[jhax]

hey everyone, i am having some troubles starting my car, a few weeks ago my megasquirt was resetting on me because i had crimped all of my wires instead of properly soldering them. so i went back through my harness and soldered it all. now for some reason my car will not start at all. it cranks for a few seconds and the cranking slows down until it doesnt crank anymore. i have attached a couple logs showing what the car does, for some reason the voltage drops severely while cranking, from 12.5 volts to 7.8 volts. I have tried 4 different batteries, i was using a Werker (deep cycle wheel chair battery) which worked great, i traded that one in for a brand new one and still the same result, i used a standard car battery that is in the car i am currently driving (pontiac fiero) and nothing. and then i just traded my wheelchair battery in for a brand new car battery, only to find the same result. the engine will turn over twice or three times but slow down until it wont turn anymore. I am completely stumped. I have a MS1 extra v3 board with wasted spark running the hi res10g code but will be reflashing it tomorrow back to the 029y4 code. i am baffled as to what is going on. it doesnt seem to be a problem with ms but the charging system its self. i just bought a brand new starter as well recently cleaned and gapped my plugs, i get power to everywhere that power needs to be, injectors, main relay starter, and ECU. Obviously something is robbing the cranking power but i dont see what. if i could get some help that would be great. The engine is a 1.8t AWP (2004 Jetta engine) running 42 lb (440 cc) injectors.

Thanks

Justin

PS i am not sure how to attach files it tells me in a box below this one that i do not have permission to so post your emails if you are interested in seeing the log and msq

 

[ps2375]

Have you gone back thru all grounds for the MS and for the battery/charging/starter? That is were I would begin. And is either cable to/from the battery heating up while cranking? Could be a sign of a high resistance cable (gone bad), that could explain the rapid drop in voltage.

 

[need_a_VR6]

If something went 'stupid' and you're loading it up on fuel it'll slow crank until it locks up. If you unplug the injectors or crank in floodclear does it still act that way?

Post the msq and logs on msruns and link a thread.

 

[jhax]

all grounds come from each individual sensor back to the ecu, and from the ecu (pin 19) to the grounding point on the block, i just bought a brand new battery power wire for it so that wouldnt be the problem, paul thanks for that, i think that is exactly what is going on, but what do you mean by 'stupid'?

http://msruns.com/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=22989&start=0

also would anyone be able to check for me as to why there would be too much fuel dumping into my cylinders if anyone knows, perhaps cranking PW or something? i have no clue

 

[ps2375]

What about the battery ground? That can cause the same issue with cranking.

And by "stupid", check your req fuel settings, those could have been corrupted and thus it is dumping fuel for what it thinks is there.

 

[jhax]

okay will do thanks. i have checked resistance and have an average of about 00.2 ohms throughout my system

 

[jhax]

alright so funny thing happened today, i download the msq to my ecu, pull a plug to see if i have spark, and it fired up and ran on 3 cylinders for a few seconds then died, and so i plugged the injector in and tried again, fired up for a few seconds then died, the odd part is that the injectors were unplugged, so i assume it was using excess fuel in the cylinders from a couple days ago, so i figured what the hell, plugged the injectors in and tried to fire it up and the same thing as before happened, wouldnt start. and then the starter stopped turning. so what does this tell you?

 

[ValveCoverGasket]

are the injectors shorted out? can you get some led test lights on the injector plugs?

 

[Prof315]

are the injectors shorted out? can you get some led test lights on the injector plugs?

Yeah it almost sounds like you may have solder overflow shorting a couple of wires in your newly repaired harness.

You might want to pull the oil dipstick and see if you are overfull with gas in the oil. If it is you probably have 1 or more injectors shorted and dumping fuel.

 

[need_a_VR6]

Also, if you have a stim you can check to see if you have injector driver failure on one of the two channels. The LEDs on the stim would go solid, no matter what, if that's the case.

 

[jhax]

i do not have a stim but what you said does make sense paul, when i first was soldering i was using an electric iron which gave me hell and the first place i started was my injectors, then i went to a conventional lighter and used that to solder with which worked so much nicer

 

[jhax]

alright so i had some guys come up and diagnose the problem, i resoldered the injectors, and they pulled the plugs and told me to crank it and low and behold ****in' old faithful coming out of my cylinders. so my injectors are just pouring out fuel. and since they are re-wired it has to be something in the computer unless you can think of anything different. What do you think?

 

[Prof315]

You might have killed the injector drivers. But are you sure the solder cup joints are clean and don't short to one another? I have always had a heck of a time with solder cups, so much so that I bought a pin removal tool, pins and a crimper for DB sockets from Jameco. Cost shipped was like $25 including 10 DB 15 sockets for V3.57 boards. DB37s I find locally at a surplus/junk electronics store 10 for a buck.

 

[need_a_VR6]

I like the solder cups, compared to the launch/tableswitch mods to the MS2 cards that is cake!! The really nice thing about the crimp ones is you can swap them very easily. I did my MS3 that way and it was very handy.

Anyway, I agree, make sure you haven't shorted them to each other, or the ground pins right underneath.

 

[jhax]

if you are referring to work that needs to be done on the board its self, ved (valvecovergasket) made the board and this is the second time i have had problems with the injector drivers.

 

[need_a_VR6]

What kind of injectors are you using?

 

[ValveCoverGasket]

as i recall he was running low impedance stuff...

strange that its having so many issues with the drivers though, i havent seen another one blown since the early v2.2 days

 

[Prof315]

yeah something definately seems a bit odd here. :what:

 

[jhax]

nope no low impedance stuff 440 cc injectors

 

[ValveCoverGasket]

i actually stand corrected, i think the last thing i fixed on this was an ignition driver.