Project Moogs Motahs - sinking the seat

[The Moog]

Drunk SP has struck again. 

A few weeks ago I had been scratching my head to try and find vacuum leaks on the turbo mx5.  After looking at smoke tests I found they were £££. On eBay instead were ultrasonic Chinese testers. 

Duly ordered and then forgot about. 

Till this morning - a big package arrived for me. 

 

It uses the principal that leaks emit ultrasonic waves and this can detect it.  With the headphones it sounds like a Geiger counter. 

 

The second module is an emitter. If you have rain leaks or similar you can turn it on and put in the car, using the detector you can then find the leak.  In theory. 

My mx5 wouldn't start with no fuel, so I borrowed bucketeers AX as a test mule. 

Headphones on and then wave it over the engine

We have a hit!

Zoom in 

Ohhh lookie

 

Split hose. 

So initially it seems to work - could be a useful tool 

I am going to get some fuel and see if I can get the mx5 up and running.

[gm]

Looks like a handy wee gadget  

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Wow I've never seen one of those before. looks well useful, specially for investigating the classic 'just needs a regas m8' situation

[gadgetgricey]

That looks really useful. Previously I've just been spraying easy start around the engine bay and hoped engine revs picked up.
This looks a lot more accurate.

Ebay or Amazon purchase?

[gm]

The sort of thing you might expect to see Edd using on wheeler deelers 

[The Moog]

I reckon it would be good to hunt down annoying vacuum and water leaks. 

 

It was eBay buy - about £40. I was mostly expecting it to be pants - but seems to work. 

 

I had been looking for a smoke leak kit but they are mostly USA and £££. 

 

[Skizzer]

VOODOO GADGET.

Big want. Thanks Mr Puss, top tip.

[Jim Bell]

 

 

*Boop beep*

Is not Leek, is Sprout. 

*Boop beep*

[Jim Bell]

Worked great on this Mazda 323f GTi abs. 

 

 

 

*Beep boop*

Leek detected

*Boop Beep*

[Jim Bell]

 

 

*Boo0P Beeeeeeeeeeeeep*

1022 Leek Err0R

*Bbbbbbbbooob*

 

[Zelandeth]

Interesting...not an instrument I'd ever even heard of.  I may need to investigate one of those at that price.  Especially given the few thousand vacuum lines on the Jag could be quite useful.

[HMC]

Great gadget, I’m a firm believer in drunken purchases. Mostly.

[hairnet]

9 hours ago, Jim Bell said:

 

 

*Boop beep*

Is not Leek, is Sprout. 

*Boop beep*

'this is not leek

its FUCKING ashbourne'

sack sat nav

 

[omegod]

Hmmm that 323 GTI isn't J598 EMY by any very very slim chance is it ?

[loserone]

35 minutes ago, omegod said:

Hmmm that 323 GTI isn't J598 EMY by any very very slim chance is it 

No.

 

[omegod]

2 minutes ago, loserone said:

No.

 

Sniff , never mind ,  I've never seen another after the one I had, it was cam tappy as hell but Jesus it was fast 

[Flat4]

Wish I'd known about these things before I sold my GTB. I might have kept it but it there's so many vac pipes, trying to find the one with the boost leak would have been like looking for a needle in a hay stack.

[The Moog]

The mx5 has been a very naughty car and been sitting in the corner for a few days. 

The new o2 sensor arrived so I swapped them .. they look the same 

Alas the new one is slightly longer. I will have to see what that is about another time. 

A challenge was that the car wouldnt start. It would crank but not fire in the slightest. Back to basics approach meant to test fuel first  

Yep that looks good enough to go. Consulting the learned scottish/yorkshire shiters I went back to even more basicser.  Plugs pulled and they moist as an otters pocket 

So fuel was getting into the cylinders. Although plugs were really really sooted up. Cleaned up and made no difference so left it to think about its actions. 

 

Next day it was back to it - i decided to stick the old fuel injectors as that would reduce the number of variables.  First I had remembered I took an earth off to clean - so triple checked that i hadn't missed a connection.  Sadly it wasnt that simple. 

Time to get the fuel rail off - it is just a case of ICV off then you should be able to hoik it out. 

Lovely old job, until one of the injectors made a bid for freedom. Dropping down behind the starter motor... ffs 

After much sticking my hands in tight places and waggling grabby things I decided to bite the bullet and pull the inlet manifold off again. 

can you see the little blighter? 

