

 

[calrewirematt]

change the coolant temp sensor. Its the big one under the thermostat housing. Not the little one, that is for the gauge. If that doesn't work, try the relays on the top driver side of the firewall under the hood. There are two of them.

why would I want to change anything until I know its bad?

regardless what you said to change has nothing at all to do with this issue.

Those relays are working fine. ASD is turning on and I have power at all times to all related components and the fuel pump is working fine.

The coolant sensor wouldnt and would never cause the injectors to not fire nor half the spark plugs.

I am going to swap in a cam sensor quickly to see if that changes anything. I dunno if it will work but maybe the pcm isnt reading the sensor correctly. Truthfully (and sadly) there are few options left.

 

[southrneclipser]

Just so we're clear are you refering to the 4g63 motor or the 420a?

 

[Fotowntalon]

its on of the basics but wouldn't it be hilarious if this whole time it was the engine link fuse?

 

[calrewirematt]

Just so we're clear are you refering to the 4g63 motor or the 420a?

a 420a. Dual over head cam N/A 2 liter motor on the passenger side, unless Im totally F;n retarded I thought that was a 420A. Same motor as a neon..

 

[Fotowntalon]

there are slight differences between the two motors, even though they are both "420a" like intake and exhaust and things like that, but not going to get into it because thats off topic. But just to let ya know, not all parts between the two are interchangeable

 

[calrewirematt]

its on of the basics but wouldn't it be hilarious if this whole time it was the engine link fuse?

I wish, that wouldnt really explain the fact that Key on Engine off I can command both coild to fire as well as all injectors. I dunno how well equipped mot of you guys are with a scanner but for that year you can control every computer output via the scanner.

When doing it this way the components work fine, its only when Im cranking it that everything goes to crap. Im confident Ill get to the bottom of it sooner or later but I was hoping maybe a known issue among enthusiasts was known regarding an issue like this

 

[#40Fan]

This is a very weird problem that you have for sure. I'll do some checking and get back.

I checked on Mitchell OnDemand and couldn't find anyone with a similar problem. Do you have online Mitchell or even Snap-On's version? Both allow you to ask questions related to your problem.

When thinking about your delima and knowing that the PCM operates the grounding of both the injectors and coils, it really leads me to believe that the PCM is as fault. But since there have been many tries at using different PCMs and none have fixed it, then time to start looking elsewhere.

I would first start to look at all the fuses that power the computer. Replace them anyways, they are cheap. I have ran into many fuses that looked good, even showed good when testing them with a test light, but when under load a small break in them would keep them from working like they should.

If that doesn't work, go directly to the PCM connectors. Check the power inputs and ground outputs while cranking. Load test them with more than just a test light or volt meter.

If you have access to a scope, check the wave patterns of both crank and cam.

All I can think of for now. If you don't have Mitchell online or something similar that you can talk about your problem, let me know and I would be willing to post your problem.

 

[calrewirematt]

This is a very weird problem that you have for sure. I'll do some checking and get back.

I checked on Mitchell OnDemand and couldn't find anyone with a similar problem. Do you have online Mitchell or even Snap-On's version? Both allow you to ask questions related to your problem.

When thinking about your delima and knowing that the PCM operates the grounding of both the injectors and coils, it really leads me to believe that the PCM is as fault. But since there have been many tries at using different PCMs and none have fixed it, then time to start looking elsewhere.

I would first start to look at all the fuses that power the computer. Replace them anyways, they are cheap. I have ran into many fuses that looked good, even showed good when testing them with a test light, but when under load a small break in them would keep them from working like they should.

If that doesn't work, go directly to the PCM connectors. Check the power inputs and ground outputs while cranking. Load test them with more than just a test light or volt meter.

If you have access to a scope, check the wave patterns of both crank and cam.

All I can think of for now. If you don't have Mitchell online or something similar that you can talk about your problem, let me know and I would be willing to post your problem.

yeah I have mitchell online. Just figured Id go to the source of enthusiast knowledge as theres a massive density of the same cars and people know about them and the particularities of theirs chosen model.

Ill poost on Mitchell, never really needed to before but first time for everything.

 

[Locke]

Scope the cam sensor. See the images in this thread to see what they should look like.
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/420...90-setting-up-420a-crank-trigger-haltech.html

A cracked magnet can cause issues like this, as can it being out of sync, but you say it is in sync. You could verify (if you don't trust the computer) with the information provided in that tread.

 

[calrewirematt]

Scope the cam sensor. See the images in this thread to see what they should look like.
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/420...90-setting-up-420a-crank-trigger-haltech.html

A cracked magnet can cause issues like this, as can it being out of sync, but you say it is in sync. You could verify (if you don't trust the computer) with the information provided in that tread.

its funny you say that, I didnt happen to read this when I did what I did but I wish you woulda posted first .

I came in to update this with what was found. I had scoped the crank and cam signals together and although they were reading correctly the sync didnt seem correct. On suspicion I changed out the cam sensor anyways as that was the only thing other than the PCM that would cause this. The car finally fired.

This happened to just indicate that the motor would run but the car run like horrd dog crap. It threw a code 25 for the IAC. test found the IAC shorted between pins 1 & 4. Bigger issue is that the car is misfiring like crazy and even at WOT the motor wont get about 1300 rpm.

This is as far as Im going with the car though. After spending 8 hrs at a flat rate fee of $210 the customer decided to be ungrateful about me getting the car to actually run. He had spent over a grand at another shop that was unable to diagnose anything on it when it came to me. When I called him and told him the cars running but its running very rough and I need additional time to diagnose that issue his comment was that hed be happy with what I did so far if I called and said the car was running tip top. His attitude was enough for me and considering I already lost money on this I decided Im not going to lose anymore. Personally I think hes leaving out a part of the story as to what happened but I think truthfully that he recently changed his timing belt and it jumped a tooth. He claims it was 2 years ago but he didnt state how many miles hes actually driven it so an issue with his repair may be to blame.

Regardless the car started finally and for whatever reason I got a bad attitude about it so he can take it elsewhere to finish it.

Thanks for the help and suggestions with this, I hate situations where nothing is sticking out like a sore thumb and since I dont just change parts to see if they fix it this became a real head scratcher. I suppose that this thread can help guys out if you happen to run into this type of situation.