EFI - Havent been able to get Started

[luvndasun]

My car is a 72 Coupe. I installed a EFI system that controls both fuel and ignition(spark). My engine is twin plugged 3.0L, 10.5:1 compression. I used a Megasquirt ECU with Ford EDIS ignition.

Heres a list of some of the Parts:
1 - Megasquirt ECU and it is a MS230-C MSII ECU w/PCB3.0)
2 - TWM 3003 Throttle bodies, 46mm
3 – 36-1 Crank Wheel
4 - Throttle Position Sensor
5 – EDIS Crank VR Sensor
6 - High Impedance(Z) Injectors, Bosch 0280-150-737, 29#/hr
7 - Wide Band O2 Sensor,
8 - MAP Sensor
9 - EDIS-6 Coil packs (2)
10 - High Pressure Fuel Pump
11 - Fuel Pressure Regulator
12 - Ignition Wires
13 - DC-20 Cams

Everything installed. The Engine turns over strong, but it does not start. I get an occasional pop, but thats it.

Here are my AFR, VE, and Spark/Adance tables. Do the values in the tables look close enough to get the car started? Any ideas on what to try would be appreciated.

[sjf911]

Are you getting an RPM signal when cranking to document your VR sensor working?
Is your MS v3.0 board jumpered for EDIS?
Are you using dual EDIS controllers in parallel to run your coils?
Are you using a vacuum manifold to average the MAP signal with your ITB's?
Have you documented spark output?
Are you getting fuel?
Megasquirt forums also is a very good place to post your problems:
www.MSefi.com • Index page

PS: You posted 2 shots of your VE table and no spark table.

Also, posting your current msq file and any datalog files helps.

[al lkosmal]

Go back and check the basics.

How did you set up the injector characteristics
open time, etc.
Injection control table
Required Fuel?
Injector cycle?
Staging?
Engine stroke?
Number of cylinders?
etc.

Also there is an LED on the pcb that will flash with the Tach signal (if I remember right)
No tach signal........= engine no go.............

Another thing that you can do is to wire an LED across the injector connector(s) to verify that you are getting a signal out to the injectors.

Note: This can become very confusing.......with a lot of tail chasing. Stop, take a deep breath and follow the Megasquirt manual........from the beginning, step by step. You will get it.

Regards,
Al

Post your files

[luvndasun]

Ooops - Here's my spark table



I'll look into the jumpering of the MS for EDIS.

I dont see a tach/rpm signal. When I am turning the engine over, with the computer hooked up, I see everything else registering, but I dont get change in tach. I made my VR sensor bracket. The sensor is about 1/8" from the crank wheel.

Also, Should the three LEDs on the Megasquirt be illuminated when the engine is cranking? I see a flash and thats its. I think that the MS is working because I get input to Megatune.

I do have two EDIS coil packs and two EDIS conotrollers. I'll post pics of my set up later.

[rsscotty]

If your sensor gap is 1/8 inch, that may be too big. Check your specs. for the sensor. The Bosch Motronic, Motec, DTA etc. use a gap of .80mm for a mag sensor.

[al lkosmal]

It does still sound as if you do not have a good, working tach signal to the Msquirt. You need to focus on that 1st, in my opinion. Get out the Msquirt manual and study that section. also, DIY Autotune forums are an excellent place to go for troubleshooting info.

Regards,

al

PS: you still did not post your basic constants .....engine/injection /ignition control tables............but I suggest you post them on the Megasquirt and/or DIYAutotune forums. This is where the experts reside..............at least far more than reside on the Pelican forums. But if you post them here I'd be glad to offer my $.02

[sjf911]

The EDIS controller is very robust and can tolerate a lot of variation in the VR sensor position (possibly not .125" at cranking speeds as 0.03" to 0.06" is nominal) but will not tolerate reversal of the VR polarity. I would suggest you reverse the wires on the VR sensor and see if you get a tach signal. Pin 2 of the EDIS controller will also drive your VDO tachometer so you can confirm lack of rpm there as well. Only one controller should be hooked up to the VR sensor and have its PIP signal sent to MS while the MS SAW signal should go to both controllers.





V3.0 main board:
DB37 pin #36 to the SAW pin (#3) on the ignition module
DB37 pin #24 to the PIP pin (#1) on the ignition module
On the V3.0 main board:
use the 'Hall sensor circuit' (step #50.a in the assembly guide) - jumper D1 and D2,
jumper OPTOIN to TACHSELECT on the bottom side of the PCB, near the DB37 connector, opposite the heat sink,
jumper TSEL to OPTOOUT on the bottom side of the PCB, near the center.
jumper JS10 to IGN (this uses the processor port for the SAW signal directly),
jumper XG1 to XG2 on the bottom side of the PCB, near the 40 pin socket

[ischmitz]

Another somewhat lesser issue: The spark advance seems to be very agressive at idle with 20 degrees advance . I would expect something not too far away from the 5 degree mark. We did a fuel-injected blown Type 4 motor with MS-II where the idle advance was around 5 - 8 degrees.