 

Peekaboo ... 

I swapped over the seals from the new injectors on to the old ones as they were past their best. 

The little hook tools make this a doodle. 

I also took the opportunity to clean out the injector holes as they were a bit icky 

 

Old injectors with new seals all back together 

The old injector seals were definitely fit for the bin 

Gasket on 

All started to be buttoned up 

 

And it fired up sort of. A quick wizz round with the wand of leeks 

Everything looked good. 

Now just needed to check the map in the megasquirt. 

Look mum no leads! I had also invested in a bluetooth Megasquirt connector meaning i can log into the car remotely. 

And we manged to get a decent idle with no fuel being hurled out the back 

 

Next up is to check to see if I can get the o2 sensor to fit and then do a tune.

 

New sparkplugs are on order as I think that will help 

 

 

[The Moog]

Spark plugs arrived and were in miles better shape - certainly helped with the running. 

Still had the ongoing issues with o2 sensor being out of range in the tuning part of the software.  Some pondering over a cup of tea made me think about what could be causing it. I went back into project settings and there it was. The sensor was set up as narrowband not wideband.  When I installed and imported the tune from Mr Pirate I assumed all the settings had been copied over. Obviously not. 

On a narrowband sesnor it only tells the car rich or lean - it looks for around 0.5v for Stoich. The wideband uses different range with 3.3v showing stoich. Hence the car dumping fuel in during tuning as it wasnt seeing what it needed to. 

With that side issue sorted, I took the car for a quick spin - data logging to see the issue. Under any sort of boost or acceleration the car cuts the ecu (this was the initial problem alongside poor idling). Before I wondered if it was a boost cut out - but the laptop lost total connection with the ECU showing that it had powered down.  

Next port of call is to look at the earths. A poor earth can cause the ecu to reset and Northern monkey suggested that under acceleration it might be loosing contact. 

The one on the PPF is my first place to look as this can break easily - we had repaired the one on BAL. 

[mitsisigma01]

PPF ?...... Piss Poor Flatulence ??

What is PPF

[Zelandeth]

At least you can readily get those sensors now...the Skoda 135 Rapid (fuel injection and cat equipped version of the 136) used a wideband lambda sensor, and back when I had mine they were ridiculously expensive to get hold of (in a £300 car).  I had actually got about 3/4 of the way through designing a conversion circuit to allow me to get it running at least vaguely right with a standard sensor.

The sensor being literally 3" from the exhaust ports in the head meant that they were reputed to have a short life at the best of times.

I ran out of patience with the car before getting that finished though.  Realising there were about five of them left on the road made me realise that my efforts weren't likely to benefit many people, so the project was never finished.

[The Moog]

17 hours ago, mitsisigma01 said:

PPF ?...... Piss Poor Flatulence ??

What is PPF

Almost - Power Plant Frame .. 

14 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

At least you can readily get those sensors now...the Skoda 135 Rapid (fuel injection and cat equipped version of the 136) used a wideband lambda sensor, and back when I had mine they were ridiculously expensive to get hold of (in a £300 car).  I had actually got about 3/4 of the way through designing a conversion circuit to allow me to get it running at least vaguely right with a standard sensor.

The sensor being literally 3" from the exhaust ports in the head meant that they were reputed to have a short life at the best of times.

I ran out of patience with the car before getting that finished though.  Realising there were about five of them left on the road made me realise that my efforts weren't likely to benefit many people, so the project was never finished.

This is aftermarket - Offical Bosch one was £160 ish so took a chance on a £40 ebay special to get it running. 

[The Moog]

One of the benefit of lockdon is lunch breaks can be used for tinkering.

In order to narrow down issues with mx5 I thought I would start with a compression test - just in case it was hgf.

Across all four cylinders


I think that is quite good for a turboed mx5 with 280 k km on it.


Next up was to check grounds

Battery ground - removed and cleaned


Engine to body ground strap replaced


Common ground connector cleaned up


Random other ground cleaned


Then checked the body ground by running a 12v feed from battery and then used volt meter to check engine ground


Still having issues so next up was the ECU. It's hidden under a panel in the passenger side


Oh - it's a bit moist


The deadening had held the damp there


Removed it to access the megasquirt


Check the connector


A deeper looked revealed the problem


Two of the grounds had come off. I remember watching the skid factory where they said they don't solder connectors anymore as with vibrations in the car they will crack over time. It looks like it is what has happened here.

