Mustang SVO RallyCross/Stage Rally

In reply to fastcargoesfast :

I did unplug it, but you are right, it is probably worth a second look, it definitely could be a flooding issue. Thanks for the procedure, do you have the service manual for this?

Progress! Sort of

TPS and VAM checked ok, the charge temp sensor came back with 65 ohms which would mean it thinks it is a very high ambient.

But, I pulled the spark plugs out and after one try of cranking, the plugs were hosed with fuel and the pistons coated in fuel. With the plugs out I cranked the engine over and blew some air in the cylinders and blew the plugs off. Then threw then back in and cranked it over and it finally fired a few times before flooding out again. I pulled the plugs out and they were once again drenched and there was still a fog of fuel in the cylinders.

So something is telling the computer to dump fuel in the cylinders, but not sure what. An ambient sensor might, but at high ambient, it should be telling the car to go lean, not rich. It also doesn't start with the VAM unplugged.

So what else would tell the injectors to run rich? Maybe still a PIP?

Swapped injectors... no change

changed distributor/PIP/TFI... no change

I can get it to fire once or twice if you let it sit, then go right from "off" to "start" without waiting a second in "on" for the fuel pump to prime. But once the fuel pump is on, it seems to flood the E36 M3 out of the cylinders. TPS and VAM test good, it's starting to sound like I need a computer, so making Nemadji Rally seems close to out of the question at this point.

I'm going to make a tall whiskey drink and think about my life decisions..... might be time to reconsider Enduro racing, at least my dirtbike starts

In reply to olso3904 :

Bad fuel pressure regulator on the fuel rail.

Does it still provide fuel with the VAM unplugged?  You could have a sticking or leaky injector- you said fuel pressure was good but maybe check again per Javelin's suggestion.  Are the injectors in there OEM or something else?  I once had a set of Standard Motor Products injectors fail open so badly my catalytic converter caught fire- I considered just letting it burn. 

Sorry, I don't have the full manual. 

One other thing to try is to hold the throttle to the floor while trying to start the car; this should put the ECU into "clear flood" mode. That is to say, it shouldn't pulse the injectors at all. See if that helps to start for at least a moment. You did say that the injectors were pulsing with a noid light, correct? ( I think the injectors are permanently powered but they don't pulse until a connection to ground is made by the ECU so if there's a grounded wire there, they will be "full on"). 

Also I'd take a peek at the timing belt to make sure it's not stretching, wiggling, dry rotted, etc. Or do a quick compression check, if the cam timing is off, it'll come up with pretty bad compression. And throw a timing light on it as well, just in case. (If you've already mentioned all that I apologize, I didn't read back through the thread again, I just wanna see you go racing, I can't follow a thread for this long and not see a payoff!)

Hey I lied about the manual. I do still have a zip of one of the manuals (which probably came from the foureyes site - http://vb.foureyedpride.com/). Check that or use my username to mail me at the G mail com and I'll send you the manual.

In reply to fastcargoesfast :

Yep, holding the pedal to the floor gets it to hit one or two times, then back to only cranking. Yep, noid light pulses and 12V is present when ignition is on, but not cranking. 

I have put a timing light on, but there are no hard marks on the cam gear, only some paint marks, the #1 flashes at the correct time, but the cam timing is hard to tell, so I think a compression test is a good idea. I have left that out since it shutdown while driving and was able to restart before finally dying, but I'm pretty well out of other possibilities. I even drained the fuel and blew the lines out, refilled with fresh gas, but no change.

In reply to olso3904 :

So a couple hits with the pedal down would seem to indicate that it's just burning that fuel coating the cylinders and chamber until its burned off (foot to the floor, it stops adding fuel) and since it does hot, that likely indicates that timing isn't bad - this is most probably something where it's just dumping fuel in for some reason.

One thing to check, if you can pull the ECM is for any caps that are bubbled at the top/end or have a leg that is fried off (usually these things are easy to spot). If this is the case, the PCB should be reasonably robust so with some desoldering braid, flux, an iron and some electronics solder + $0.15 of caps you can likely fix it if there are bad caps. Polarity matters, also, as long as voltage is as high or higher than stock you're fine... Since finding stuff locally is likely difficult, I'd cannibalize from a broken piece electronics or old computer MB, but I am almost a hoarder and have crap like that sitting around. Or go hit a computer repair shop since radio shack is no longer a thing, and they often have to repair lap tops of a certain vintage for pretty much the same thing.

