Adam Poland

My piece of work is still not working right. I'm having a problem with my car dying as soon as i touch the gas. I just installed a Quad-M MAF, and the problem has started ever since. The wiring is right, and I have tuned the different files all over the place. Every single time it's the exact same thing. Is it possible that the injectors are fried, as they were on my racecar when we fried a DME, and the factory injectors worked when the stock AFM was on the car. I've tested the voltage to the meter, it's good? I don't know what to do at this point, and I'm about a week away from giving up on the whole car. Someone, PLEASE give me ANY advice/information you have, so I can fix this thing and not have to sell my baby.

gt37vgt

old phrase ... when you hear hoofs think horses not Zebras.. big vacuum leak.

samluke

Could be a MAF problem. MAF can show the same symptom. Put the stock one back on and see if it will run.

Rogue_Ant

Agreed - go back to stock AFM and injectors, that way you know it should work... Then take things one step at a time, to identify the problem individually.

Adam Poland

I have checked every vacuum hose for leaks...none.

Ok, put factory injectors on, and the car would not start at all, which would make sense to me, because they're too small. So the injectors made a difference. With the 55# injectors, the car idles fine. But as soon as you give the motor any air, it dies. Its not even giving the wideband gauge enough time to read and tell me if it's rich or lean.

It seems to me it's as if the problem is the injectors, like theyre not communicating with the MAF. Every time I tune the MAF, then load the data back into the table, it shows that my last tune did in fact make it onto the meter, but there was no difference when I touch the gas...it still died instantly.

Now, for the weird part that contradicts what I just said. The A/F ratio DOES change at idle. But even with it right, the car still instantly dies when you give it air, like the injectors stopped communicating.

This, however, is the same problem I had when I was using the AFM and a power perfect.

There is one more thing that makes me believe strongly that the problem IS the injectors. They worked perfect, until my dad unhooked the power perfect because he was pissed that he couldnt get the ratios right, and tried to bypass the power perfect.In doing so, he crossed wires, and fried a DME AND the harness. The injectors have not worked since.

Here is a list of configurations/events in the order that they happened, in case there was any confusion, as I did jump around quite a bit:

1. stock injectors, stock AFM (worked perfect)
2. 55# injectors, power perfect, stock AFM (worked fine, with tuning)
3. Father got pissed that he couldn't get the car tuned just right, and decided to try to bypass power perfect (he crossed wires, and fried a DME and harness)
4. Replaced DME and harness, still stock AFM, power perfect (injectors did not work right)
5. Removed power perfect, re-installed factory injectors, kept stock AFM (car ran fine at 17 psi, until 4500 rpm, where it lost fuel)
6. Installed Lindsey Racing Quad-M, re-installed same 55# injectors as before (car idles, but dies when given ANY amount of air)
7. Kept Quad-M, removed 55# injectors, re-installed stock injectors (car does not start at all)
8. I am now on Rennlist, typing what you see.

Does this not seem like an injector problem to anyone else?

carlege

Did you buy this from BUDD because he couldnt get his car to start with his MAF..... And he successfully sold it on this site..... wonder what poor guy bought it

Adam Poland

No i didnt. i hope i get mine working, otherwise there will be another one like his for sale on here, while I'll be driving around in a turbo or supercharged miata...

theedge

Have you tested your TPS? And possibly more importantly, the wiring?

Adam Poland

The TPS clicks where it's supposed to. As soon as you open the TB, and as soon as you close it. I triple checked the wiring two or three times before I even thought about re-connecting the battery....

Jeff N.

I'll risk weighing in here.

Your injectors are working fine. If they weren't, your car wouldn't start.

You don't say if you have a narrow band or wideband setup. If you have a narrowband, you can expect to see the voltage dither back and forth between (IIR) about .2 to .7 volts. This is normal and isn't really telling you much. If you have a wideband and you're seeing the A/F change, then are you running closed loop? If you are, what you're seeing is the DME trying to adjust the fuel to the stoich ratio. This would be consistent with a mis-calibrated MAF / injector setup.

Typically, a car will idle without the MAF or AFM signal. IIR, the idle pulse is a function of the RPM and the inject size. Are you running a chip for 55# injectors? If so, I would expect it to idle somewhat even if the MAF or AFM are hosed.

So, it dies when you touch the throttle right? That's when the car cares about the air flow signal. TPS says we are not longer at idle, the DME reads the a/f signal and the RPM and looks up a fueling value and pulses the injector.

So, I think it's safe to say that your MAF to chip to injector setup is out of whack. Has this specific setup EVER run? If not, you're in deep water trying to make it all work. A Power Perfect is not the tool to make a generic MAF work on your chip - well, it can work but I can tell you from experience it's a blunt tool for that at best. It's helpful if you need to make very fine adjustments to your fueling but short of that I wouldn't use it try to fit a MAF onto a car. MAYBE it would work but only if Lindsey give you THE MAP tied to YOUR CHIP and YOUR INJECTORS.

So - back to some basic q's.

- what chip and is it set for 55#'s?
- has this MAF/chip/injector set EVER worked?
- do you have a wideband on the car and is it calibrated?

Jeff

Adam Poland

Thank you, very useful info. I am no longer using the power perfect. It's all the Quad-M I'm messing with right now. Dave from LR sent me the MAF with the map pre-loaded, and the correct chips to fit my injector size. He said it would need fine tuning, but it shouldn't have died the way it did. He re-wrote some chips, thinking that maybe the first one he sent was the wrong setup somehow. But even those chips did the same thing. Next, I tried new files. Same results. Used the original file sent on the MAF. Same results. The current setup has NEVER worked. I have a wideband kit, and I'm not 100% positive it's calibrated. It's an Innovate Motorsports kit from Lindsey Racing, and I'm not sure how to calibrate it?

Also, what are your suggestions on the matter? Take it to a shop, or what?

Rogue_Ant

Most shops won't know the first thing to do, IMO.

The DME uses the air-flow signal at nearly all times, including idle (the one exception is during cranking). However it does have a 'minimum' value allowed, this way even if the reported MAF signal is way too low, the car will most likely still idle.

Adam, go back to your #1 setup - that way we start with a known-good combination. Once verified that it is working properly, install just your MAF (and the configuration file for stock injectors). Then let us know what happens.
Have to take this one-step at a time.

-Rogue

Jeff N.

Re calibrating the Innovate - check the manual. There's a procedure you can do to zero in the unit. It's not hard but you have do it with sensor in either free air or with the car off for 24 hours.

Re your issues - If Dave at LR is telling you that you have the right chips, right MAF and right injector, then I think you have some sort of wiring issue. Most likely with your MAF connection. Sounds to me like the MAF signal is not making it's way to the DME. Is the PowerPerfect wiring all cleaned out? That will intercept your MAF signals and could hose the wiring.

Maaaaybe an issue with your TPS.

I would start by triple checking all the wiring to the setup manual. Make sure the PowerPerfect stuff it all out. Then, I would test the TPS for correct responses. Go slow. Make diagrams. Compare to the manuals. It will work but you have to damn **** on the whole thing. I'll bet that somethings not connected right with the MAF.

Jeff N.

More good advice. I'd make sure the PowerPerfect stuff is out first.

Rogue_Ant

Agreed - I revised my post.

Again - I agree.