dan

I bring this to you since Jesse (MaxType240) has no internet right now, and he's busy getting ready to become a northerner.

Fri and Saturday were spent installing his built engine and tying up all the misc loose ends that are associated with such a task. Most everything went pretty flawlessly, sans a few bolts losing their threads, a leaky lower radiator hose clamp, and a head gasket sealing issue (which we have discussed alot on other forums, as the Cometics sometimes like to leak towards the front of the head upon initial water filling/startup [especially near the upper timing cover area]).

The engine does not start yet.

Obviously, motors need fuel, air, and spark. Air is just about guaranteed here, we'll move onto fuel. Upon the first few cranks, we got 3 or 4 combustions, but no start. Ok, so the starter works. The fuel pump works, we have good pressure. The injectors were verified to work after we pulled spark plug and found them to be wet and fuel smelling.

Next is spark...or timing. Engine Lab did the FULL build of the motor...including the timing chains, and distributor. I didn't bother to check the dizzy when i pulled it out, but nevertheless, we set cyl #1 to TDC, verified the cams were in the correct positions in relation to how cyl #1's position was, and lined up the marks on the dizzy, and reinstalled it.

After cranking it again, we got no combustions at all.

So this is where you all come in. At the point we started the car there was 3 of us left, and i'm always shooting out best and worst case scenarios just trying to jog my mind, since sometimes it is the simplest of things one forgets to do or hook up. The ECU never left the car during the engine swap, nor was it unplugged. The entire transmission and engine harness was double checked, and all connections are correct and secure.

So if anyone has something to add that maybe we all forgot to take a look at, let us know. He leaves next Sunday, and he has some spare time this week where he can look at it, as he has to pull the intake manifold anyways to fix some water hose connections, and unfortunately we might have to pull the cams and double check the torque specs on the ARP head studs, since theres a good gush coming out of the headgasket right under the upper coolant neck on the intake manifold...but its coming out of the head/block mating area there.

My worst case scenario was that I didn't take note of the camshaft "paint" marks, as i was mostly focusing on the lobe positions of cylinder #1 due to the limited time we had last evening. I do know there's a green cam and a brown cam. I forget, but which side is which, and what's the chance they were installed backwards? Even if the timing was still off the car should technically be able to fire up, but run like shit. But if the cams were put in wrong, that would make things a little harder. And if they WERE backwards, cylinder #1's lobes could still both be correct, but the rest of the cylinders' lob positions might be way out of whack, which i didnt think of til it was too late last night.

I've looked over the FSM a few times and it seems we are on the right track and everything was done well.

Thanks to anyone who can throw out some ideas for us.

BTW, nothing was changed electronically, it is still using the ROM tuned ECU on the same MAFs and injectors.

SILVIA-S14

Sorry fellas, I had to ditch you all in the midst and hurry to work. I am on call on weekends and we had big situation(s) that needed my attention.

My apologies to all in attendance and specially to Jesse.

Hope you guys figure out the culprit soon and let the new fury begin......

Good luck on the upcoming move Jesse....

Thanks for all your help to all of us throughout all this time.

Rinku

Matt Vassallo

if the injectors click it should be getting fuel and spark as per crank angle sensor


if the maf is reading correct voltage and you have no harness problems



then you hae problems with the timing

dan

rinku - its cool. we managed pretty well, and one of the guys that works as a tech/helper there used to work at turbo toys and i think jesse might have him take a look at it since none of us nor him have time to get to it.

matt - thanks, hopefully they'll figure it out, i know its gotta be timing related, but everything looked right up top, but even being off a tad bit sometimes wont let it start right.


seeing a nice clean block does make me want to build mine though. i suck at cleanliness.

I'm Phucked

on the status. Jeff and I will be there tomorrow around 2pm for his alignment so if someone is there I could lend a hand.
-Dave

MaxType 240

I'm gonna time the distib, make sure the rotor is on #1 at TDC. That should start her up.

<prayer>The water leaks will hopefully take most of my time.</prayer>

Jesse

PS - Dave, I'll see you there.
PSS - Dan/Dave, thanks for the extra set of hands, saved me a ton of time, you rock!

dan

Jesse - please check the plug wires at the distributor cap. someone on ka-t.org mentioned to make sure it was 1-3-4-2, and come to think of it i think i fucked up and did 1-2-4-3, but even then 1 and 4 should still fire and we werent getting ANY pops, but do check that...cuz im a tard

also if u have extra set of hands, while you start it, have them kinda rock the distributor back and forth to see if it tries to fire up anywhere. but even if its off it should fire.

good luck on the water leaks, i hate water leaks (not from your car, but from past experiences on mine).

ps - if youre going to the shop fri or sat let me know i'll be glad to come help again (but im sure youll fix it by then).

gritt

not sure how the ka is set up, however when working on chrysler (mitsu) dohc 4cyl, after doing head gasket the damn thing didn`t want to start and sounded like no compression. turned out the lifters would leak down during the process and thus no pushy on valves, till it built up oil psi. just a thought, it happened a couple times. or alarm? did it set itself? does sound like timing, you never said you verified spark..

dan

KA's are direct lobe contacting with shim underbucket design, so there's no lifters. i never officially verified spark, and once i set the distributor we werent getting any but before i set it and we first tried to crank it, we did get like 2 or 3 pops over the length of the 15 seconds we were cranking it

RubberBerner

spark plug tester will answer if you have spark, and will show the condition of the spark (i.e. normal, weak, spiratic).