Need some advice... :(

[Hesh724]

have you checked your sensor wires and plugs for loose/broken or wires that have separated from the plug like the Cam/Crank Angle sensor, Coil, Transistor plug wires. Check the mpi fuse ? grounds stuff like that, just throwing some ideas out to help. good luck.

 

[talon2gbuyer]

Bri, I found a few, but none of them look like the stock pintle caps (with the two joined holes) and the mitsubishi dealership said it would take 3-4 days to get one to their location . So maybe just bring one of the injectors with you?

As for the connectors, i'll probably do another check today for like the 8th time .

Also, with the oil pump marks I'll try and take a better picture today (just ran out of daylight yesterday) I would think it would be lined up, would be kinda weird to have 3 out of 4 in time and not one.

 

[talon2gbuyer]

my 90 sat for 2 years during a rebuild i did at school ... started on the first try

shes a tough old girl and i love her

anyways, are the injector pigtails plugged into the right injectors? i did that and it wouldnt run.

yea the pigtails are in the right order. I usually only disconnect one at a time just for that very reason

 

[snowborder714]

would be kinda weird to have 3 out of 4 in time and not one.

Not really. That's what happens when things are out of time.

 

[talon2gbuyer]

man.. i hate being out of time.

 

[dalesmitsu]

If you have a fuel pump rewire and battery located in your trunk. Look at your grounds.

 

[snowborder714]

I'll bring my timing tools, ECU with link, and stock 450's back with me in case we want to play around with some stuff.

But check and make sure all marks line up. Keep in mind that some can line up even when others don't. So if the crank and cam gears are lined up, but the oil pump isn't, keep rotating the engine until the crank lines up again and see if the pump lines up. Everything lines up properly (make sure dowel pins on cam gears are at 12 o'clock) once every 6 crank rotations.

 

[talon2gbuyer]

If you have a fuel pump rewire and battery located in your trunk. Look at your grounds.

No, i have not done those yet. So grounds should all be the same. But ill check them out anyway, couldnt hurt.

Bri, Yea im gonna spend some more time a little later today looking at the marks again. I rotated the motor about 10 times yesterday and got the crank and stuff lined up, ill check again though.

 

[talon2gbuyer]

Hey all, i was just going through some old pictures that I took when i came across this picture of one of the rod bearings that i managed to take a shot of. Now when i first saw it I didnt even see this, but at the upper right hand part of the bearing, the metal looks pushed in and cracked. Does anyone else see this? also, general condition of the bearing?

Thanks!

 

[talon2gbuyer]

Update -

after reviewing the timing marks again and again i've come to the conclusion that the mechanical timing is spot on. So i've put everything back together again and am going to try and hold out till Brian can come work his magic

 

[BogusSVO]

Hey all, i was just going through some old pictures that I took when i came across this picture of one of the rod bearings that i managed to take a shot of. Now when i first saw it I didnt even see this, but at the upper right hand part of the bearing, the metal looks pushed in and cracked. Does anyone else see this? also, general condition of the bearing?

Thanks!

Thats where the factory made the tab, to locate it in the rod /cap.

Looks even worn, some pitting no big flakes.

Looks ok for a high milage, 120k or so

 

[talon2gbuyer]

outstanding thanks a ton Dale for taking a gander at these for me.

 

[talon2gbuyer]

Well, Brian and I worked on the car again yesterday, hooked up Link to it and tried to crank it over. Nothing in the log looked out of place except for a low battery voltage during cranking (would drop down to 8.5 or below). At this point we're both out of ideas as to what could be causing this no-start.. we've tested CPS and CAS resistance and voltage, were getting signals to the ECU from both. Timing marks line up, injector plugs are all drawing proper resistance, and even with putting in the stock 450 injectors and zero-ing the SAFC we still get nothing. I'm sure Brian will chime in and possibly post a log if he gets the time to do so, but at this point unless I can come up with something tangible for this issue within the next week or two I may be doing a part out just to get rid of this 3,000 lb paper weight sitting in my driveway (as it is continually costing me $$$ on parts and insurance, and I simply do not have enough time or money to continue working on this car which is getting absolutely no where).

So again, if anyone has any suggestions please feel free..

 

[snowborder714]

You still haven't found a place to rent a leak down tester, have you? If not, I can always bring that back with me as well. Craig's somewhat convinced it has something to do with you loosening the head bolts and not actually removing the head, possibly causing the gasket to shift or something.

 

[talon2gbuyer]

Im not really understanding then. If the head has been pressed on with the head bolts but not removed, how did the gasket shift? My understanding was with all the torque and pressure on the HG that wouldn't possibly move unless the head itself was shifted off base, or removed. Maybe i'm mistaken.. but as for the leak-down tester I can ask pep boys if they have one for rent, but i doubt they do. They never have half the shit I need . Also, if it was the headgasket effed up, wouldnt that have shown on a compression test?

 

[snowborder714]

I'll let Craig pop in and address those things. He had a better explanation when I talked to him than I could provide.

Here's the small logs I captured.

 

[BogusSVO]

If the head alignment dowels are in the block, it would be diffucult for the HG to shift.

Now when you loosened the bolts, did you pick up the head? Up over the head alignment dowels?
Or was it loosen the bolts, not move the head, then torque the bolts down?

