Please keep in mind I'm still a newb when it comes to teeners. Most experience is from my bug and my infiniti.

I replaced my AAR yesterday and blew a fuse (I think for the fuel pump?) on the relay board. (I'm a smart one and forgot to shut off the power first. ) I replaced it and now when I go to start the car it cranks, fires then dies about 1 1/2 seconds later. My friend came over and swapped his relay board into my car and it still does the same.

For the basics, it's a 2 liter D-jet. Has 5 gallons of gas in the tank so it's far from out, ran fine before I swapped the AAR and blew the fuse. I figure I might've knocked something loose while I was in there but have yet to find any loose connections or otherwise.


Any ideas guys? Thanks in advance.

I had a similar problem on my L-Jet. I had pulled the wires out of the AAR by
mistake and they shorted out. That caused the whole car to shut down after a
second or so. The key was that I noticed the alternator and oil pressure
lights shut off, indicating a total loss of electricity. Might want to check
something like that.

Jeff

I'll double check that wiring, thanks for the lead. But if I remember correctly I pulled the AAR back off and it was still dieing rather than just high idling like it should with the AAR off. And far as alternator and oil pressure lights, the P.O. made his own wiring harness and didn't wire them in. So until I have some time to run the wires i'm out of luck for those two. I'm in no way talking crap. Chris did an excellent job on the car. The wiring has just aged a bit.

john, is the fuel pump running? you can check that easily by going to the classic threads. look up andy's pump power jumper wire trick for carbed cars. the pump is powered when the key is turned to the on position. atleast i think it will work.

k

i was actually just about to do this. The pump primes but i don't know if it stays running or not. i'll post back when I know.

So I just jumped the fuel pump via SirAndy's carb trick. The fuel pump is running fine.

However while installing the new fuse the other night I accidentally arced between the fuse terminal shown on the following picture and the volatage regulator casing through a 25amp fuse. That wouldn't fry the f.i. brain would it? (I'm always forgeting that almost everything on the car gets powered on when the battery kill is turned on. And I have the bad habit of forgeting to turn it off when I'm working on the car.)

See in yellow.
From arrow to arrow through a 25amp fuse. And the pic is from someone else's engine bay. I just used it for reference.

So I just jumped the fuel pump to run continuously with the f.i. harness still on the relay board and started the car and it is still reacting the same.

See picture above in red for how the fuel pump was jumped. Ran a wire from the existing harness to the ground.

any chance you could have disturbed the wires to the trigger points?

Nope.

Check your basic stuff...

Pull and injector and stick it in a jar, pull the main coil wire and turn over motor to see if you are getting fuel.

I'd check fuel pressure in the loop. Just because the fuel pump is running doesn't mean it's giving enough pressure.

Well I swapped in another ecu (same part #) and it's still suffering the same problem. So check that possibility off of the list. So first thing after class tomorrow I'm swapping out the fuel pump to see if that makes any difference.

Had this problem after changing an alternator once. Like you I'm a smart one...I forgot to plug the air controler harness back in. It did exactly the same thing. I'd check there.

Check the fuel pressure with a gauge, just swapping the pump may not help if the lines are plugged or kinked or???

Shouldn't have any plugged or kinked lines. The car was running fine until I replaced the AAR and arced the fuse. Ran fine with the old AAR out before I put in the new one as well. I think my problem is that I knocked something loose and am just over looking it or I fried something electronically.

Like 2 others have already said. Check the fuel pressure with a gage. The fuel filter been replaced lately? Check it?
MikeCool

just thinking out loud John.

You always get a brief run but it dies out almost immediately right? That means you are getting fuel delivery of some sort. Where would it come from? Assuming that it is not really cold there it won't be from the cold start valve - that doesn't kick in until it is almost freezing iirc.

You get a blast on all four injectors when you key on. I'm thinking that that is where you are getting that start gas from. The other possible source is from the tps. It gives a series of enrichment jolts as you go from off throttle to full throttle. I don't know if this hits all four injectors or just the two turned on by the the trigger points but I think it goes to all 4. Just for giggles why don't you see if you can keep it sort of running by kicking the throttle a few times.

Tried and it still died.

Been attempting to start it each time I try something new. Won't even start now. Cranks, but won't start.

So far:
Replaced the fuel filter
tried another ecu
tried another fuel pump
tried another relay board

Can't measure fuel pressure because I don't have a pressure gauge and don't have the money to buy one right now.

I've just about run out of ideas as to what the cause could be.

Not to mention if I don't make it up to Bellingham tomorrow or friday afternoon i'm in big trouble with the girlfriend.

damn - can't have you in trouble with the girlfriend!

Have you done the 'squirt in a bottle'. remove the feed to the coil, pull an injector aim it into a bottle and crank the engine. You should see a really solid spray from the injector.

perhaps even before that. Key on, operate the throttle and listen for the injectors to fire. If you don't hear anything then the problem is definitely electrical not fuel.

How's the battery holding up through all this?

Hey John,
Also check the battery cut off switch, they are known to go bad, although I have never heard of a case where you can get the motor to run for a few seconds and then cut out. What is the coil temp like? If I think of anything, I will drop you a line

chase all vacuum lines, i've had this happen to me a couple of times. knocked a hose loose.

Haven't pulled an injector yet. Wanted to p/up a new injector seal set before I do that just to be safe. I'll grab a set tomorrow afternoon. And the battery's holding up fine.




The battery cut off is fine, had a problem with it two weeks ago or so when I found that the ground in the engine bay was loose but that was a 2 second fix.

Not sure about the coil temp, didn't think to check it. I'll do that first thing tomorrow.



Did once already, but it won't hurt me to double check.


Oh, and all will be well with the girlfriend. If the car's not running tomorrow afternoon my pops is letting me take his truck for the weekend.

IT'S ALIVE!!!

Well, Jim came over and lent me a hand fooling around with the car. Not sure what the cause was. But it now runs and we've found a slew of things that need to be done. The spark plug wires are in horrible shape with broken connectors. The rotor and cap could use to be replaced and one of the injector harness plugs was loose. Already took care of the harness plug. After I take care of the wires, cap and rotor I need to set my A/F ratio and check/set my fuel pressure and I should be fantastic.

Thanks for all the ideas and help guys. Without your guidance I'd still be at square one trying to knock possibilities off of the list.

YAY