Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Symptom - Car cranks but does not start (hot or cold)

There is fuel pressure at the line, pump is operating and priming correctly. There is a good spark.

Now here is the confusing part - on initial start, there is no injector pulse. I thought easy fix, its probably my CAS. Changed with another working unit tested on another car. It starts! Switched the engine off. Try to start again, cranks but no start. Once again, no injector pulse.

When i remove the CAS and spin it by hand, the pump primes and the injectors pulses. Reinstall the CAS and it starts. But when I switch it off, same problem reoccurs.

I've checked all the main wiring loom, make sure there's no short to earth. I've checked all earths and wiring. The battery is new. Measures 12.4Vs and 14.5Vs whilst running (alternator is charging). Whilst cranking it drops to 10.2V which is acceptable.

My theory is that the starter motor is drawing too much current when cranking, causing the CAS not to send the proper signal. Does anyone have any further ideas that I might need to check? I know its hard to diagnose a car over the internet without seeing it, but just want to hear any other ideas just in case I have left something out.

By the way, the car did receive a whole bunch of upgraded bits. Just to name a few that might affect it - Bosch 040 fuel pump and Bosch 363 injectors with R32 GTR ballast resistor, Z32 AFM, 80mm Throttle body. The rest of the mods I fail to see how it could affect starting.

Cheers!

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/274278-starting-issues-need-ideas/
Share on other sites

Get rid of the ballast resisters and put in injectors that suit the car.

Had exactly this problem with a customer with a PowerFC Pro and GTR injectors (Dano4127). ripped out the resisters, made a new loom for the SARD 550's I had laying around and bang, starts every time. It had something to do with the injector driver in the ECU not operating correctly with that particular setup. Spoke in length with contacts in Japan and it turns out some of them have different drivers to others so cannot be wired that way.

That's a fair call about the injectors. I'm running a remapped RB20 ECU with Nistune.

My question is now, what's the difference between me turning the CAS by hand and the camshaft doing it whilst cranking? It should technically still prime and pulse the injectors whilst cranking?

It could be dropping voltage to the injector drivers while cranking. It could be something to do with current issues with the resistors in place causing the drivers to not fire while the starter motor is drawing what it needs.

Just a thought.

I never went into it in massive detail as I could see the most uncomplicated solution so I just fixed it. I would have liked to know exactly why but unfortunately time was not permitting. Let me know if you find out the reason.

If you think your car is drawing too much current, hence the voltage drop, does the car start when you roll start it?

like get 2 of your mates to push the car down the street, and clutch it to life, if that doesn't work that's not the problem then.

try starting the car without the AFM plugged in.

Sounds like the CAS is acting up, my car acted the same, would start in the beginning if you pushed it but it got worse and worse until it wounldnt start at all. Pulled the CAS and gave it a spin by hand, sounded like a peppergrinder :blink: Changed it and everything was good!

That's a fair call about the injectors. I'm running a remapped RB20 ECU with Nistune.

My question is now, what's the difference between me turning the CAS by hand and the camshaft doing it whilst cranking? It should technically still prime and pulse the injectors whilst cranking?

it could be that you have a broken cam (have seen this before in a mates ca18) or there is a short in the CAS so that it is earthing out when bolted to the block.

but i would be looking at other things first like voltage dropping when cranking

Cheers for the input guys.

Just to clarify, the engine does start but only after I have manually spun the CAS. As soon as the injector pulses, I can reinstall the CAS and it starts.

Its not the AFM and its not the CAS. When the engine is running, it receives all signals correctly and runs fine. I've checked the end of the cam to make sure there's no damage to the half-moon shaft.

I've just bought another starter motor and will be installing it this weekend.

  • 1 year later...

thread revival, didnt want to start new one, car wont start, only cranks

what i have tested so far:

fuel pump relay - ok

fuel pump primes - ok

fuses (in-cabin and engine bay) - ok

fuel pressure - 43psi

battery (13v, 11v whilst cranking) - ok

ignitor - swapped with another known working one

ignitor earth grounded - yes

voltage at injector - yes

pfc sensor check - ok

disconnected maf - still no start

spark with coilpack attached - FAIL

R34 CAS, yet to remove, however have read broken locator wont stop it starting

continuity testing to coilpack loom - yet to do

check voltage at starter motor - yet to do

broken cam - possible??

Q:

is cas and ignitor only culprit that would cause no spark issue?? any other things i can look at..

anyone wanna lend a R34 CAS i can test with??

if there is injector pulse than the CAS is ok, the ecu gets its firing order signal for injector and spark from the CAS so if one works then they should both work.

you need to check with an LED test light if theres a pulse on the ecu side of the ignitor when cranking, this will tell you if the ecu is sending the signal to the ignitor. it will be very faint when you check it.

if there is no pulse here the check at the ecu itself, if there is none here than you might need to try another ecu,

will PFC sensor check pickup the issue, as it came back normal

I'll open the PFC to check for burnt tracks and re-check wiring

any specific pin I should be testing?