In reply to fastcargoesfast :

Yeah, the likelyhood that the timing is close enough to let it hit, but far enough off that it won't run or backfire isn't likely, but would a compression check. If it is an ECM, i'm probably not going to be able to get it ready for the race. Im leaving tomorrow for a week and will only have 4 days to prep for the race. 

I got my package from GRM today and added some more contingency. It still won't start

I took a few weeks off from working on the Mustang, I was planning on volunteering for Nemadji, but it was canceled last minute, which gave me an open saturday. Being frustrated with throwing big parts at it, I went back to basics and changed the plugs, cap, rotor and wires. But same thing, a few minor hits, then nothing.

All along I have been pretty convinced it was an ignition/ecu/fuel issue, because of the way it originally shut off, restarted only to die again. But I bought a compression tester just to make sure before I bought a new ECU and found this:

Uh oh

#1=30psi #2=30psi #3=45psi #4=50psi

 I double checked my setup and sprayed some some around the compression tester fittings, but sure enough thats what pressure it makes. I'm still pretty suspicious since all the cylinders are low. Not sure what could have gone so wrong, so quick on all the cylinders. It also makes it alot less likely to be just a head gasket.

In reply to olso3904 :

Cam timing?  Can't build compression if the valves aren't closed...

So I pulled the valve cover off and barred the engine over to TDC, The valves were closed, with the piston at the top, but they looked late to close. Unfortunately, it has an aftermarket cam sprocket, with no timing marks. So I pulled the cam gear bolt off and saw there was no key in the gear

At first, I thought the key was missing, but one I pulled the gear off, I found it has a bunch of notches to set the key into, all with a ton of slop.

With the crank still at TDC, I robbed the aux shaft gear and put it on the cam (since Ford used the same gear for both) and found the point was retarded about 10 degrees. Is that enough to cause a no start? How did it happen in the first place? Who knows, but it sort of matches the symptoms, so I ordered a new belt, tensioner and sprockets and will see if I get them before Christmas break and I can get more time to work on it.

In reply to olso3904 :

Seems like a very promising lead! The symptoms and low compression on all cylinders seems to line up with timing being way off. 

why do ford 2.3t's seems like such annoying engines? I mean ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  threatens to burn his to the ground quite often.

In reply to MrChaos :

It's a design that wasn't exactly full of brilliant ideas in its' original sub-90hp form, with incredibly crappy fuel injection bandaided onto it and a turbocharger for good measure.  Yeah, the drag racing guys will tell you "but it can make a reliable blah blah horsepower at blah blah psi of boost!" and they're right, but their cars only need to run for a minute or so at a time.

I had something similar on mine when it would eat the aux shaft/dizzy gears. Worth just pulling the dizzy and looking at the teeth real closely. 
jcamper

In reply to Jcamper :

Oddly, it seems like the distributor was not the source of this issue. I did already swap it and checked the teeth and it looks to have a nice pattern and the distributor was in sync with the crank. So good news is I now have a complete spare ignition system.

I daydreamed of engine swapping while I have been trying to figure this out, but I think going to a standalone and getting rid of the Ford ignition/fuel system. I'm already in need of a tuner since the engine seems pretty pissed about the turbo restrictor.

If my new repair plan doesn't work, I might still toss the whole thing and start looking for something that would play nice with the T5

In reply to olso3904 :

I went in a circle with the standalone thing- even so far as having a running Megasquirt on the 2.3T that is now in my rally XR4Ti, although it was in a different car at the time.  The problem is you still have a crack prone cylinder head and an iffy oil pump drive to deal with, now with all of the fun that comes with trying to calibrate a standalone for every possible condition your car will have to run in- so I went back to using stock stuff, becuase cheap.  I'm not sure whether I made the right decision.

I went standalone-MS3 with a setup that would route air around the throttle body when running the antilag. Then I daily drove it 100 miles a day for a year or two. Used E85 with an HX-35 turbo and coil near plug ignition, full sequential injection.

I think the car sits because there was quite a language barrier when I sold it. I wrote up a very long owner's manual, and sent them all my files. I think the daughter drove it without permission and put regular gas in it. She called me and I explained that was an absolute no-no without remapping it. I think she hid the keys to cover herself based on my last call with the now owner. 
 