But as others said the first thing is to make sure your sensor inputs (RPM and MAP) are properly registering on the Megasquirt tune interface and to make sure the main outputs (fuel and spark) from MS-II are properly set up.

Good luck,
Ingo

[luvndasun]

I tried again this afternoon. I changed the wiring on the VR Sensor. Originally the engine just turned over. After the wire switch, I got popping and back fire. I think this is the correct wiring for the VR Sensor. The backfire was coming up through the throttle bodies. I may have also gotten a few small pops out of the exhaust. I also modified the bracket so that the VR sensor is closer to the trigger wheel.

Is the firing order that is printed on the EDIS Coilpacks correct?

I was watching the gauges in Megatune when I was cranking. Occasionally I would show a rpm reading, it would flash a reading and then go to zero.

Here are the constants that I have loaded into the MS. Let me know if there are other settings I should post.

[luvndasun]

Just to make thread a little more pallatable, here of some pics of the old engine drop and the new engine going in.

Engine Drop - not recommended, but yes you can do it yourself.


Old and new engine in the same shot.


Front of engine. Fan has been powdercoated since this was taken.


Back of Engine



Engine goin in. You can see the coilpacks on the firewall

[sjf911]

Just quickly reviewing above, you have your displacement wrong which will effect your required fuel calculation. Also, you need to set it to port injection, not throttle body.

[sjf911]

Here is what I had for EDIS firing:

[onboost]

Sub'd

[luvndasun]

Success! I got the car started last night. I only left it running for a few seconds as it was idling at about 2800 rpm. Any ideas?

The first things that I did for troubleshooting was to verify the jumpers on the Megasquirt board for the EDIS set up. They were all there and correct. Then I made the changes to the engine displacement and injection type = port.

The major problem I had was the firing order. The firing order was confusing to me because the firing order of the EDIS coils is different than their phyisical position, ie Coil B fires third, after C, physically the coils are arranged ABC, they fire ACB. The next big hurdle for me was that in the widely published picture of the EDIS 6 coil wiring shows the Pin for Coil A farthest from the power pin, phyisically, these two pins are closest to each other. I will come back later and update the post to include wire colors. What helped me was to stop looking at numbers and phyical location and then match like colors to like colors between the EDIS Coils and controllers. Then based on the pin firing order that gave me, I matched that with the 911 firing order/cylinders.

Here's what I ended up with for firing order.

Firing Order of coil pack A,C,B
Ignition wires, Cylinders 1-4 = Coil Pack Pin A = Controller Pin 10 (These fire first with 1 in compression, 4 in exhaust and wasted spark, and vice versa)
Ignition Wires, Cylinders 2-5 = Coil Pack Pin B = Controller Pin 11 (These fire third)
Ignition wires , Cylinders 3-6 = Coil Pack Pin C = Controller Pin 12 (These fire second)

The Porsche firing order 1-6-2-4-3-5. The cylinder to coil map is:
Coil Pin A – Contlr Pin 10, Porsche Cylinder 1 compression, Cylinder 4 exhaust
Coil Pin C – Contlr Pin 12, Porsche Cylinder 6 compression, cylinder 3 exhaust
Coil Pin B – Contlr Pin 11, Porsche Cylinder 2 compression, cylinder 5 exhaust
Coil Pin A – Contlr Pin 10, Porsche Cylinder 4 compression, Cylinder 1 exhaust
Coil Pin C – Contlr Pin 12, Porsche Cylinder 3 compression, cylinder 6 exhaust
Coil Pin B – Contlr Pin 11, Porsche Cylinder 5 compression, cylinder 2 exhaust

The other big thing was that I changed my VR sensor bracket. I was reading the Electromotive installation manual and it said that if you make your own bracket, make sure that you do not use a ferrous material, ie a material that the VR/magnetic sensor is attracted to. I made mine out of steel...doh!, and yes it is magnetic....man o man what a knuckle head. Since I had a Clewett Engineering VR sensor bracket that is a work of art compared to the bracket that I made, ie no guess work about where the VR sensor is pointing on the crank wheel relative to TDC. The EDIS VR sensor is too large of a diamater to fit into Clewett bracket. I decided to use the 1/2" Electromotive VR sensor also from Clewett. Now i get my tach signal....woohooo. I also feel more comfortable with the bracket as it is very rugged. The EDIS VR sensor will work perfectly, if you install it as correctly, funny how that works....haha.

The other issue I found was some loose wires at the Relay Board.

[jpnovak]

Glad to hear you got the car running. A few thoughts on the ITB setup and your high idle.

Have you adjusted the linkage?
Do you have air leaks?
How did you plumb your vacuum lines for the MAP signal?