I could understand oil/coolant aross the HG causing an issue will seal on a cylinder or two.. but not all of them.

Have you checked the FI with a noid light?
Also have you put a fuel pressure gauge on it to see what it is?

 

[snowborder714]

No fuel pressure gauge. I could feel fuel in the return line coming off the stock FPR, and he also had fuel spill out the rail when he removed the injectors (forgot to relieve the pressure). I also heard all 4 injectors click via a long screwdriver while he was cranking. These were known working stock 450cc units off my brother's car. The only thing I didn't do (just as a double check) was hook up a test light to the injector clips. We saw a constant 10.96V from one wire and a rising voltage from 6V or so up to 10V on the other wire.

I verified the signal wires for CAS and CPS were indeed getting back to the ECU, as well as getting voltage (they saw 13.xxV - not sure why higher than 12V).

I also fed the LC-1's factory narrowband sim into the front o2 wire since that has been completely cut.

 

[BogusSVO]

Try a fuel pressure gauge.

If the fuel pump is "sorta" working it will still pump the fuel, but at a lower pressure.
( I had this issue on one my birds)

Most DSM run 43.5 psi of fuel pressure,IIRC, but if the pump is only making say 25psi, it can cause a no start with flooding, since the fuel is streaming and not atomizing.

 

[talon2gbuyer]

Ok, I get what your saying now. I unbolted the head but did not remove it, and simply torqued then back down again. As for the pressure, ii have the afpr with the line, just need to find some -6AN fittings to install it. I can work on getting those parts this week as well as a new front o2 sensor.

 

[snowborder714]

You also need to address the wiring harness at the ECU. Either make better connections, fix ones that are broken (front o2 I believe is), or remove wires that aren't needed and tape up what's left.

 

[Calan]

Craig's somewhat convinced it has something to do with you loosening the head bolts and not actually removing the head, possibly causing the gasket to shift or something.

Not necessarily convinced, but it seems reasonable.

Im not really understanding then. If the head has been pressed on with the head bolts but not removed, how did the gasket shift? My understanding was with all the torque and pressure on the HG that wouldn't possibly move unless the head itself was shifted off base, or removed.

It's not so much that the gasket actually moves, but it can change shape somewhat. When the bolts are first torqued down, the HG deforms to the surface of the block and head. After a few heat cycles, if all of the bolts are loosened, the HG can relax. If any dirt, coolant, oil, etc. finds it's way between the head and block, the HG may not seal the same as when it was first torqued.

MLS gaskets can be picky, and it doesn't take much to prevent a good seal. Composite gaskets can be affected in a similar way due to them absorbing oil and coolant when the bolts are loosened.

Another possibility is that when you loosened the bolts, you allowed oil and/or coolant to drain into the cylinders. If there is enough oil in there (again, it doesn't take much), that would explain why your plugs look like they are covered with oil and you can't get it to turn over. (With that said, I would at least expect the car to fire and try to run, although it would be rough until the cylinders were cleaned out).

When you boil it down, only 5 things have to happen to get the car to start:

1). The engine needs to crank
2). You need air entering the engine
3). You need fuel
4). You need spark
5). You need items 2-4 happening in the right sequence.

So, if the engine turns over, air is getting into the cylinders, the injectors are squirting the right amount of fuel, and a strong enough spark is present... then all that is left is that something is causing these things to happen out of sequence. But of course there are many things that could cause that.

Without being able to physically put my hands on the car, I'm just tossing out some possibilities. It's really hard to troubleshoot these kinds of problems with nothing but thought experiments.

 

[talon2gbuyer]

Ok i understand that now. Thanks for laying it out for me. The funny thing is I've been saying for the last few weeks that the 3 components are there, fuel/air/spark so theoretically the engine should start, in theory anyway. As for the hg, Now i drained the oil completely before i pulled the VC, would there still be enough in there to seep under the hg? also, i cannot remember if I had drained the cooling system before or after I messed with the head bolts. So would it be safe to assume that at this point the issue seems to be the head gasket? either un-seated, or allowed something to seep in between the cylinders and the head?

If you guys agree that the next logical step would be to remove the VC and pull the head and see what the story is inside the cylinders then I will prepare for that. As long as I have a clear "this is what needs to happen next" then I can usually take care of it. As I said, my patience was just wearing thin because of the lack of progress . Thanks again guys

Also, Brian I am going to be replacing the front o2 with an OEM narrowband just to eliminate any issues with that in the future. I also will probably have link before long so, well see what I have to do to get it running if it is before I get link i'll keep the SAFC in it, if not then I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

 

[Calan]

If you guys agree that the next logical step would be to remove the VC and pull the head and see what the story is inside the cylinders then I will prepare for that. As long as I have a clear "this is what needs to happen next" then I can usually take care of it.

This:

I would still do a leak-down test, just to rule out any other issues with the HG and valve train...

A leak-down test will tell you a surprising amount of info about your motor with very little effort.

I would never go through the hassle of yanking a head as a troubleshooting step without doing a leak-down test first. But then again, I'm lazy and hate doing work that I don't need to.

 

[talon2gbuyer]

Ok, ill end up buying one most likely. Only like 45$ at Amazon