VTEC-E question, help!

[benfrogg]

HC-
If one injector wasn't working right, all other injectors would compensate because the 02 sensor would catch the lean or rich mix and adjust accordingly. So, if one injector was giving very little fuel, the ECU would see that as all cylinders running lean and enrichen the mixture. It's feasable to think it could cause something like this, I think.

I have a garage. It is not heated or insulated but I have a 40k btu propane heater. After about 2 hours of working out there, it's about 55ddf. Of course, the metal of the car probably never gets above 30df. It's do able. I used to do all my work outside and it sucked!

Erik-
Yes, I think you are right. I was using the hot setting on the heater, fan blower at 2. I just didn't know if there was any relationship to the power issue or not since the thermostat was certainly not full open or anything.

Pgfpro-
I've done most of the grounds under the hood already with additional 8g wire and a junction block. I'll have to dig through my book and find all the grounds in the cabin. I think the ground for the ECU is probably especially important. I'm sure it's never been done.

Testing the harness is a really good idea. I hadn't put much credence in it yet, but it's looking more possible. I have to get a long test lead with some gator clips made up today and I'll test all wires; not just signal wires but ground as well.
What were your symptoms when your harness had a break in it? Were they similar to mine or just no fire injector?

I'll look in my book for what pins are the injectors on the harness. I doubt they are the same color back at the ECU as they are at the block.


I really wish one of you lived close enough to drive this car and tell me if it drives like it's supposed to. It just doesn't seem right that on the highway at 60mph, I can't hold lean burn without losing speed if there's even the slightest incline. I usually let it drop down to about 50 to see if I can keep lean burn. Anything under 45mph is illegal here on the highway.
Thanks
B

[pgfpro]

Originally Posted by benfrogg

HC-
If one injector wasn't working right, all other injectors would compensate because the 02 sensor would catch the lean or rich mix and adjust accordingly. So, if one injector was giving very little fuel, the ECU would see that as all cylinders running lean and enrichen the mixture. It's feasable to think it could cause something like this, I think.

I have a garage. It is not heated or insulated but I have a 40k btu propane heater. After about 2 hours of working out there, it's about 55ddf. Of course, the metal of the car probably never gets above 30df. It's do able. I used to do all my work outside and it sucked!

Erik-
Yes, I think you are right. I was using the hot setting on the heater, fan blower at 2. I just didn't know if there was any relationship to the power issue or not since the thermostat was certainly not full open or anything.

Pgfpro-
I've done most of the grounds under the hood already with additional 8g wire and a junction block. I'll have to dig through my book and find all the grounds in the cabin. I think the ground for the ECU is probably especially important. I'm sure it's never been done.

Testing the harness is a really good idea. I hadn't put much credence in it yet, but it's looking more possible. I have to get a long test lead with some gator clips made up today and I'll test all wires; not just signal wires but ground as well.
What were your symptoms when your harness had a break in it? Were they similar to mine or just no fire injector?

I'll look in my book for what pins are the injectors on the harness. I doubt they are the same color back at the ECU as they are at the block.


I really wish one of you lived close enough to drive this car and tell me if it drives like it's supposed to. It just doesn't seem right that on the highway at 60mph, I can't hold lean burn without losing speed if there's even the slightest incline. I usually let it drop down to about 50 to see if I can keep lean burn. Anything under 45mph is illegal here on the highway.
Thanks
B

The symptoms were a very light miss-fire then every once and while it would drop the cylinder and become a full time miss-fire. The Neptune told us it was an injector miss fire so we change the injectors then realized the symptoms didn't go away. So that's when we starting looking into the harness being the culprit.

I wish you lived closer to. I could hook up my P28 ECU with Neptune management with the wideband data-logging and run some diagnostic tests to see whats going on.

[benfrogg]

So, more time in the garage-
Checked continuity between injector and ECU. The 12v lines all have 12v all the time. With the key off, they have 5ohms or so resistance to ground.
The ground wires coming from the ECU all have great continuity to the plug at the ECU. I took each wire and bent it, stretched it, etc while doing the test. No breaks internally that I can find.
I also swapped in my third ECU I have. No change there either.

