Page 1 of 1

Ran good, now it's dead.

Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:12 am
by Martijnus
I've rebuilt my engine, raised compression, put a set of throttlebodies on it and hooked MS on.
That all should be fine, pity that I didn't put MS on a running engine..but that's how it is.

I've got MSII v3.0, all sensors work fine except for my LC1, but that's not the issue right now. edit: Code version is 2.86 iirc.
Engine is a Porsche 924, 1984cc 4-inline engine.

For my first startup I ofcourse set my constants etc, and let MS create a crude VE and AFR table from my engine specs.
After two starts it ran quite fine! better than I expected, it even responded quite well to the throttle too.

So yesterday I decided to tune it a bit and get it better running.
Found out my strobe light for the ignition is crap, so tuned the ignition by feel...how the engine idled the best.

I let it idle for a while, to see if my LC1 woke up and to tune idle with a warm engine.
It ran wayyyyyy too rich, smoking as heck from the exhaust....clearly too rich... so I opened the VE table and changed the current-used cells to somewhat leaner. Burned it (while engine was running) to MS... nothing happend.

After a few seconds it started to run bad. It still ran, so I upped the VE a bit but it didn't help, so I increased the idle.

Later that day and even today I can't get it to start. I suspected the plugs, so I took em out, they were wet and black from the rich running and starting tries... after cleaning it came alive a bit, but died instantly.

Got my 'old' tables back to see if that was the problem, but it didn't help.
It felt like it wanted to run whilst starting and playing with my ignition distributor... just that running that it's not enough to idle but the starter isn't really necessary either...

So my suspicions: Spark plugs malfunctioning (however, they spark, but I've destroyed plugs with too rich mixture before), or cam timing wrong (will check it, don't believe it's wrong) or MS mysteriously corrupted when I changed and burned the VE table while running (I know AFR is a no-go if the car's running but VE should be fine).

Now I hope you can help me out. If you think logically, MS couldn't be the problem, because it ran fine with the current settings, unless something blew. Sparkplugs work too... but I'll change them anyhow.

edit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgkLsfnUMGQ
Here's the video from first startup. No exhaust except for the downpipes... this is pure after setting the constants and using the MS-generated tables... doesn't run that bad imho.

Re: Ran good, now it's dead.

Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:19 pm
by Martijnus
I've read the troubleshooting :)

Strange thing is that MS seems to work just fine... but after changing the VE table a bit it didn't run as good as it did.
Is it normal/possible that there is a delay of a few seconds after changing and burning the changes?

I haven't got a datalog, and I'll try to get the MSQ file from my laptop (stupid thing has no internet connection).

Tomorrow I'll bootload MS again, haven't tuned anything yet so just a matter of setting the constants again and then I'm sure the problem isn't the software.

Re: Ran good, now it's dead.

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:47 am
by Martijnus
Bootloaded MS again, started again with constants etc etc, didn't work.
Changed the spark plugs, car ran like it did... so boys and girls, you can bench test your spark plugs as much as you want, under pressure (compression) they can still fail.