SOLID CEL, no start, not the main relay...

Hey guys,
My 93 5 speed RS with b18c swap and short geared YS1 tranny is giving me hell. The car was sitting for a long time while I painted the engine bay, tucked headlight harness, and installed new LSD tranny from syncrotech. I got the car running about two months ago but didn’t really get it on the road until last week when it was tuned by Xenocron (great guys btw). The car just has bolt ons and made a healthy 170 on the dyno, it felt great for about 2 days. Now the car always had a small issue starting, at times it would take two cranks for the car to turn over.

The day after the tune, no start at all. The CEL stays solidly lit with the key in the ACC position. If the CEL goes off the car fires right up, but now I can’t even get that to happen. At first I wrote this off as a main relay issue and replaced that with a new one, but to no avail. I cleaned the ground on the thermo housing, nothing. I checked fuses to ECU, nothing wrong.

Today I brought the ecu to my tuner where it was bench tested and turned out to be completely working fine. At this point I am lost as to what to do next, electrical is not my strong point. Does this sound like a problem with ignition switch, coil, ignitor, etc??? Let’s hear opinions.

thanks!

check all fuses both ends… thats exactly what was wrong with my same exact setup… i had replaced relay, §§§§§, ecu and was about to do fuel pump before i realized that one fuse was good on one end but not the other… it was the furthest fuse to the front of the car for mine…

OK underhood fuse box?

I relocated mine to inside the cabin, upon inspection I noticed almost all my fuses were of higher amp ratings? For example the ecu fuse should be a 10 amp, but mine is a 30 amp. I swapped in a 10 amp from my girls integra, but same thing. The car was previously swapped so a lot of wierd stuff is being found as I go through it. Could the wrong amp fuses cause issues all of a sudden, it was starting before.

you should have 2 power inputs and several grounds on the ecm pin out.
B+ (hot at all times), and ign power (keyed power)
find the pin out and test for power at those 2 pins. what i like to do is disconnect the ecm, place the red lead at a power input pin, and black at 1 of the ground pins. this way you’re checking both positive and ground at same time. then, just use that power pin and run through all the grounds one at a time. then, check for keyed power

[QUOTE=HypL;2267562]OK underhood fuse box?

I relocated mine to inside the cabin, upon inspection I noticed almost all my fuses were of higher amp ratings? For example the ecu fuse should be a 10 amp, but mine is a 30 amp. I swapped in a 10 amp from my girls integra, but same thing. The car was previously swapped so a lot of wierd stuff is being found as I go through it. Could the wrong amp fuses cause issues all of a sudden, it was starting before.[/QUOTE]

I went thru troubleshooting of main relay and ecu voltages as described in helms manual. The fuel pump is getting voltage as well. Could this be a bad fuel pump? Would it cause a solid cel and only the first relay click?

alright. let’s start from the top. check fuel, and check spark.
don’t sweat the helms. all you need is a diagram for the MFR, and an ecm pin out. these cars are pretty basic. as long as you have diagrams and a multimeter, they’re pretty easy to solve

[QUOTE=welfare;2267725]alright. let’s start from the top. check fuel, and check spark.
don’t sweat the helms. all you need is a diagram for the MFR, and an ecm pin out. these cars are pretty basic. as long as you have diagrams and a multimeter, they’re pretty easy to solve[/QUOTE]

No fuel reaching the rail for sure. Did not check for spark yet.

The car is cranking strong it just won’t turn over, is it safe to say that I have spark or would I have to do the screwdriver test to verify?

cranking does not mean spark. yes. check for spark.
have you checked for codes yet?

My 92 gs is going through the same problems.I put in a new relay and fuel pump and still same thing.It starts right up when the CEL goes out.

Have you checked your resistances on your coil? I had an issue where I could see plenty of spark when the wire was off the plug aka screwdriver spark test, but when plugged into the plug it wouldn’t fire. I check my resistances and voila, bad coil. From memory I think the you should be about .6ohms on the primary windings and something like 12kohms-17.2kohms on the secondaries.

about 1ohm, typically, on the primary. the HEI tester. better than resistance testing