Plain Jane OEM nothing to see here rebuild

[Pete_89T2]

Originally Posted by JustJeff

I've never heard it called that. Other than a tendency for the plastic one to harden/crack/fail, what else should I know? For the record, I have a spare plastic one so I doubt I'd spring for the $100 aluminum one from Mazdatrix till I need it.

You've got it right. The plastic T-stat necks can crack if torqued down a little too tight, and being plastic they will tend to get brittle with age, and how they would react to various chemical products it may be exposed to over time is an unknown.

I haven't heard anyone complaining about these things failing in a catastrophic way, and plastic T-stat necks are used in just about every car out there today and have been for many years. When they do fail typically it's a hairline crack at the base area that results in a trickle leak (not a full dump of coolant). If it's not neglected, this kind of failure won't end up blowing your engine.

The AL replacement part is nice, but I'd save the money for something more important, especially being that you have a spare stock part handy.

[JustJeff]

When I started driving my first convertible many many years ago...that plastic neck was the first part which failed on me.

[JustJeff]

Finally the engine is back where she belongs!!!


This time around I left the transmission on the car. I think I now prefer pulling only the engine. I saved so much work in NOT having to drop the exhaust, remove the heatshields to get to transmission mount and convertible support. I didn't have to drain my transmission fluid, etc.

Install was much easier than I expected. Initially getting the transmission spline lined up and in was the hardest part. Jacking up the transmission helped greatly. Once that got lined up it I simply used a spare AC compressor mounting bolt and nut through the top bolt hole as well as the long starter through bolt. Once I was able to start tightening those down it was simply a matter of walking the bolts in place.

[RETed]

Originally Posted by JustJeff

Finally the engine is back where she belongs!!!

This time around I left the transmission on the car. I think I now prefer pulling only the engine. I saved so much work in NOT having to drop the exhaust, remove the heatshields to get to transmission mount and convertible support. I didn't have to drain my transmission fluid, etc.

Install was much easier than I expected. Initially getting the transmission spline lined up and in was the hardest part. Jacking up the transmission helped greatly. Once that got lined up it I simply used a spare AC compressor mounting bolt and nut through the top bolt hole as well as the long starter through bolt. Once I was able to start tightening those down it was simply a matter of walking the bolts in place.

Yep, once you get used to this procedure, you're always going to insist on doing it this way...

When lining up the splines, it really helps to have another body helping you.
Have the person push the engine from the front as hard as they can.
If you're underneath the car, shift trans in 1st or 2nd gear and spin the driveshaft with your hand.
(Make sure parking brake is off.)
If you're on top of the engine bay, crank over the front eccentric shaft or alternator - if you got the belts installed - to turn the engine over.

Good job!


-Ted

[Gregory Casimir]

congrats dude hope to see it running again

[JustJeff]

Originally Posted by RETed

Yep, once you get used to this procedure, you're always going to insist on doing it this way...

When lining up the splines, it really helps to have another body helping you.
Have the person push the engine from the front as hard as they can.
If you're underneath the car, shift trans in 1st or 2nd gear and spin the driveshaft with your hand.
(Make sure parking brake is off.)
If you're on top of the engine bay, crank over the front eccentric shaft or alternator - if you got the belts installed - to turn the engine over.

Good job!


-Ted

I had a helper but they had to leave partway through. We got the splines lined up by jacking the transmission up a bit and pushing the top of the engine back towards the firewall. We had to take the driver side engine mount off to allow clearance. Helper had to leave but it was good timing in that we got the splines lined up and the rest I was able to solo. We were turning the engine via socket wrench on the front bolt.

Originally Posted by Gregory Casimir

congrats dude hope to see it running again

Thanks, Provided I don't have to have spark plugs brought in from another location or a warehouse I should be driving it early in the week. Things got slowed down yesterday because I decided to move my MBC from the shocktower to one of the air pump bracket bolt holes. Problem being, I had the housing powdercoated so there is coating in the holes and on the threads.

Does anyone know if the thread on those holes is M8x1.25? Those are the only 12mm head bolts I have and with the powder in there I don't want to force matters if it's the wrong thread. And, I don't want to start running a tap through there to clean it up if it isn't the same pitch.

[JustJeff]

Talk about frustratingly slow progress. Finally have everything BUT the alternator and battery buttoned up. I seem to have lost my only alt belt adjustment bar. Literally I had it 2 days ago and now it is no where to be found. Unless it evolved into having legs and walked away it is in the polebarn...somewhere...?? I took my UIM off thinking maybe I left it lying on top of the engine. I got under the car and checked crossmembers and heatshields to see if it fell in or on one. I have no idea where this thing is....and of course I threw out my spare one thinking "why would I ever need another one of these"?

