Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Ok I'm pretty new to electronics/fixing my own car etc so this was a new experience for me

Ok so here's the situation..

My CA18DET decided out of nowhere that it didn't want to start last night..

Originally I thought this was becuase, I was low on fuel and parked in a street which sloped to the left heavily.. So all the fuel was drained away from the pump??!

After repeated attempts to start it and no luck I pushed it onto flat ground where it still didn't want to start.. Next enters christian.

Christian from ns.com came over to help.. After alot of testing he managed to start the car after removing a spark plug. He then thought there may have been some sort of over fueling in the cylinder which needed to be released via removing the spark plug I think while starting the car..

Now anyway, after we got it running I went for a simple little drive and everything seemed fine, stopped at service stations and restarted like normal too..

Now all of a sudden today the same problem has occured and it doesn't want to start..

Thing I have done to try and fix this..

Checked spark plugs ( they seem pretty f**ked/fouled - Quite heavily burnt in areas and all grey/black around the spark part. White paint/stuff leaking from the top.

Checked and found I have no or very little coolant

Did a self diagnosis with the ECU (it's a mines ecu)

Got fault code 13.. engine temperature sensor circuit wiring fault

This supposedly can result in Ecu engine stalls, lack of power, low economy.

Tried again a few more times, and kept getting 55.. ( No problems..) NO PROBLEMS?!! it won't start!!

Now whether that was because I accidentally deleted any fault codes by accidentally going to mode 4 is out there, but i'm 99% sure i didn't accidentally enter mode 4..

Also, when Christian managed to start the car, he found that if he moved the wiring for injector 2 or 4 the car would idle really rough and also want to stall..

Now.. The conclusions..

There is a spark..(tested with a screwdriver) , There is fuel, there is ignition, but there is no magic..

So here's what I've come up with..

1. Stick with fault code 13.. Because I still have zero/no coolant.. Thus, if coolant is dispersed around the engine to control heating, and there is no coolant, perhaps the ecu is detecting this and not letting the car start?

2. Bad/fouled spark plugs resulting in a difficult start, each faulty spark plug is resulting in a 25% reduction in power.. Thus maybe making the car difficult to start.. (But we did get a spark with the screw driver test, so i'm unsure of this one)

3. Some sort of issue with the injectors and/or injector wiring perhaps something grounding?

4. Take out all the spark plugs and try to start the car to drive out any unburnt fuel which may be flooding the cylinders? (put em back in and restart) (Should I try this???)

Any help is greatly appreciated guys.. I'm just trying to narrow it down to save myself money when/if I need to send it into a shop.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/216674-ca18det-wont-start/
Share on other sites

yes, i would definately replace those plugs. they fire with a screwdriver, but maybe not so good under compression. for the love of GOD, fix that coolant leak and get some antifreeze/coolant in there lmao.

The ecu only uses the temp sensor to determine how much fuel the car needs. ie.... when the car is cold it needs to give more fuel, thats why you get a high idle at startup. There is a different sensor next to that for your guage.When the car reaches operating temperature it reads the oxygen sensor to see the difference from the air inside the exhaust and outside the exhaust so it knows whether to enrich or lean. That is called closed loop operation. You will actually know when it is checking when your thermostat opens, the cool coolant hits the sensor and signals to your computer to switch on the electric fan.

Your fault code is telling you that your coolant is low. it will not read when it is dry so it knows your out of coolant.

yes, i would definately replace those plugs. they fire with a screwdriver, but maybe not so good under compression. for the love of GOD, fix that coolant leak and get some antifreeze/coolant in there lmao.

The ecu only uses the temp sensor to determine how much fuel the car needs. ie.... when the car is cold it needs to give more fuel, thats why you get a high idle at startup. There is a different sensor next to that for your guage.When the car reaches operating temperature it reads the oxygen sensor to see the difference from the air inside the exhaust and outside the exhaust so it knows whether to enrich or lean. That is called closed loop operation. You will actually know when it is checking when your thermostat opens, the cool coolant hits the sensor and signals to your computer to switch on the electric fan.

Your fault code is telling you that your coolant is low. it will not read when it is dry so it knows your out of coolant.

ahhh thankyou very much for the info, I'll give the sparkies a go tomorrow!

edit: PLUS coolant lol

Edited by ignuz
Replaced spark plugs. Still won't start lol..

Going to be checking the exhausts temperature circuit wiring now as that was the initial fault code I got.

