Targa Miata
MIATA BUILD
May 14, 2007 - More testing, and it's getting closer.
Brandon and I started firing up one system after another tonight, but when it came time to talk to the ECU we had difficulties. It was finally tracked down to a blown fuel injection fuse.
This particular fuse feeds a whole lot more than fuel injection. It's the one that supplies power to the main relay, and is the primary source of switched power in the car. So we started by disconnecting everything and powering up one system at a time to see if the fuse would go again. Nope. Everything came back online and we were able to communicate with the ECU - until Brandon unplugged the idle speed control solenoid and pop! the fuse went again. Playing with the intake tube seemed to cause a momentary problem once the fuse was replaced again.
We did a little more poking around and found a bare wire that had been grounding out at the block when the intake moved it slightly. Whoops! The wire was trimmed back and insulated and everything was good again. All sensors indicated reasonable numbers, so we decided to go for a start. We pulled the fuel injection fuse (the fourth one of the evening by this point) so we could crank the engine over to get the oil pressure up.
Except that the freshly charged battery didn't have the guts to turn over the 11.5:1 engine. Neither did any of the other freshly charged batteries scattered around the shop.
The moral? It's time to get rid of all those batteries I'm saving because they might still be good! They're not. It's time to go get a known good battery for this car and stop screwing around.
So that was it for the night. Tomorrow, I return with a fresh, powerful battery and we make this engine spin!
tags: wiring