I'm gonna tear apart the polebarn in the AM. If I don't find it I'm heading to my local junkyards. I already know there aren't any 7s on the lots, but maybe I can find a Camary one. According to a 7club thread they are nearly direct swaps.

[JustJeff]

Bahahaha!!

Edited my previous post because I'm easily confused and apparently so is the guy who works at Advanced Auto. Thought my starter was bad, but it was my wiring, or lack there of. I did not have the small single harness attached and couldn't remember if it was used or not. Took the starter to be tested with intent of watching how they wired it up for test. The employee did not use the small spade on the starter and I assumed he knew what he was doing. Starter tested bad and I bought a new replacement. When I bolted it up and had the same behavior I knew something was wrong. Took the OEM supposedly bad starter to a friend at another Advanced. I told him how I had wired it up...and yes he gave me the look of "are you a damn idiot??" He tested and the starter is just fine.

[JustJeff]

Engine is up and running!!

But, it still has the same bad bogging and event stalling if the throttle goes up with much of any quickness. Even bumping the RPMS from idle to 2k will cause it to bog and stall. It was doing this before rebuild and I thought I had found the cause in that my charge pipe to cold side coupler was splitting as I was dismantling things for teardown. I thought it had a small tear and my problem was a vacuum and pressure leak. That is not the case.

I'm still bleeding the coolant so I haven't had much time to diagnose anything. What I did notice is that the engine idles better and has less of a problem when vacuum hose that feeds my OEM boost sensor as well as my boost gauge is off the UIM. I use the nipple below the BAC with a tee to feed both OEM boost sensor as well as my aftermarket boost gauge.

When time permits I'll start testing TPS, OEM boost sensor, AFM, etc. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[diabolical1]

congratulations. always good to see a first start. when you get it to stop pissing antifreeze, my first thought for your other issue is the TPS.

[JustJeff]

I've got the throttle thing sorted out. The throttle cable had too much slack on it.

My new problem is timing and fouling of plugs. My trailing timing does not line up. leading is dead on. Engine warmed up, RPMs around 750ish. TPS set to 1V in idle position. But trailing timing is advanced just about halfway between the leading and trailing marks.

I went through my ECU pins looking at voltage. I found a couple of oddities:

1) Clutch switch on the front of the clutch pedal was dead. I replaced that and confirmed the ECU is seeing a signal from it.

2) AC relay and A/C switch both show 12V whether A/C switch is on or off

3) Neutral switch shows no change at ECU between Neutral and in gear...but IIRC I do not have a neutral switch on my JDM transmission.

4) Oxygen sensor was way off, but that might be because my engine is running really rich??

It's supposed to be Idle-below 1V, Accel -.5-1V, Decel -0-.4V.

Mine idled at 29.6mV, I wasn't driving with DMM on, but I throttled the pedal Accel-22mV, Decel-26mV

5) The other oddity was my TPS narrow at first seemed to be dead. Even though it showed 1V at the sensor and shows a clean sweep. At the ECU it showed very badly 2.64V and never really changed much as the throttle changed. Before writing off my TPS I checked it again another day and it read dead on that time. I checked it at the sensor first. Then checked it at the ECU and it had the same reading....very strange. It might not have been backprobed correctly the first time, but I thought I checked it and double checked it.

6) Full range on the TPS is definitely off by a bit. It should read .8V at idle and mine sits at .54V. Can I get some feedback on that one? On the one hand off by .26V doesn't seem bad, BUT that is a significant amount when it's 1.4 of the total spec reading.

I have an Innovate wideband on it's way to me. I'm hoping to have it installed this weekend.

[RETed]

Originally Posted by JustJeff

1) Clutch switch on the front of the clutch pedal was dead. I replaced that and confirmed the ECU is seeing a signal from it.

When mines went bad, the engine tended to idle slightly higher than normal.

2) AC relay and A/C switch both show 12V whether A/C switch is on or off

I believe the circuit pulls to ground - the switch grounds out at the A/C compressor?
Also, I believe there's a pressure sensor switch (for safety reasons) is wired in series to the circuit...which could be the culprit?

3) Neutral switch shows no change at ECU between Neutral and in gear...but IIRC I do not have a neutral switch on my JDM transmission.

I know this affects the cold-start idle on initial cranking...

4) Oxygen sensor was way off, but that might be because my engine is running really rich??

It's supposed to be Idle-below 1V, Accel -.5-1V, Decel -0-.4V.

Mine idled at 29.6mV, I wasn't driving with DMM on, but I throttled the pedal Accel-22mV, Decel-26mV

This is odd, but it should not affect anything outside of slightly worse gas mileage...
It should see at least 0.5VDC at idle and decent acceleration.