Well that fault code was bogus.. Chucked in the factory ECU after push starting the car.. Drove around for a while and got the fault code I needed.. ignition signal missing in primary coil wiring fault.

problem found :D

lil secret with the CA's......... remove the coil pack cover and leave it off or at least take a drill and drill some holes into it - lots! They tend to get extremely hot.... my old Silvia originally had a CA and when I went to remove the harness from the coils the harness connectors crumbled ! Wiring was brittle etc.... I had the same sort of nightmares regarding a miss and turned out to be broken wiring in the coil pack harness..... caused hours of frustration!

Cheers,

Anna

lil secret with the CA's......... remove the coil pack cover and leave it off or at least take a drill and drill some holes into it - lots! They tend to get extremely hot.... my old Silvia originally had a CA and when I went to remove the harness from the coils the harness connectors crumbled ! Wiring was brittle etc.... I had the same sort of nightmares regarding a miss and turned out to be broken wiring in the coil pack harness..... caused hours of frustration!

Cheers,

Anna

I don't actually have coil packs though, I have haltech ignition leads or something.. As seen in this picture..

2zgxnvk.jpg

Should be getting looked at this weekend sometime I think.. You're probably right about brittle wiring though.. I need to go over everything with a test lamp I think..

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • @666DAN sorry to bring you and old thread.     I've got my de+t done and it's all running great other than 1 small issue.    Car has remained auto with the na auto and tcm, I've used a stagea ecu with. NIstune board and everything is great other than my gear selection on the dash. It illuminates park, reverse, neutral, 3rd and 2nd when selected . But nothing when in  drive or what gear your in when you pop it into tiptronic. I'm sure there is maybe 1 wire in the ecu plug I need to move to rectify this. Do ya have any ideas?     Cheers man
    • Well I recently changed my rear axles and was thinking if I bumped anything, I have been driving the car for a while now though... But it has been raining today so everything is wet under the wheel arches. Brakes feel fine and can't hear any of the metal screamers, I had a squeak coming from one of the handbrake drums but that seems to have gone away a while ago. I was going down a hill when it lit up and I did feel the abs bite for a second and question why it did it?
    • Correct. Um. I dunno. I haven't cared enough about the way that the NA cars work to know for sure. But..... The 33/34 turbo manual cars have an electronic speed sensor in the gearbox that outputs a +/- (ie, sawtooth AC) voltage signal. That is connected to the speedo. The speedo then outputs a 0-5v square wave (ie, PWM) signal that the ECU (and any other CU on the bus) sees. The speed sensor is NOT directly connected to the ECU. So here's the problem. Your new ECU expects to see the PWM signal, but must somehow be getting a direct signal from the diff speed sensor. Which would suggest that the wiring of the NA car is not the same as the turbo cars. I think you will need to spend some time with (hopefully the wiring diagram for the car) and a multimeter to see what is connected to what. Then, presuming I am correct**, you would then want to separate the ECU speed signal input from the rest of the car's wiring, and probably either buy a speed signal converter, or build one using an arduino (or similar). That would take in the speed sensor signal and output a scaled (and suitably rearranged) signal for the ECU. ** We shouldn't presume that I am correct here, because there might be something else crazy going on. I don't think you could convert the speedo to be fed from the gearbox sensor, because the pulse rate from that sensor is probably different to the diff sensor and then the speedo would read wrongly. And this also wouldn't fix the ECU's problem either, because the ECU doesn't want to see the gearbox signal direct either (assuming that they are all on the same wiring, for some odd NA related reason, see above caveat!) Does this help? Probably not. Can you make it work? Almost certainly. With the above work. You should buy a handheld oscilloscope from Aliexpress so that you can view these signals directly. Connect up the probes and drive the car. Show photos of the screen when drving at known speeds and connected to different places, and we'll see what we can learn about it.
    • Assuming your brake pads are not worn right down, I'd add a little brake fluid. Is there any sign of a brake fluid leak?
    • Hello all,  I need of some help. On my drive home my handbrake light lit up and started flashing. When I got home I checked my handbrake sensor under the centre console and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I have scanned my car via the consult port, no codes shown. Checked my brake fluid as well which is half full. Tried unplugging the brake master but it didn't change anything. Thoughts on what it could be? The master float doesn't seem to be stuck. My car is an 1998 ER34 sedan GT. No hicas but has ABS Photos below 👇🏾 
×
×
  • Create New...