The first thing to do is to disconnect the two drop links and set the idle speed. Then check the side to side setup with a synchrometer. Next, set the idle speed and flow using the synchrometer on each individual cylinder. Eventually you will set the linkage adjustment to ensure both sides pull the same.

You must go stepwise through the setup of the ITBs just like carbs or MFI.

I am also concerned over that spark table. That looks like the default table for a V8. I would start with something that looks more like this for your twin plug motor. You may want to pull some timing out and then slowly advance once you have the ITBs and fuel trim (VE table) setup properly. btw, this spark table is not running in an engine. I have not yet converted to a crank trigger.

Are you running a knock sensor? I have one from Boris at Viatrack.ca IT is just wired to the dash and does not pull timing from MS.

Notice that there is much less advance with twin plug. I like alittle more advance at cruise and idle to help get it started. Also notice that my MAP scaling is very different than yours. I am running 46mm TWM ITBs on my 3.2SS, twin plug with a DC 40 cam.



btw, part of your high idle could be from highly advanced timing. Have you put a timing light on the car to make sure that your trigger offset is correct?

[luvndasun]

To fix the idle, I had to calibrate my Throttle Position Sensor (TPS). Really easy to do, just hook up the computer record the reading at zero and full throttle. After alot of reading, I found something that said....do this first, caibrate your TPS prior to starting your engine.

I seem to be getting the propoer MAP reading, its around 100kPa without strating the engine. I included some pics. I am using the PMO MAP manifold. This is where all of the vacuum lines come together and then oneline goes to the MAP sensor in the Megasquirt Electronic Control Unit (ECU).



The problem I am having now is that as soon as I hook up my battery, the red alternator light comes on. This is with the key in the off position. I took voltage readings at the 14 pin connector. Here's what I got.

Key in off position
Male/Engine Side of Connector PIN 13 = Red Power
Chassis/Female Side of connector = No power on any pin

Key in on and not start position
Male/Engine Side of Connector PIN 13 (RED) = Power
Chassis/Female Side of connector The following PINS had power
PIN 3 Grn/Blk Oil Temp
PIN 4 Grn/Red Oil P
PIN 5 Grn/Ylw Reverse Light
PIN 12 Blue Alternator Light
PIN 13 Red Power

With the Key in start position, PIN 1 Yellow Starter, also gets power

When I have the Switched 12V on the Megasquirt Relay Board jumpered to Pin 12 on the 14 PIN Connector, the fuel pump relay and fuel pump dont seem to get power. The car turns over fine, but doesnt have fuel so it wont start.

When I have the Switched 12V on the Megasquirt Relay Board jumpered to Pin 13 on the 14 PIN Connector, the fuel pump relay and fuel pump get power as soon as I hook up the battery. The key is in the off position and you can hear the fuel pump relay pull in and the fuel pump primes itself. The red alternator light is also on. The car starts, but then will not turn off.

Some additional electrical details are that the alternator has an internal voltage regulator. I also removed the 3 fuse panel and its associated relays as I didnt think they were needed anymore. Any ideas on where I have my wires crossed?

Here is a pic of how I have my starter wired. Does it look correct?

[quaz]

What version of MS firmware are you running? You will probably want to run MSnS 3.0.X which is best suited to running ITBs and EDIS. (It may already be loaded with this code, but check) Then, if you haven't already, read this page Tuning ITBs - 77e21.info . You are going to want to eventually setup your VE and Spark tables for ITB load. However you need to get some data points from your engine in SD mode before you can even do that. So having it running is a good first step ;-). You will notice really fast though in SD mode you will only be using the top 1/3 of the VE table. To get resolution below that you will need to be looking at a combination of the vacuum and throttle position.

What is cool now, there are a few of us that have done this conversion who know what to look for. Three-Four years ago you would be on your own. So just keep posting up your issues and we will get you going.

[luvndasun]

When I last updated the MS firmware, I believe that the version was 2.98 if I remember correctly.

I found a gremlin in my 14 pin connector last night. After I put my key on the accessory position, I get a switched voltage when I insert my volt meter into the Chassis side PIN-12. I have a splice on the engine side and I checked the voltage there. I do not get any voltage. So my pin connection is bad. I should get a chance to go out there tonight and try to get a good pin connection.

[luvndasun]

On the MS Relay Board, the three main power connections are
Batt - 12V from battery I have this spliced to the Red wire from the alternator.
Swithced 12V
Engine - this goes to ground

Which wire from the 14Pin should the Switched 12V terminal be spliced into?

Engine wont turn off - Any idea how to fix this?

[jpnovak]

There is no 12V switched on the rear engine 14 pin connector. There should be 12V switched on the front console mounted 14-pin connector at pin 13. This is the one under the stock CDI mounting location.

The other option is to pull 12V off the 3-fuse panel in the rear of the engine bay console. the top two should be 12V switched.