Sorry, got off topic there. Back to your regularly scheduled programming!

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I had a good conversation with some guys running a Volvo 240 at Ojibwe rally, who were running a Holley standalone with some external crank and cam triggers, which looks like a good option to eliminate the TFI and Ford ECU, which may also increase the reliability of the Aux shaft drive.. maybe?

Its a pretty big investment, especially when it would get you pretty far on an engine swap, like a newer turbo Duratec, but getting an ECU and bellhousing to adapt to a T5 is another big investment.

Other cheaper swaps don't seem to be make much sense right now, since all I am really after is 250ish HP, with more reliability, tuneability and less weight.

I guess depending on if and how it runs will make some of these decisions for me. Parts are going to start showing up tomorrow, so it should be an interesting christmas break

In reply to olso3904 :

I stripped an aux drive that didn't have a distributor on it when running megasquirt- just a stock oil pump and cold weather was enough to overload it.  That was a stock drive and not the Esslinger piece, though.

Hate to see the Ford 2.3 being so badly maligned here.  It really is a very good engine and can be very durable if treated right.  I have an 85.5 SVO that I have been road racing/tracking for several years without any major issues.  It has the original 90K mile short block and a recently rebuilt '84 head with stock valves and a Bo-Port 1.5 cam.  I have well over a thousand hard laps on this thing at places like Road Atlanta, Barber, AMP, Roebling Road, TGPR and Hutchinson Island.  I did replace the OEM computer with a PimpX from Stinger (megasquirt 3 based), a very easy and quick installation along with a wide-band and went to 60 lb injectors.  I use auto-tune on the Stinger supplied AFR and timing tables and it is solid as a rock, runs great, responsive, happy to get beat on.  It should be quite easy to get a "reliable 250RWHP" from it without anything more than free flowing the intake and exhaust systems, 18 to 20 psi of boost and a good computer with a good tune.  I have heard all the horror stories about the aux gear but I have not experienced any issues at all with mine, even after replacing the original distributor with one from a spare engine due to a wobbly PIP.  I just put 40 laps on it last weekend at Barber and it's just fine, best laptimes I have ever run there.  Run the best 5W-30 oil you can get, like Amsoil Signature or Mobil 1.  Let the thing warm up a while before beating on it.  Pumping thick, cold oil is going to put the most strain on the aux shaft and distributor gear.

olso3904's problem is exasperating for sure.  I'll bet that the cam timing is the primary issue.  Any engine just needs fuel, air, spark and compression in the right amounts at the right time and it will run.  These things WILL jump timing belt teeth if you attempt to turn the engine over backwards, or if for some reason it diesels backwards on shutdown.  Don't do that.  There are numerous you-tube videos on how to check and set the cam timing for these engines in various ways, strings, levels, all sorts of oddball methods, none of which is particularly difficult.  The OEM computer is over 30 years old and probably wasn't designed to last 10.  You can find original PE computers on e-bay or LA2 computers from later Turbo Coupes that you can try if you think the computer is at fault, which is very possible.  Aluminum electrolytic caps do go bad.  Even though the OEM computer is primitive, it does have some rudimentary diagnostics that you could try to capture from the diag connector.  But, IMHO, if the word "reliable" is in your list of needs, a modern aftermarket computer is going to be necessary.

In reply to stukndapast :

I agree, with how much power I am planning to make, the 2.3 is just fine. Any engine has is quirks and trouble spots and I just spent a month exploring this one's. I think the biggest issue is what you also hit on, the computer was decent when it was new, but hasn't aged well and combined with a 30 year old wiring harness, I'm bound to keep fighting gremlins or doing manual diagnostics where a modern computer would provide feedback.

Stinger makes a plug and play MS2 based Microsquirt, that also has a new harness to adapt it to the 2.3. I think it hits the basic needs of what I am looking for

https://www.stinger-performance.com/store/tuning/microsquirt/microsquirt-pnp-2.3-ford

But going to a more universal standalone and an external crank/cam trigger is tempting, since it would eliminate the biggest trouble spot I see.

I have some time to figure it out, but good news is,I just installed the new belt/tensioner and factory gears, so I could time it correctly and I now have 145psi of cylinder pressure. Just waiting on a valve cover gasket to show up and I can put the engine back together and test fire.

On the other hand, I just found out Zetecs bolt up to the factory bellhousing and sounds awesome with ITBs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4Gejel3lk