Feeling like a problem solving god, I have ordered some waterproof connectors to replace the whole connector block.

Whilst it was out I took the opportunity to give the cover a quick derust and then paint

[PhilA]

Yup, get yourself a decent set of crimping pliers! Crimps, done properly, are more reliable than an unsupported solder joint.

 

Phil

[The Moog]

The Saab has a bit of an odd misfire at idle.

Taking the cheapest option first I fitted a set of plugs to it.

Covers off


First thing - the rocket cover has a couple of loose bolts

Plugs have had their monies worth


Hmmm might have found part of the issue


Also looks like I need a gasket for the cam cover.


Whilst I was there I had a quick leak check


My little meter ticked it's little bollocks off, so I am guessing there is an air leak down the back

[The Moog]

Another giant step forward today - I think I fixed the mx5 issue.

It seems that MS1 can be a bit funny about its grounds and they like to go to the engine block. They also should be separate from the wideband sensor.


I so I tried that with some wire I had which seemed to solve the issue.

It was just a proof of concept - I will make it permanent later. I ran the ground to the front left engine ground and clamped it with a jump lead to double ensure that made good contact. The car would boost without cutting out.

To fix the sheared pins I removed the ECU connector and used these funky butt connectors to ensure good connections. It saves all the messing about with a soldering iron


Take the wires you need


Slip some heat shrink over

Strip the wire ends and make them join in the middle of the tube.


Heat the solder ring till you see it fill in-between the strands then heat down to shrink the plastic tube. There are plastic rings that grip the wire


Once all looks good whip up the heat shrink and shrink it over the join


The grounds from the ECU were spliced into one so I removed it to individual strands but then they were quite short. I removed the ECU plug and extended them

[The Moog]

I definitely haven't fixed the issue.

Better than it was but still a challenge. Under no load car is fine but a bit of boost and half the time megasquirt goes offline.

Reading around it seems grounds are one of the main issues.

First off was to run new grounds to the engine block.

Before testing I wanted to move the AFR and boost guage to the to pod the tombstone. They are down by the gear lever which is hard to see when driving.

On eBay I found some guage holders that replace the eyeball airvents



Mocked up


I had to extend the AFR wiring to make sure that it could run up the tombstone without pulling at the gauges.

I will need to replace the gear boot as it has disintegrated

Looks ok and I can see it easily without taking eyes off the road


Using a wire coat hanger I ran individual grounds through the main wiring grommet in the firewall


Of course when I went to test it - windows did this


Ffs.


Back up and running and still the same issue.


I tested the main battery ground at this point connected to PPF. It wasn't good and looked quite corroded


Cleaned up


Still the same problem.

I also ran big grounds to engine block and split up the grounds to check that wasn't causing the issue.

Next up is to review the megasquirt wiring.


The car ran well when I bought it from FPirate so it should be simple.

Next options are to look at the soldering on the board as this can cause issues.

I also need to upgrade the firmware as there was a last update at begining of the year.

Or try a new pigtail - only £30 and would eliminate that issue.

Or upgrade to MS 2 or 3 - MS1 is non longer supported.

[Tickman]

Keep plodding away at this, I have no idea where I would start with all that wiring.

[The Moog]

Next port of call was to check the ECU itself.



Looks ok


So closer staring revealed this


The wire has burnt through


More staring led me to



This leg has sheared from the connection.


I am proper rubbish at soldering so options are

1) buy a soldering station - have some practice and then reflow the joints

2) send it off to get repaired (£100 I think)

3) send it off to get upgraded to megasquirt 2 (£140)

4) send it off to get upgraded to megasquirt 3 (£240)

5) get a full replacement speedunio CU (£250) then sell this one on to recoup some money

Will have a ponder on it. I am very tempted by 1 as at least it is a new skill.

[Zelandeth]

I have to admit to having never seen one of these ECUs before...but the hackery around that last transistor immediately starts raising red flags to me.  I very much doubt it left the factory like that.  Of course I don't know the history of that particular unit and there may be a good reason it's been done, by someone who knows their stuff.

If it's just a matter of sticking that lead back on there and replacing a damaged bit of wire I'd be happy to do that for you for no charge.  Should only be a 20 minute job.