Marios280Z
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Everything posted by Marios280Z
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From the album: My 280Z
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From the album: My 280Z
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Will do. I know which hoses you are talking about.
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Thanks, this article is pretty good. I did not read it very carefully, but it didn't look like he mentioned what the symptoms would be with a vacuum leak? I'm guessing that the idle vacuum reading would lower by couple of inches?
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So, as far as I can recall the ONLY think I did under the hood before the starting issue showed up was fuel filter replacement. I did change engine, tranny, and rear diff oils first before I started to work in the engine bay, but that shouldn't have any effect on my starting issue. I changed the ignition coil and distributor cap and rotor AFTER I already have been experiencing starting difficulties. I have been thinking about the vacuum leaks. I don't have a vacuum gauge. One method I have heard about is to use carb cleaner or starting fluid and spray small amounts around hose fittings and suspected areas. Of course be careful and do it when the engine is cold to avoid possible fire. If the engine suddenly revs up it means it sucked in the fluid and that is where the leak is. Is that acceptable procedure?
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Had no time to do much testing yesterday, but this morning I disconnected CSV all together as it was suggested to me few posts back, just to verify that the CSV wasn't actually flooding the engine. It did not help. Took me 4 times cranking before the engine fully engaged (same procedures for starting: primed the fuel pressure couple of times, car was in the garage over night).
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rcb280z, thanks for sharing your experience. It does sound exactly like your issue...Did you have to drain coolant before you pulled out thermtime switch? I have mixed feeling about this cold start system. A lot of people say that they just remove it all together and don't have problems starting. I also have tested it at the ECU as well as at the sensor itself. The results were showing no issue, but perhaps I was making wrong measurements. I will revisit the whole system once more.
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I'm assuming that idle switch is inside the Throttle Position Sensor, correct?
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Yes...Had to read about it again to get it straight in my head. It completes the circuit between the ignition SATRT signal, the CSV and ground when the engine is cold. When warm, thermotime switch is not pulled to ground and therefore CSV power circuit is open. So short of installing resistor on it as H-m indicated in post #69, there is not much I could do to test it's operation (unless it will get cold soon). I have tested its resistance per FSM and it was good. I will also test with CSV disconnected all together as mentioned in earlier posts.
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Thanks Zed Head. I do have the book you are referring, 280Z/ZX Electronic Fuel Injection Guide. I read through it once, but obviously will have to read again and perform some tests. Now I have these couple of things to check: 1) CSV-in-the-jar test with water temp sensor disconnected. 2) Throttle Position Sensor clean up and test.
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From what I saw I tend to believe my battery and at leas the cables work OK. BTW, you are doing just fine with handling the pressure. I on the other hand, may have a problem if we don't solve this problem soon and you guys will ask me to pull the engine out and start disassembling it.
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Thanks CO. I will not run the car without the water temp sensor connected, but I will try to start it that way. I may even repeat the CSV-in-the-jar test to see if I even get any fuel out of it. My helper should be OK with running those type of test for a while.. After all she was the one that said, quote: "You would be stupid not to get this car for that price".
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Awesome! I will try that.
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Thanks ZedHead for kind words. Frankly, the temps here in Iowa have not been cool enough to truly verify operation of the cold start system. Every time I looked at ti it was over 80 degrees and per FSM the thermotime switch has an upper limit of about 72 degrees. I did notice couple of times that when I left the car outside and not in the garage and the temps were in 60s over night, I had a bit harder time to start it in the morning, harder than after work when sitting outside in 80-90 degrees. I did once (gain it was 80 some degrees), pulled out the CSV out of the intake manifold and placed it in the small jar while my wife cranked the engine. There was no drop of fuel that came out of it. I will be interested to repeat this when it is cooler outside. Mean time I will disconnect my CSV plug as CO indicated in post #42 and will report if there are any changes in behavior.
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Thanks EuroDat for the explanation. I will trace it down as you described and post the results.
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Glad to hear that. YES. Also I double checked my work this evening and had my wife crank the engine for me again (not in her pajamas, so it wasn't as exciting). Measured again at the starter big terminals where the battery cables connect was showing around 10-11 V during cranking (unlike the 6-7V that my volt meter showed me earlier). The car started rather quick so there wasn't really much time for observation. I think I need to buy a better volt meter. My seems to be "slow" when it comes to displaying voltage. I've used volt meters in the past that were much more eager to show change in voltage than my cheep unit. I also looked at the spark at each spark plug while the engine was running. They all looked the same to me and frankly they looked, well, like a spark... Hard for me to judge whether it was strong and bright or week and thin. Till I got this car I have never looked at the car spark or for that matter experienced the feeling when it arcs to your finger...I knew about spark plugs, what they do, I replaced them, but that's about it. Just never messed with them in today's hi tech cars. I took a video (go figure), and I could post it but after watching it I don't think any helpful conclusion can be drawn. Other than that I was not able to do any more measurements today. Maybe I will read up in FSM before I go to bed.