Pgfpro-
Can ECU's be reprogrammed or chipped to run at leaner values? Is this something you can do? I've got a couple of spares to do the work to if it is possible.


I guess I'm going to have to buy a fuel pressure gauge. I'm thinking the fuel pressure regulator might be dying? If there was low/intermittent pressure at the fuel rail, I could see this problem happening, maybe. My old GM cars wouldn't start with anything less than full pressure at the rail. I'm guessing hondas will run with low or intermittent pressure?
I have already swapped out the fuel pump with one from the parts car. No change in operation. That leads me to the FPR. Come to think of it, I may have a spare one of those too. I'll scower my garage later tonight for it.


Next time I'm headed on a cross country trek, I'll make a stop in Idaho! That's not going to happen anytime soon, but who knows. Anyway, thanks again for all the help!
B

[benfrogg]

Another thought, after reading your symptoms, is that I was having a very random misfire before the new plug wires. It would happen so seldom that it was almost not noticeable. Maybe once in 400 miles or so would I notice it.
I tested the life of the ignition components-
I ran a 4g wire from battery ground into the cabin. I ran a 4g wire stuffed into the number one cylinder plug wire into the cabin. I started the motor on 3 cylinders and slowly pull the two leads apart until the spark wouldn't jump any more. (I didn't let it fire with nothing thus burning up the coil/ignitor) I got almost an inch of spark jump.
Maybe I can swap on the old/new dizzy.
B

[imzjustplayin]

maybe check the crank sensor... or try driving with the ELD detector disconnected or the alternator disconnected and see if that does anything. That whole "104mpg" thing really leads me to believe that there is some device in there that would possibly be doubling the RPMs or halving the RPMs the engine is spinning at, making the computer think it's using less fuel than it is. The reason I bring up the alternator and the ELD detector is that maybe after everything is warmed up in the engine bay, things start to fail or partially fail and it may be screwing with the computer or other electronics.

[benfrogg]

The MPGUIONO routinely goes to the 150-250mpg range. Usually when slightly decelerating and not DFCO. I was on a level plain, slowing down slightly, when the gauge jumped to 104 and I got more torque. I then was able to give more throttle to keep the vehicle at speed and accelerate to the speed limit and the gauge went down to like 75mpg steady at 50ish mph. I'm assuming with all of my mods that should be about right all the time at 50mph assuming I'm on level ground with little headwind.

I assume the ELD means electric load detector? Where is it?

The mpguino uses a VSS off of the transmission, not the engine. The only other information is from the ECU lead of the injector itself.

B

[imzjustplayin]

Originally Posted by benfrogg

The MPGUIONO routinely goes to the 150-250mpg range. Usually when slightly decelerating and not DFCO. I was on a level plain, slowing down slightly, when the gauge jumped to 104 and I got more torque. I then was able to give more throttle to keep the vehicle at speed and accelerate to the speed limit and the gauge went down to like 75mpg steady at 50ish mph. I'm assuming with all of my mods that should be about right all the time at 50mph assuming I'm on level ground with little headwind.

I assume the ELD means electric load detector? Where is it?

The mpguino uses a VSS off of the transmission, not the engine. The only other information is from the ECU lead of the injector itself.

B

Oh, see that clarification helps A LOT!!! So you were getting 75mpg cruising at around 50mph? That's exactly where you should be at. You know what? I think I know what your problem is and I'm thinking it's not really a problem. There are various temperature sensors located in the car which send information to the ECU, if the computer thinks it's too cold, it won't enter into its most efficient mode. I'm surprised you're detecting the lean burn as working prior to this but I guess it's possible it's able to enter lean-burn while not being in ideal conditions.

It's really too bad that the MPGUINO doesn't have other information like engine temperature, map sensor information, etc. If you were able to use a Scan gauge, you'd definitely have this info but since you're OBD-I, information is likely to be scarce unless you had a programmable ECU but these Lean-burn ECUs are special and don't lend themselves to that.

