MS problems

[Sinbad the Sailor]

I just installed a V3 MSnS extra unit with a realy board and cannot get the car to start. My guess is a dirty tach. I am running a shielded wire from the negative side of the coil to pin 15 on the realy board and grounding the shield along with the tps return at pin 14 on the realy board. When I turn the MS on the fan/out flashes and when I try to start the car the RPM fluctuates around 800-1500 and the PWM of the injectors is about 15.0 ms

Also if you are in the San Jose/Bay Area and could help with tuning/troubleshooting PM me or hit me up (530) 415-3327

Thanks,

Spencer

[wennstroma]

Are you using the stock volvo ignition computer/system for spark? If not, you cannot use the coil to trigger your megasquirt. You must use some sort of a position sensor like an LH 2.4 flywheel sensor, Lh 2.2 distributor sensor, etc. to trigger your megasquirt.

Aaron

[Sinbad the Sailor]

Yes I'm using the stock k-jet ignition

[The Aspirator]

15ms pulsewidth is HUUUUUGE.

A simple wire off the coil should get you a decent tach signal, assuming the K-jet ignition works properly. Hit it with a timing light and see if you're getting spark during cranking, just to make sure things are working.

Also with that much fuel, weird things must be happening. All your settings good? Or running the whole *.msq from another volvo with the same sized injectors?

Also, does it sputter at all? Just saying "it won't start" doesn''t help us much! :) I've found that if it tries to crank with WAYYYY too much fuel, it'll sputter for the first crank or so then the plugs just go wet and won't light anything off, so it just spins during cranking. Check your plugs after a few tries, see if they're soaked or black. Having a few sets of new plugs REALLY comes in handy when dealing with this kind of crap.

Best of luck!

John

[Sinbad the Sailor]

I set up the constants based on the megamanual but I just searched on here and lowered the req fuel from 11.7 to 9.8. Also I think that the EGO correction was on because that is the only thing that I could think of that would bump the PWM up that high. How ever PWM is supposed to be off during cranking.

Also I just looked and I think that I was running MSnS unstead of just MS for fuel, the spark was setup for a MSnS dizzy so I switched that off.

I'm charging my battery now but I'll check the spark plugs tomorrow.

Thanks for the help.

[benflynn]

would be easier to go +spark

[MrBill]

In addition, when I was having "fun" with my cranking pulsewidths, i actually flooded the cylinder so when it cranked it threw gas out of the clyninder
I have since fixed it but just make sure it isnt "uber" flooded or anything.
Edit: when the spark plugs were out, that is.
Make sure its not flooded man.

[Hank Scorpio]

Sounds like its megaflooded... its been a while but 2-3ms is probably all you really need for the car to start and idle.

[Tabor]

I just used the calculator for REQ_FUEL :e-shrug: .

[Sinbad the Sailor]

I did too but it gave me a value that was a little higher than everyone else with similar setup.

[benflynn]

post your fuel settings, my green tops were 11.xx i think

[Sinbad the Sailor]

Injector opening time 1.0 ms
Batt Voltage Correction .10 ms
PWM current limit 75%
PWM time threshold 1.0 ms
req fuel 9.8
Two injections per cycle
Alternating Staging

The PWM for cranking is now ~2-3 ms with a 5ms priming pulse

The car kinda sputtered when I first tried to start it but the RPM signal is still fluctuating between 200-1500 RPM

I redid the connector to the coil trimming back as much shielding as I could and on the other end I wrapped a wire around the exposed shielding and soldered it together and then grounded the wire to the MS ground going directly to the block.

[MrBill]

it may be easier to simply turn off the priming pulse, and find where the car starts without it.

I still dont get whats wrong with my setup, but my cranking widths are .1 and .5

[benflynn]

try 1 squirt per cycle

[Sinbad the Sailor]

Fixed the erratic tach problem by installing my Crane Hi-6, however still no start. Checked for spark and HOLY CRAP crazy spark! Then I disconnected the fuel line to mount a pressure sensor and there was no fuel in the fuel line. But I operated the fuel pump with the line off and fuel came out. What is an easy way to check that fuel is getting to the injectors and they are really firing?

Also the LEDs on the MS are no longer lighting up and sometimes it will not power up and when it does it will shut off after about 10~20 seconds.

This is the most problematic MS install I have ever seen. I must be an idiot!

[benflynn]

reflash the box, go through all the settings, what is in the kjet dizzy?

[Sinbad the Sailor]

How do I reflash the box? And why reflash it?

The k-jet dizzy is a magnetic pickup

[benflynn]

because they get jacke dup at the worst times

have you tried 1 squirt per cycle?

you just connect and run the firmware

[Sinbad the Sailor]

Haven't tried that yet.

But I did just hook up a fuel pressure tester and I only have 10 psi when jumpering the fuel pump. How can I tell if it is a bad pump or a bad FPR? I have two others but the fuel line was a beyotch to get on. Will the fuel pressure rise with the engine running?

[benflynn]

look at gauge and pinch soft return line, if press goes up fast it is a fpr, if slow fuel pump issue

[Sinbad the Sailor]

Thanks I'll try that tomorrow, along with the other things mentioned.

[benflynn]

looks like you bought a nice turbo to reward you when it gets going

i feel a lh dizzy and a couple more wires to the ms box, along w/the latest msns code will get you most of the way there

[Sinbad the Sailor]

Can you run a Crane/MSD with spark control with MSnS? Because that was the strongest spark I have ever seen on any car EVER!