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When I first got the car I had to some battery refreshment since the connectors at the battery terminals were pretty corroded. So I installed new clamp for a positive terminal and cleaned well the negative terminal. This weekend when I cleaned all the ground terminals per atlanticzcar DIY, I also cleaned ALL the connections to the starter, so they are nice and clean.
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No offense taken Zed Hed. One of the reasons that I got the car was to learn about engines and cars and I'm here for the same reason, so it's all good.
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The 4.5V I think is a fault measurement. I was measuring between "-" and "+" on the coil itself, which showed me 0V when ignition key is ON. So as you said I measured between "-" terminal on the coil and a common ground. When I measured that way this morning it actually showed 12.9V when ignition was in ON position, which is per FSM spec. Measuring in the same way when my wife dressed in pajamas was cranking the engine was giving me some erratic measurements, voltmeter was bouncing all over the palace. I'm a bit confused of what you really mean here. You want me to put one volt meter lead on the center post of the battery, say "-" terminal and the other lead of the volt meter on the outside (the cable clamp itself?) on the same "-" terminal of the battery? When I measure the voltage across the starter at the two big terminals, it was reading 13V, as I would expect since they get direct connection from the battery. However, when measured in the same way but during my wife cranking the engine (still in pajamas), the voltage was reading around 6-7V. Hed Zed when I measured this morning again per your and EuroDat recommendation it was actually showing 13V to the coil when ignition was in ON position. I'm assuming you are referring to the battery voltage of 12V when cranking, correct? I can check for spark at each cylinder. I'm assuming that checking it while engine is running would be indicative of the spark condition? I believe I saw this Christmas light test in FSM, but as I recall it I would need to disconnect the electrical plug and connect it to the light. As I mentioned earlier, when I disconnected one of the injectors, i broke the connector in the process, so if I'm to do it on all of them, I may as well prepare for few hours of wiring work and installing new injector connectors... I have replaced the distributor cap and rotor as well as ignition coil. Beyond that I did not touch ignition system. I will try to read up some more in FSM and see what other tests I can do without taking distributor apart and possibly messing up the timing (so I was told...)
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Today I replaced the orignal electrical connector on CSV with the new design that allows for easy on/off with the new wire clip design. This will alow me to connect and dissconnect it on the fly.
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Zed Head, could you elaborate on this and explain a bit? How do you know it's doing it? What part of the rough starting video makes you conclude that? Sorry for ignorance, but I'm just not familiar with this. I performed few voltage tests today as well as the fuel pressure discharge test. 2) Fuel pressure discharge test per AFM shows around 37 psi when ignition in START, which is up to spec. The voltage of the battery when sitting is around 13V The voltage of the battery when starting the engine is around 12V The voltage of the batter when engine is runnig is aronund14V The voltage at the ignition coil as measured at "-" and "+" teminal is 0V when igintion is in ON possitioin. The voltage at the ignition coil as measured at "-" and "+" teminal is around 4.5V when igintion is in start and cranking. The voltage at the ignition coil as measured at "-" and "+" teminal flactuates between 12-15V when engine is runing at idle. The 4.5 volts seems low to me but I have performed several ignition in START tests, and all of them showed that , however only the first time around it gave me a bit hard time to start. After that it was easy starting. For curiosity, did anybody else tested ignition coil voltage this way and got different result?
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I agree with what you said, and yes, the fuel pressure drop issue is secondary to my starting issue, at least in my books.
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Quick update. Looks like the clamp on hte FPR return line did not stop the pressure from falling down :/ Isn't there a check valve in the fuel pump itself that suppose to prevent from fuel flowing back? Is there a chance that the valve (if exists) failed? Also, about an hour and a half after I recorded the video, I went to dirve the car (engine was cold since I only run it for about 2 minutes while recoridng the video) and after priming fuel pressure couple of times the car started right up with a touch of a key. I don't get it...
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Here some more video form Czarnomski's garage. This was a fris start up after I did the ground wire clean up per the atlanticzcar DIY o nthat topic. The only connectors I have not touch were the injector connectors :/ As you know the acces is rather tough and the palstic on those is very brittle now. I attempted to take one of them and as I expected cople pieces just broke off. The contacts looked very clean on that one. In the video I primed the pomp before starting. It was interesting to see that in the proccess os starting, when it chocked, the pressure dropped down to around 15 psi. Not sure if it is an indication of something or just a result of the engine choking. Then I removed the vac hose to the FPR just to demostrate what I have talked about earlier in my posts about pressure going up when vac is off. Next I reved the engine few times to perhaps revial something.. After running the engine I clamped the fuel return line from FPR to see if that will prevent the fuel pressure from dropping. I will report on the result of that. STill to do: 2) Perform fuel pressure discharge test per FSM 3) Perform fuel pump relay test per FSM
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Gift from my wife, she does not like the smell of the 38 your old car carpet... Soon to-be-replaced...(the carpet, not the wife of course)
