Dead.... but WHY? EDIT: HELP NEEDED

PurpleDinosaur · Post by **PurpleDinosaur** » December 5th, 2007, 10:48 pm

History: Had cracked air intake which made the car run uber lean... found this and gave it he temp fix ala monster tape... worked like a champ; car ran great. Drove it home Friday evening. Fast Fwd to Sunday morning... cold and wet. No start.

Having seen a plug wire light show while making the tape fix a week earlier and having the parts on hand I replaced Cap, Rotor, Wires, Plugs, and Airfilter.

Old Cap and rotor were toast so I was feeling pretty confident I'd be back in business but when I went to fire it up... nothing. It would fire on a random cyclinder but not enough to even think about catching.

Pulled codes.

TPS and EGR - nothing new... they've been there for months and the cars has always run. The new codes were 17 and 24... Feedback loop...

Fuel Pump? Fuel Filter? Injectors?

Any ideas appreciated.

Barney

shameem · Post by **shameem** » December 6th, 2007, 12:53 am

Make sure that the plug wires are according to the proper firing order....
Make sure the fuel pump turns on and you are getting fuel pressure at the injectors...

jason5151 · Post by **jason5151** » December 6th, 2007, 1:18 am

yeah i would also say you may have mixed up the firing order here recheck then report back!,also make sure your plugs are gapped to spec,
torqued to spec,and apply dielectric grease to contacts.. should dot you i's and cross your t's this should eliminate the possibility of error here!

PWRD_BY_HKS · Post by **PWRD_BY_HKS** » December 6th, 2007, 3:08 am

make sure you have gas pimp.... you'd be surprised....

are you getting spark....

if not might be ignition coil....

check gas line.... pull off one of the lines from fpr and if no gas flows when you crank then you found your problem....

process of elimination.... check sensors... check everything... might even be your battery just completly dead....

PurpleDinosaur · Post by **PurpleDinosaur** » December 6th, 2007, 4:05 pm

Diagramed the wires but I'll double check 'em...

Fuel Pump - I'll do HKS fuel line check tonight...

Plugs - have corect gap but I didn't check for spark... will do tonight.

Gonna add a can of dry gas and 5 gal of fresh fuel just in case thers some water in the lines...

Battery is not dead.

anything else? I've got some time to work on it so the more ideas the better.

94mx3precidia · Post by **94mx3precidia** » December 6th, 2007, 7:19 pm

How much did you crank the engine over? you might have fouled the spark plugs.

If you dont have spark try replacing the plugs.

PurpleDinosaur · Post by **PurpleDinosaur** » December 6th, 2007, 8:46 pm

confusion reigns...

Manual show firing order 123456 per 92_B2_003

Cyl arrangement per 92_B2_003
135
246

Disty rotates conterclockwise

But manual shows disty post arrangement as

453
612

Wouldn't this yield firing order 123546??

To further F me up, my chiltons manual shows same Cyl order and firing order (123456) but shows the disty as

546
123

which would give 123645

WTF?

In other news, I have a nice fat spark and the Fuel pump runs when key is turned on... gonna go check for fuel at TB...

and then I may shoot my car...

PurpleDinosaur · Post by **PurpleDinosaur** » December 8th, 2007, 2:14 pm

Firing order issue has been resolved - see Tunes Thread in this forum...

So far, changed plugs, wires, cap and rotor... added fresh fuel w/ dry gas... cleared codes and tried to start. No go. No new codes after attempting to start.

NOw checking Fuel pressure / Filter.

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » December 8th, 2007, 2:22 pm

Check your timing man. And check the timing belt. Especially if the car fired at all with the improper firing order. You should be able to pull out a spark plug and smell for gas to see if there is fuel. And there are sections in the shop manual for testing symptom conditions like this.

Tunes67

PurpleDinosaur · Post by **PurpleDinosaur** » December 9th, 2007, 5:41 am

I've got fuel - pulled line to the injector rails and turned key on (I would say cranked engine but with the VAF disconnnected the car did not crank - as if no juice to the started , but cranked fine before I took the airbox / VAF off - normal?) No water in fuel.

I nver had the order order wrong - that was just womething that I got concerned about after looking at the manuals. My order matchs yoursa / the 92 manual.

Timing belt... Can it slip a tooth just trying to start ? The car ran fine, I p[arked and itwould not start a day later.

Audessy · Post by **Audessy** » December 9th, 2007, 11:56 am

Okay, that's starting to sound like a ground issue maybe? Your engine should crank with no problems with the VAF disconnected. It wouldn't surprise me if it wouldn't start without it. But no, the VAF shouldn't interfere with the starting system.

You plugged it back in and it cranks? Or is it a permanent problem now?

PurpleDinosaur · Post by **PurpleDinosaur** » December 10th, 2007, 9:08 am

Haven't put it back together to try to crank it again since verifying fuel.

PurpleDinosaur · Post by **PurpleDinosaur** » December 10th, 2007, 10:51 am

TAlked to a shop...

Guy wants $80 for disgnosis which seems reasonable.

Sez $400 labor + parts to replace timing belt if thats what it needs...

Is this a reasonable amount for this repair?

thanks.

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » December 10th, 2007, 12:48 pm

Depends on your location and the going rates there. Around here that would be slightly on the high side.. but not unreasonable. And there are plenty of shops in this area (including my mazda dealer) that would charge double that.

Its fairly simple to tell if your timing belt has jumped though. Rotate the engine till the line on the crank pulley lines up with the 0 on the timing mark gauge. Then remove the timing belt covers and look to see if both the timing marks of the cam gears are lined up with the timing marks on the heads. I have a pic in the V6 faq forum in my write up about how to change your timing belt that will show you where to see the timing marks. You could also check to see if there is tension on your timing belt at all.. if the belt seems really loose.. likely its your tensioner that went bad on you.. and this seems the most likely since you are still getting spark. If the belt snapped.. the distributor wouldnt turn.. and the ignition system wouldnt be providing spark still.

So in summary.. if you have fuel & spark.. its gotta be timing..

Tunes67