[pgfpro]

Originally Posted by benfrogg

So, more time in the garage-
Checked continuity between injector and ECU. The 12v lines all have 12v all the time. With the key off, they have 5ohms or so resistance to ground.
The ground wires coming from the ECU all have great continuity to the plug at the ECU. I took each wire and bent it, stretched it, etc while doing the test. No breaks internally that I can find.
I also swapped in my third ECU I have. No change there either.

Pgfpro-
Can ECU's be reprogrammed or chipped to run at leaner values? Is this something you can do? I've got a couple of spares to do the work to if it is possible.


I guess I'm going to have to buy a fuel pressure gauge. I'm thinking the fuel pressure regulator might be dying? If there was low/intermittent pressure at the fuel rail, I could see this problem happening, maybe. My old GM cars wouldn't start with anything less than full pressure at the rail. I'm guessing hondas will run with low or intermittent pressure?
I have already swapped out the fuel pump with one from the parts car. No change in operation. That leads me to the FPR. Come to think of it, I may have a spare one of those too. I'll scower my garage later tonight for it.


Next time I'm headed on a cross country trek, I'll make a stop in Idaho! That's not going to happen anytime soon, but who knows. Anyway, thanks again for all the help!
B

I sold all my chip burning equipment.

What I would do if I were you and I'm considering doing this myself is run a Moates Ostrich and socket one of your ecu's. Then run CROME (its free) and create your own fuel and timing tables. Then you can tune all the time and create the perfect tune.

If fuel goes past 95 a barrel I'm selling the Talon and buying another Honda with a VX engine and trans. Then I'm going to run a mitz 14b turbo and a small intercooler. A turbo on a VX engine would be the ultimate for me

[imzjustplayin]

Originally Posted by pgfpro

I sold all my chip burning equipment.

What I would do if I were you and I'm considering doing this myself is run a Moates Ostrich and socket one of your ecu's. Then run CROME (its free) and create your own fuel and timing tables. Then you can tune all the time and create the perfect tune.

If fuel goes past 95 a barrel I'm selling the Talon and buying another Honda with a VX engine and trans. Then I'm going to run a mitz 14b turbo and a small intercooler. A turbo on a VX engine would be the ultimate for me

You can't use chrome on these ECUs and considering that the P07 ecu is far more complex than the other ECUs, I would say there is good reason for it. I don't believe it's a good idea to run the car lean just because the car is at a certain load and temperature, everything should be working and other factors we're not considering need to be considered which is what the stock ECU does and so you'll never be able to program the other ECUs to do what the stock ECU does since it's so complex. But what do I know, neither I nor anybody else has really dug into these ECUs. Something about "partial truths" and whatnot apply to the P07. I have to wonder if the HX's Lean-burn ECU is a refined version of this ECU or if they went back to a more basic version...

Btw, where did you get that chip burning equipment? I've got an older computer that I need to reflash the bios manually since I misflashed it but I need a "chip burner" I'd suppose in order to do this.

[benfrogg]

75mpg on a flat at 50mph was ONLY when this sudden bit of torque happened. I only noticed this happen during long trips even in summer. The problem is, the majority of the time, 50mph on a flat is only 53ishmpg instant. That means I have to do tons of EOC and such to get it above 53mpg tank.

What sensors are we talking about? Obviously CTS, IAS, but what else? I used to run a WAI that pulled in about 100df air all the time after warm up. I could tell I had less HP/torque to work with. I pulled it out to test the difference without. I need to get a test route and do some ABA with it. Don't forget, I'm probably hauling 200#'s or so of drum gear about 2/3 of my driving. I always unload when I don't need it.
If the car would keep that better torque all the time, I could easily run the WAI. Ironically, if your theory is true, the WAI would be the only thing to get me into that better torque/mpg's.

I'm still going to swap the FPR tomorrow on it to see if it changes anything. Can't hurt.

THanks for the info on ECU reprogramming. I just really want to get this thing doing what I think it is supposed to do.
B