a day at track

[TurboCajun]

Steve don't say things like that.

[Steve Wood]

sorry, but if combustion pressure is blowing past the rings and blowing oil out the breathers and dip stick tube, I don't know what else to guess

[nocooler]

Probably washed the rings down - ask me how I know   


Or you could put a can of engine restorer in it 

[Scoobum]

Probably washed the rings down - ask me how I know   


Or you could put a can of engine restorer in it 

True story. One of the GTA guys...and I won't say who...couldn't get his TR engine started. He ground away on the starter trying. I told the person telling me this that if he keeps it up he'll take the rings out of it. Sure enuf, I get a call from the owner of the TR. Not sure if he said it was going through oil...oil out the breathers etc. Anyway, I ask him to run a compression check on it. I get a call a couple of hours later saying the cylinder pressures are way low. Moral of the story is this. Don't keep twisting the key staring at the heavens looking for divine intervention to start the engine. Find out WHY it won't start. It's things like this that drive me right around the bend.

[Steve Wood]

I think Keith said his compression numbers were not too bad...but his leak down numbers are on the high side and air is coming out of the valve covers and the dipstick...whe n running it is blowing oil out...

A bad intake can do this...but when doing a leak down test, there should be no air going anywhere but the cylinder

[TurboCajun]

ok used a third leak down tester and it seal good at the spark plug holes and all the cyl were right around 10-12% , called the builder and came up with it maybe the intake or a bad pcv, I order the good one from RJC i just need to change my grommet for it to fit. In the meantime i put it back together and went for a ride, its missing and backfiring still, I set the scan master to VOLTs and low and behold the voltage is freaking out. it actually  went to 0.0 then 5.5 on the scan master. I tried to data log but for some reason it did not save the file. now with the voltage drop the fuel pressure never dropped, and i did not notice any dimming of lights in the car. so I have an electrical issue that needs correcting.   I will leave the intake alone for now until I get the voltage issue fixed. let me explain, back in oct 2015 the week before cruising the coast the car started to backfire, I notice then that the volts were getting low so once at CTC I got a 200amp alt. from a fellow GN owner and we put it on the car, the volts stayed steady with the change, so I am thinking that was the problem . A week later back at home it backfired on me again, I would get in the car start it and the light near the ECM would blink and the fuel pressure would pulse with the blink, so I had a spare coil pack and put is on and it seemed to solve the problem, one month later it starts the same shit, blinking light and pulsing FP, that is when I decided to get the TR6 setup. Everything seemed fine after the install until the day at the track, once I got back home and fixed the loose rocker, went for a test ride and the backfire is back. i have a gremlin that doesn't show his face all the time, It's driving me crazy.

[TurboCajun]

another thing at one point i rev the engine in the garage and as it idled down it shut off , I cranked it back up and it gave me the code 42. but it has not happened again.

[Steve Wood]

It's a Paul Harvey moment...and now, the rest of the story!

Think I already mentioned intake gasket and pcv above.    Pcv is easy, pull it out, pull it off and plug the hose from the plenum block.  If the blow by goes away, that was the problem.  Or you can look at it, shake it, and blow about 25 psi of air thru it and see it blows out the engine side with any volume.

First thing you need to do is stop buying stuff without having a reason!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If your voltage was dropping and acting crazy on the SM, then simply check the voltage  coming out of the back of the alternator with a volt meter.  One probe on the battery terminal on the back of the alternator and the other probe on the alternator case as a ground.  If the voltage is good at that point, you don't have a problem with the alternator.  Simple, cheap, and the old alternator probably has better parts in it then these chinese conversion 200 amp jobs.

If the alternator checks good, then you go to the battery and read the voltage at the battery.  It should read very close to the same as you got at the alternator back.  If not, you have a problem in the circuit between the alternator and the battery-either in the cable to the positive terminal or in the ground connection between the alternator case and the engine OR someone forgot to connect the ground cable to the engine block from the battery, or it is loose.

If the battery reads the same as the alternator, check the small ground wire going to the inner fender sheet metal to be sure it is right, and then go to the starter and make sure the battery cable and fusible links are connected tightly to the starter.  Makes sure none of those wires is grounding out against the pipes or anything else when the engine moves.

While under the hood, make sure the orange fusible link from the positive terminal does not have an intermittent connection to the battery and the voltage coming out of the plug connector is the same as the battery voltage.

If that checks out, go to A6 (pink/black) on the ecm and see if it is reading very close to what the alternator was putting out with the engine running and that it is steady and not jumping around like the SM display is doing.  If it looks good, check C16 (orange) to see if the voltage is steady on it as well.

If both of those are good, I might try another ecm after I was sure that neither A6 and C16 wires are not loose in the ecm connectors.  I would also check the grounds to the back of the head or wherever they have been relocated are tight and none of the wires going to the terminal are loose or broken.  http://www.vortexbuicks-etc.com/ecmwiring.htm

If the voltages are flaky in the two wires when you check them, then we need to back up in the circuit and find out where the problem is.

I would hope the code 42 is being caused by the flaky voltages....

[daveismissing]

Succinct, Beautiful and Logical 

[larrym]

Steve makes it sound so easy, i hate wiring and electrical issues!

[Steve Wood]

So do I, but you have to be methodical and check it all

the worst problems to troubleshoot for me are lighting issues...all it takes is a bad ground or some clown putting in a single filament bulb in a double filament socket....

[TurboCajun]

    I went thru all what you said Steve in the order you gave, all grounds are good, no voltage drop at the Bat. when I got to the ECM I checked there and all was good until I move the wires on the harness, the car sputters, i keep playing with it and it keeps acting up , so I got out the other ECM put the power logger on and it stopped, went for a ride and still the same voltage is dropping when I get into the gas. came back and took the battery out and had it tested GOOD, put the spare Alt in still the same shit. I got the code 42 again. last test run it was dark and I noticed the lights dimmed alot when I stepped on the gas.

[Steve Wood]

okay, may be more than one problem.

So, first you need to find out why things act up when you move the harness.  Are you talking about the harness going to the ecm connectors?

If so, then it sounds like a loose wire in one of the connectors.  Did you wiggle the wires individually-particularly the two that I told you to check the voltage on?


Also, when you finish that, drop the column down and wiggle the ignition switch to see if that makes the voltage drop.

[TurboCajun]

I did check every wire one at a time , that is why I changed the ECM because the problem only happened when I moved the connector but it did not happen after I changed the ECM
Steve it seems to me like something is drawing down the volts when I gas it.

[Steve Wood]

If it misses when you move the wires, you have a problem somewhere in the harness.  Moving the harness should not draw the volts down.  That sounds like another problem.

That problem usually happens when the engine shifts and something shorts out.  that was the reason I told you to check the battery cable near the starter and to check the fusible links where they run past the exhaust pipe on the way up toward the wring harness where it crosses the firewall behind the coil packs.  When you look at the passenger end of the harness, you can see the wires that drop down to the starter and fusible links.

The power wire that goes to A6 comes from the ignition switch on the column   http://www.vortexbuicks-etc.com/ignition_switch.htm

If you wiggle the wiring harness under the hood where the wires go down to the starter, does any thing change?  If you grab the harness on the drivers side where it goes into the firewall and wiggle it, does anything change?