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alright... I got everything hooked up, primed the oil, coolant, and fuel, and everything seemed to be set... I turned the key, and the starter just cranked....

I have no idea if I'm getting any spark or fuel injected..... arrrgg!

Do I need to use the BP starter motor with the B6 flywheel? is my starter not hooking up with the flywheel or something?

One thing I noticed is that the coolant temperature sensor said that everything was way overheated, even BEFORE I actually tried to start the car... It's clearly NOT overheated.... did I wire my injector harness incorrectly? I'm using the stock B6 harness.

Is my ECU bad? damnit... this sucks

bad ground?

To test spark:

Pull one plug wire out and lay it close to the valve cover to see if it arcs.

Do that for each one. Look at the strength of the arc as well.


To test Fuel:

Are your Fuel lines hooked up correctly?
Did you tighten your gas cap?
If you unhooked the Fuel pump-- is it plugged back in? When you turn the key to ACC can you hear the fuel pump hum?

You can also try to pull the plugs to see if you can smell any gas on the plugs. It will be a strong smell.



If you are using the B6 tranny-- then you use the b6 starter.

You may need to reset the ECU as well.

Try those & get back with us.

Look for my post several months ago called "BP Gotchas" for some possible wiring problems. My car is a 93 and yours is a 92 so you probably don't have the same problems. We need to know:

1. Where did the BP come from (Protege or Escort and the year). There are wiring differences (mostly in the fuel rail)
2. Did you replace your ECU (you can't use the MX-3 ECU). Which version did you use (BP09 or BP10)?
3. Did you replace the timing belt? If so, there are many ways you could have done it wrong and thrown off your valve timing. If you didn't you should have since it is much harder to do with the engine already installed, and you don't know what shape it's in (it can be worn out and still look great).

Your MX-3 starter should be fine. I reused mine and it was fine.

Here are some things you can test:

1. Check your ECU diagnostic codes. To do this, ground pin 10 in the diagnostic plug (a plug near your master cylinder -- many posts describe this). Then turn on the ignition and watch the blinkin' light on the dash. The light will blink slowly and/or quickly. Write down the number of blinks and whether they are slow or fast.

2. Check for spark. You can either hook up a timing light and see if it fires, or you can pull a plug wire and stick a nail in it and set it near a ground to see if you see an arc while the engine turns.

3. Check for fuel pressure. I can't think of some good quick ways to do that short of hooking up a pressure meter.

4. Check your spark plug wiring and the distributor setting. The plug wire posts on the distributor cap form a diamond with one to the top, bottom, left, and right, but turned clockwise slightly (top one is at about 1 o'clock). The top one is cyl 1 (closest to the passenger side). The one to the right is 3, the next is 4, and the last one (to the left) is 2. Someone double check me here, I'm going from fuzzy memory. I know the firing order is 1-3-4-2.

5. You might try your MX-3 distributor if necessary. The BP one I got at the junk yard was bad (throwing blink codes on the cam angle sensor), and my MX-3 one has been working just fine for about 4K miles so far.

Also, I had some old temp sensor wires in my old engine harness and some new ones in the fuel rail harness. Since I was using the old engine harness, it turned out the old ones were the correct ones to use. You need to trace your wiring to make sure you have everything correct.

I don't envy you. I had a nice garage in California in which to do all of this. My fingers are freezing just thinking about you.

update:

I adjusted some grounds that looked loose, and after about 5 seconds of running the starter motor it sputtered a bit... it didn't catch, but I saw the tach go up a bit, so I know I'm getting there.... slowly....

I know how to check the spark, but I don't have anyone to help me out with that... kinda hard to do by yourself

The fuel I know is primed, so I know it's working.

Gro thinks that maybe it's the distributor timing... I'll tweak that and try again.

But yeah, sputtered a bit... I can smell exhaust, so I think it caught... a little... dunno yet. I'll go try again. Maybe it just needs to be ressurrected a little? hmmmmm....

Hey, Atlanta's post wasn't there until I hit the submit key. His ideas are good ones. As far as the fuel lines go, make sure the source line (the one from the fuel filter) goes straight to the fuel rail, and the return one goes to the pressure regulator.

another update:

Alright... I moved the distributor to about the halfway point on the pivot, and it starts... and runs at around 1000 rpm....

thing is... it sounds like a two stroke... plunkaplunkaplunka, and it DEFINITELY doesn't sound healthy.... is taht normal for an engine that's been sitting around for potentially years?

so........ I'm kinda stumped... Gro thinks it might be dry injectors or bad spark, neither of which I can really test atm. One thing that boggles me is that the brand new temperature sensor I got (not the one for the ECU, the one for the guage) goes off the scale, rather than say that it's cold.... which is weird... I still think I've got a bad ground somewhere.....

hmmm... at least I'm sorta making progress.

as far as wiring differences go, it seems about the same... all I changed on the injector harness was move the sensor wire, and swap the old FPR plug with the BP's plug. The 92 B6 used the same injector scheme, where 2 and 4 would fire together, and 1 and 3 would too. It looks fine from that perspective.

I used the BP10 ECU, from a member at clubprotege who was parting out his old LX. It's (specifically) a BP10B, if that means anything special.

I didn't replace the timing belt, or remove it... I left it on there and rotated it around by twisting the crank pulley with a 21mm socket, to check for cracks, which there were none of. I should've replaced it I know... but I'm poor... I've taken enough flak for that already. Besides, it's only got 55k miles on it, and the engine was kept in a heated warehouse. It should be fine.

I've got about 5 or 6 days left on my engine's guarantee (the junkyard I bought it from makes sure every engine runs before they sell it... and yes, I know them to be honorable people)

I'll go start it up again in a sec and test for codes.

so the MX-3 distributor will work? I'll try that later.

alright... I checked the CEL blinking....

4 long blinks... a break, then 1 quick blink

any ideas? I'll check my MX-3 shop manual, but I dunno if they'll be the same as the BP's codes

make sure you have the firing order right.
And when i searched (http://www.troublecodes.net/mazda/) there was no code 41.

could be codes #1 and #40

1 Ignition Coil (or igntion pulse or something like that)
40 Solenoid Valve - Purge Control (no idea)


Check all the grounds in the harness (I beleive most of the ground wires are black/green) and make sure they are nice and grounded, along with the engine to the chassis(pretty sure you already said that one).

yeah..... it also said there was no code 40 or code 1 soooo...

anyway, I'll check the ignition coil.... maybe I've got a bad wire there... I did a custom job... tee hee... CD ignition (pretty much useless, actually, but it looks cool)

I got it to sputter to life one time... then I turned it off, and it wouldn't start again It sounded like it was only running on a couple cylinders though.

I'll try again in the morning