AHA! It was a loose injector plug wire
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AHA! It was a loose injector plug wire
So here's the story, I finished my swap in the beginning of August, well most of the work was done by my friend at Gator Automotive (I'm still paying him, but he hasn't given me a bill yet, I just keep paying him). This motor was obviously much quicker than my D18Y7, but I could feel that it wasn't running in optimal condition (compression good, leak down tested good). I gave it a full tune-up, hoping that would solve the problem, it didn't. For months we've been trying to diagnose the problem. It wasn't consistent, it would just get sluggish at random points. Then I moved on to a hard time starting.
Then, one week my car was running pretty well, so I took it down to the track for some 1/4 mile times. I made 4 passes, each one very unique. I encountered some issues when hitting VTEC, instead of going into VTEC the motor would die out and maintain its RPM, then accelerate, then die out again. Well, it would do this randomly, giving me 16.2s, 16.4s, 15.5s, then 16.8s. This was weird, I then continued to have problems on the drive home on the Interstate. The next day it seemed fine on the drive to work, then ran like **** on the way home, and the next day it ran like **** to work and fine on the way home. WHAT?!?!
Then I discovered the problem last Friday night. I was pulling spark plug wires one by one because it sounded like the engine was missing. Even though I had performed this test previously, this time I was lucky enough to catch my engine in the act. Cylinder #4 was getting spark, but was not getting fuel. The injector had no positive voltage. The wiring job was a custom butt connector type job, and it obviously wasn't holding well on that wire. The way this engine works is the following: the injectors get + voltage when the ignition is ON and the ECU grounds it to deliver fuel. So I wired up the positive to another location since the junction is impossible to mess with when the engine is in the car. PROBLEM SOLVED. Time to go back to the track this Thursday. I'll post my new times for anyone at all interested in this little story.
Then, one week my car was running pretty well, so I took it down to the track for some 1/4 mile times. I made 4 passes, each one very unique. I encountered some issues when hitting VTEC, instead of going into VTEC the motor would die out and maintain its RPM, then accelerate, then die out again. Well, it would do this randomly, giving me 16.2s, 16.4s, 15.5s, then 16.8s. This was weird, I then continued to have problems on the drive home on the Interstate. The next day it seemed fine on the drive to work, then ran like **** on the way home, and the next day it ran like **** to work and fine on the way home. WHAT?!?!
Then I discovered the problem last Friday night. I was pulling spark plug wires one by one because it sounded like the engine was missing. Even though I had performed this test previously, this time I was lucky enough to catch my engine in the act. Cylinder #4 was getting spark, but was not getting fuel. The injector had no positive voltage. The wiring job was a custom butt connector type job, and it obviously wasn't holding well on that wire. The way this engine works is the following: the injectors get + voltage when the ignition is ON and the ECU grounds it to deliver fuel. So I wired up the positive to another location since the junction is impossible to mess with when the engine is in the car. PROBLEM SOLVED. Time to go back to the track this Thursday. I'll post my new times for anyone at all interested in this little story.
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