[benflynn]

yep, should be dizzy sig to ms(dizzy also wants 5v and ground), ms trigger to crane box, and the box hooks up the coil, if i recal correctly

[Sinbad the Sailor]

Sweet.

Only thing that sucks is I will have to wait until almost Christmas to enjoy any of it.

[Sinbad the Sailor]

look at gauge and pinch soft return line, if press goes up fast it is a fpr, if slow fuel pump issue

I tried pinching the soft return line and the gauge never moved. Then I tried pinching the feed line just after the pressure tester annnnnnd... NOTHING. WTF?

Also the MS won't turn on at all so I cannot reflash it. What would make it do that? I checked all the wiring yesterday and there is 12+,12+ switched, and ground at the relay board and I checked the MS side of the harness and there is power and ground.

I'm so ready to kill this car!!!

[benflynn]

do you have a stimulator?

[The Aspirator]

Okay, a few things I noticed. First off, are you using resistors on your injector wiring? If so then your "PWM Current Limit % and Time Threshold" is WAY off. They should be 100 and 25.4 when running resistors. If you are not using a resistor pack then I'm not sure what they're supposed to be set at.

You should definitely have more than 10psi with the pump running, and it shouldn't really change once the car runs either. Basically the pump spits out a huge volume of fuel and the fuel pressure regulator backs it up until the pressure overcomes the spring at it's limit (3bar is 43.5psi). So anytime the pump is on you should be seeing that kind of pressure. It sounds like your regulator is pooched. Pull off the vacuum line and see if there's any fuel in it.

Are you SURE that the pump is turning on while the car is cranking? My car never did, so I had to wire my fuel pump relay directly to a dash switch in order to always turn it on and off. It's still like that.

The fact that your LED's are no longer lighting up and that it won't power up definitely is a problem. Either a battery voltage problem or a firmware issue. Ben had a good suggestion with re-flashing it, and it'll be a really good skill for you to learn now anyways. I'm sure you could look it up in the Megamanual but it's a really easy process. Find the folder in your megasquirt folder that's called 029v (or whatever version of the firmware you are running). You might not have this folder if you bought the board all ready setup. If that's the case, download it from HERE (save this link, awesome resource):
http://megasquirt.sourceforge.net/extra/

Click on "download-firmware.bat" and just follow the instructions. BE SURE TO SAVE ALL YOUR SETTINGS FIRST. That way with the new firmware you just open up Megatune, go file-open-burn and you'll have all your old settings back. Re-flashing it deletes everything that's on the chip. The process is simple, you open the download-firmware.bat file, click NO when it asks about standard code, then power up your MS and go at it. Then open and burn your old settings.

Hope that helps! And don't worry, I've heard of much worse installs that take weeks or months to get running.

John

[Sinbad the Sailor]

I have a stim but I could not get it to work. I guess I'll go through that and get it going. It says that you have to short D8 is that correct? http://www.megamanual.com/v22manual/mass.htm#trouble

I am not running resistors on the injectors and the values for them I got directly for the megamanual

The fuel pressure is really strange as it should go up when I pinch the hose right after the fuel pressure tester. Right?

I'm running dual pumps with a walbro in the tank that is wired directly to the battery with a relay. However for the tests I jumpered the pumps directly.

[The Aspirator]

Yup, sounds like a bad FPR. Do you have another one that you could throw on?

[benflynn]

if you pinch it w/no raise in fp is bad pump, or wireing

[Sinbad the Sailor]

Yeah that's what I was thinking. Damn that makes three in less than four months.

I posted this up at msefi.com


I just checked and at D9 on the banded end there is 1.55v and the other end there is .01v

I checked some of the other diodes and there is definite 12v coming into the MS because they have 12v

So does this sound like a problem with the board?

I was reading through the troubleshooting guide for the v3 board and there are the same voltage values at the voltage regulator U5

And I noticed that xg1 and xg2 are not jumpered instead xg1 is jumpered to tachselect however tsel is jumpered to optoout. This board is supposed to be setup for hall sensor/coil negative and this setup seems to be contrary to what it says in the manual.

With the DB37 connector to I need to run grounds to the whole row of pins or just the ones that it shows here

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e235/hormone83/v3ext_wiring.gif

Just found out I have to be gone by Thursday. This sucks!

[The Aspirator]

Just the ones that are shown, although they're all board grounds. But yeah, just the ones shown.

[benflynn]

first step is to get ms to come on, then work out the fuel pressure

[Sinbad the Sailor]

Any ideas on how to get it working?

It is not getting power is there anything that could have melted or something? The only thing that I can think of that I might have messed up is grounding the vref or the ignition input circuit being setup wrong and frying something. Other than that I'm stumped.

I have verified that all the wiring to the MS is good and supplying power to the board. But there is something preventing it from getting to the voltage regulator, and the d9 diode.

[benflynn]

trouble shooting a board is a b1tch, usally a good visual inspection finds the problem, i bought a busted 2.2 once, was just a bent leg on the chip

get the stim working and go from there if you can't see the problem

also unplug everythng you can and see if it will fire up(the box)

[Sinbad the Sailor]

Should I switch the ignition from what it is to what it says in the megamanual? Or is it the way it is for a reason?

Thanks for the help