Is there a relay near the PFC, I remember ages ago of one clicking in that area

update:

swapped in a new odyssey pc1200 battery, still no closer to getting it started

i have voltage at the injector plugs although this is different to injector pulse which i cant hear during cranking with screwdriver

if so, that would point the finger at the CAS right?

when measuring voltage at ignitor, do i have to earth out the E during cranking in order to get voltage reading?

also have re-plugged the ECU and relays near it, yet to test voltages at the pins

btw, car started briefly with the new battery for bout a minute, idled normally, could hear the injectors being their noisy normal self, then on its own it splutter few times and died

question:

assuming CAS is fine, and its the power wire to the coil in the loom thats broken or bad (ie. no spark), will cranking still cause injectors to wet the spark plugs??

i will pull CAS out over the weekend and rotate by hand to test if the injectors click etc

also only one of the relay by the ecu click with ignition on however 12v is present on both relays

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

    • Hi, is the HKS  Tower Bar still available ? negotiable ? 🤔
    • From there, it is really just test and assemble. Plug the adapter cables from the unit into the back of the screen, then the other side to the car harness. Don't forget all the other plugs too! Run the cables behind the unit and screw it back into place (4 screws) and you should now have 3 cables to run from the top screen to the android unit. I ran them along the DS of the other AV units in the gap between their backets and the console, and used some corrugated tubing on the sharp edges of the bracket so the wires were safe. Plug the centre console and lower screen in temporarily and turn the car to ACC, the AV should fire up as normal. Hold the back button for 3 sec and Android should appear on the top screen. You need to set the input to Aux for audio (more on that later). I put the unit under the AC duct in the centre console, with the wifi antenna on top of the AC duct near the shifter, the bluetooth antenna on the AC duct under the centre console The GPS unit on top of the DS to AC duct; they all seem to work OK there are are out of the way. Neat cable routing is a pain. For the drive recorder I mounted it near the rear view mirror and run the cable in the headlining, across the a pillar and then down the inside of the a pillar seal to the DS lower dash. From there it goes across and to one USB input for the unit. The second USB input is attached to the ECUtec OBD dongle and the 3rd goes to the USB bulkhead connected I added in the centre console. This is how the centre console looks "tidied" up Note I didn't install the provided speaker, didn't use the 2.5mm IPod in line or the piggyback loom for the Ipod or change any DIP switches; they seem to only be required if you need to use the Ipod input rather than the AUX input. That's it, install done, I'll follow up with a separate post on how the unit works, but in summary it retains all factory functions and inputs (so I still use my phone to the car for calls), reverse still works like factory etc.
    • Place the new daughterboard in the case and mount it using the 3 small black rivets provided, and reconnect the 3 factory ribbon cables to the new board Then, use the 3 piggyback cables from the daughterboard into the factory board on top (there are stand offs in the case to keep them apart. and remember to reconnect the antenna and rear cover fan wires. 1 screw to hold the motherboard in place. Before closing the case, make a hole in the sticker covering a hole in the case and run the cable for the android unit into the plug there. The video forgot this step, so did I, so will you probably. Then redo the 4 screws on back, 2 each top and bottom, 3 each side and put the 2 brackets back on.....all ready to go and not that tricky really.      
    • Onto the android unit. You need to remove the top screen because there is a daughterboard to put inside the case. Each side vent pops out from clips; start at the bottom and carefully remove upwards (use a trim remover tool to avoid breaking anything). Then the lower screen and controls come out, 4 screws, a couple of clips (including 3 flimsy ones at the top) and 3 plugs on the rear. Then the upper screen, 4 screws and a bunch of plugs and she is out. From there, remove the mounting brackets (2 screws each), 4 screws on the rear, 2 screws top and bottom and 3 screws holding in the small plates on each side. When you remove the back cover (tight fit), watch out for the power cable for the fan, I removed it so I could put the back aside. The mainboard is held in by 1 screw in the middle, 1 aerial at the top and 3 ribbon cables. If you've ever done any laptop stuff the ribbon cables are OK to work with, just pop up the retainer and they slide out. If you are not familiar just grab a 12 year old from an iphone factory, they will know how it works The case should now look like this:
    • Switching the console was tricky. First there were 6 screws to remove, and also the little adapter loom and its screws had to come out. Also don't forget to remove the 2 screws holding the central locking receiver. Then there are 4 clips on either side....these were very tight in this case and needed careful persuading with a long flat screw driver....some force required but not enough to break them...this was probably the fiddliest part of the whole job. In my case I needed both the wiring loom and the central locking receiver module to swap across to the new one. That was it for the console, so "assembly is the reverse of disassembly"
×
×
  • Create New...