6) Full range on the TPS is definitely off by a bit. It should read .8V at idle and mine sits at .54V. Can I get some feedback on that one? On the one hand off by .26V doesn't seem bad, BUT that is a significant amount when it's 1.4 of the total spec reading.

This might trigger one of those nasty E-OMP error codes which could trigger limp-home mode...


-Ted

[JustJeff]

^ I checked codes a while back and the only ones I had were for my solenoids from emissions delete and the AWS which my JDM does not have.

Although that is not entirely true. I pulled codes shortly after install and initial startup and had codes for every major sensor. After resetting the ECU they all disappeared..well other than the emissions and AWS.

I'm leaving now to reset idle, recheck TPS voltage, check timing, if time premits I'll backprobe my ECU and see if those readings are still the same.

As a general overview, I think I have some fundamental wiring issues going on. My AEM gauge will spontaneously show way over boost/vac. The last time it did it 5psi boost was the reference point during it's shutdown procedure. On startup and shutdown it will generally go to it's baseline then either dropdown and start operating, or shutdown. I didn't look when I first started up the engine but saw it while driving. When I turned the engine off the closing ceremony had it reference to 5psi.

Also my aftermarket alarm was so out of sorts that I disconnected the alarm cpu entirely. I didn't have constant power going to it at all and when I started disconnected negative wiring at the battery my alarm siren starts going off very faintly. Very strange in that the alarm should not have been getting any juice at all. When I reconnected the ground wire for the siren (connected directly to the battery sidepost) my siren starts going off full blast...again without having constant power to the alarm cpu.

Other oddities, my dome light is non-functional. The last time I checked voltage at my TPS I turned IGN to ON and did not get any ticking of the BAC for some time..then all the sudden it kicked on. Now I did have my ECU harness for TPS (IIRC the 2 harness) disconnected. Part of working today will be checking out whether having that harness disconnected replicates that same thing.

My wideband should be here tomorrow. Hoping to have it up and running this weekend. Maybe afr will shed some light on whatever is going on?

[RETed]

Originally Posted by JustJeff

check timing,

I think I forgot to address this, but...
Ignore the trailing mark for now.
I believe the trailing ignition timing is dependent on the boost sensor signal, so that's why it's not doing the proper 15-degree split.
As long as the leading is spot on...

As a general overview, I think I have some fundamental wiring issues going on. My AEM gauge will spontaneously show way over boost/vac. The last time it did it 5psi boost was the reference point during it's shutdown procedure. On startup and shutdown it will generally go to it's baseline then either dropdown and start operating, or shutdown. I didn't look when I first started up the engine but saw it while driving. When I turned the engine off the closing ceremony had it reference to 5psi.

This sounds like it's isolated to the aftermarket boost gauge itself?
If so, then it has nothing to do with your engine running problems...

Also my aftermarket alarm was so out of sorts that I disconnected the alarm cpu entirely. I didn't have constant power going to it at all and when I started disconnected negative wiring at the battery my alarm siren starts going off very faintly. Very strange in that the alarm should not have been getting any juice at all. When I reconnected the ground wire for the siren (connected directly to the battery sidepost) my siren starts going off full blast...again without having constant power to the alarm cpu.

This is a classic case of a ground loop circuit.
Like the above, this should not have anything to do with your engine running problems...

My wideband should be here tomorrow. Hoping to have it up and running this weekend. Maybe afr will shed some light on whatever is going on?

I doubt it.
I still have my money it's the TPS or related...


-Ted

[JustJeff]

Thanks for the feedback Ted,

Something very curious happened. I found my battery was nearly dead, and not enough to crank the car. Jumped it and was letting the engine warm up and the battery charge. After it got up to temp I starting setting the idle. It was sitting at just a nudge above 1k. When it had previously dropped down to barely idling and bouncing just above 0. I had been driving it like that for a week or so and after the engine warmed up idle would sit around 800ish. So I turned down the idle to just over 500. About this time my efan kicks on. I toggle my manual switch to have it run longer and bring the temps down further so my fan isn't kicking on and off while I'm working. I toggle the fan off after temps get down low enough and as soon as I do my idle drops from the 500rpm to just barely idling.


Also while the engine was warming up and the battery was charging my boost gauge was at 0psi rather than vacuum. It would go up from there if I toggled the throttle. When I turned the engine off closing ceremony took the boost gauge to almost 10psi.


I restart the engine, boost gauge is reading correctly at about 15in/hg but rpms are still amazingly low.


Can someone explain the difference between the two idle adjustment screws.

Fast Idle

[IMG][/IMG]


Not sure the name on this one, but man the pic sure captured the pollen on it (hood as been sitting up on it)



Fast idle is tied to thermowax and turning that screw does nothing for my idle. I am JDM with JDM BAC so I have no idle adjustment there. My only way of adjusting idle is the second pic...of which I do not know the name.