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Car **** the bed

P

Pepsibottle1

CEG'er
Joined
Mar 3, 2018
Messages
57
Location
Fredericksburg, VA
At a loss to what happened, possibly two separate issues at hand.

Car takes forever to crank, and sometimes the car will jot crank period despite good battery voltage. When driving the car will completely cut out, and will not refire when recycling ignition, dumping the clutch, etc. More often than not the car will not crank for at least 10-15 minutes after this event leaving me fairly helpless.

The last straw came last night when on the way home, I was stranded 3 times, the last I had the no crank even and then the car just refused to fire when I was able to crank.

The shop says it's an ECM but you guys say they never have issues. It does have a superchip taped onto the module. I just put a new fuel pump assembly in not even a month ago

Help before the wife forces me to sell
 
Pull the superchip. Inspect the harness.

It's possible the ECU was friend from the superchip
 
Beans said:
Pull the superchip. Inspect the harness.

It's possible the ECU was friend from the superchip
Click to expand...


I'm back in the shop, I'll double check today. The wiring was reported good, there is power to the computer and a wiggle test did nothing to interrupt communication at the module.

Good timing actually, I finished putting back together my four wheel steer Prelude and it serves a dutiful purpose in this time of crisis.
 
Quick question. What would be the correct procedure to remove said superchip from ecu? As in, if I disconnect the battery and pull the chip out, is there any chance that I could brick the car?
 
As long as the ignition is off, the Superchip isn't receiving any power from the ECU, just disconnect it. No chance you'll brick the car, and as far as Superchip's reputation goes, removing it could un-brick the car.
 
Removed the culprit, intial test drive went okay but as we all know that usually doesn't mean jack. The car didn't take forever and a day to fire up however (tech said it didn't yesterday either) and no hiccups minus the relearn procedures after killing power. I will report back after the 60 mile commute home. Thanks for all of the help

Did these things even really do anything? I didn't notice much of a loss taking the mfer off
 
Superchips were the "tuning" solution before we had the tools to reflash and do a proper tune. Superchips tunes were often just enriched WOT fueling (which generally wasn't useful...), some timing advance, and raised rev limits on torque curves that were already in steep falloff.
 
I did a quick 12 mile drive around town before driving the wife's Fiesta back home last night. Thankfully, there were no issues with the car cutting off/PATS light coming on, stalling, etc so I'm remaining hopeful that it was merely an issue with the blue chip (initial testing on my end before the incident showed that when the issue arised, the computer also lost communication). After idle relearn it drove quite okay actually, but even with the blue chip in I have had days where the car simply wouldn't act up. My tech said he couldn't get it to act out my day off when I was not at the shop. I will continue to monitor.

However the car continues to crank extensively before starting when cold, followed by sputter when engine does fire. As far as I know, the plugs and wires were changed with APP104s and Autolite wires at 60K (now at 102k) and the coil remains original. No codes. May be evidence of a slight miss on 3 and 4 as I can see very low values (<20) on the cylinder compensation tests but I don't believe that would cause the long crank. Have not had the time to steal a fuel pressure gauge and test pressure at the rail as I am curious. Fuel filter is recent. Fuel pump is a month old. When car is restarted relatively recently after a drive, it is quick to restart. As much as I would love to do a tune up with a DUI coil, I am pessimistic at throwing parts at cars to fix issues.

Hope I am not being too much of a pest. The goal is to have the car running reliably because the wife wants to drive it local and with baby when we see our little girl in September. She's disappointed that she hasn't been able to yet as I've brunted the odd quirks to keep her off the side of the road.
 
Beans said:
Ever rebuilt the top end with new gaskets?
Click to expand...

Upper intake manifold and the IMRC were taken care of two weeks ago due to the lean codes I was throwing and that helped out a ton plus put a huge smile on my face after I hit 4k the first time after the repair

So far after 120 + miles the issue with the PCM has been resolved. Still looking at why the car cranks for so long when cold. Fuel pressure is OK
 
Try this before you start the car cold. Turn the key on then off 4 times for 2 seconds each time, DO NOT TURN IT OVER just turn it until you hear the fuel pump 4 times. If it fires instantly then you know the fuel pump is defective because it won't hold fuel pressure over time.
 
If that chip is still in the pcm get rid of it. I had a super chip and it caused tons of issues ( some of the old NECEG'rs might remember the post years ago). The car would stall , hesitate and have a hard time starting. The problem was the chip would lose contact and cause problems, the chip faces down and bumps etc would cause it to drop just slightly. This would cause the car to run like crap and stall and also make the pats like flicker. I taped the thing to the pcm hoping to cure the problem but it didn't. I stopped for gas one day and the the car refused to start. I noticed that the pats light was on constant, I looked up at the pcm and it looked fine but when I touched it I could push it in very little so I new it lost just enough contact. I pushed it away from the pumps and disconnect battery and pulled the chip, I removed the chip for good . Never had a problem again. In the end i just had it tuned and would never use a chip again. It might be your problem and an easy fix .
 
crewchiefpro said:
Try this before you start the car cold. Turn the key on then off 4 times for 2 seconds each time, DO NOT TURN IT OVER just turn it until you hear the fuel pump 4 times. If it fires instantly then you know the fuel pump is defective because it won't hold fuel pressure over time.
Click to expand...

Wife said the trick for her was to crank for a short bit, and then recrank and it fires instantly. I did try that because I suspected the same but it still took forever and a day lol

skunk said:
If that chip is still in the pcm get rid of it. I had a super chip and it caused tons of issues ( some of the old NECEG'rs might remember the post years ago). The car would stall , hesitate and have a hard time starting. The problem was the chip would lose contact and cause problems, the chip faces down and bumps etc would cause it to drop just slightly. This would cause the car to run like crap and stall and also make the pats like flicker. I taped the thing to the pcm hoping to cure the problem but it didn't. I stopped for gas one day and the the car refused to start. I noticed that the pats light was on constant, I looked up at the pcm and it looked fine but when I touched it I could push it in very little so I new it lost just enough contact. I pushed it away from the pumps and disconnect battery and pulled the chip, I removed the chip for good . Never had a problem again. In the end i just had it tuned and would never use a chip again. It might be your problem and an easy fix .
Click to expand...


Pretty much the same exact issue to a t and after a week upon removing the blue chip, life is good and the wife is happily enjoying the car now. She says it goes like stink
 
Just to put the final piece of the puzzle together, yes I did end up discovering that the long crank was caused by yet another defective fuel pump. So I will get that warrantied after replacing the water pump as that has sprung a massive leak

Thanks for all the help
 
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