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Post by onepaintedman on Feb 15, 2021 13:58:06 GMT
2021-02-15_Tune_Export.msq (117.29 KB) Er. My poor car , Ronin, has been sitting idle for over 6 months and, despite repeated attempts to awaken it from its slumber, the bugger refuses to start. Got fuel, and spark but it just cranks and cranks. Managed one cough this morning but wouldn't catch. Before I start causing myself further woes by pulling bits off and breaking them (believe me, that's how it ALWAYS goes when I touch my car) or call in a mobile mechanic, I thought I'd call out and see if someone can check my current Tune. I have attached the tuner studio file above. I never got the start dialled in correctly because something was always broken on the car preventing me form using it. However, before I parked it up it would usually start with some feathering of the throttle and about 3 attempts, then run well enough to drive until warmed up properly. I suspect I have got something very wrong in the settings. If someone can take a quick look at my cranking settings, pulse widths, fuelling, etc to check something is not totally off base I'd be most grateful. It's a couple of years since I really got absorbed into getting the settings and tune right an I have now forgotten EVERYTHING! Gah. Set-up. 1990 NA 1.6 Eunos MS2 Jackson Racing Supercharger 150mm crank overlay 425cc injectors If anyone finds something really fundamental that when corrected causes the car to start I will gift them a token of gratitude! Hope someone can help. Cheers peeps. OnePaintedMan
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Post by wannabe on Feb 16, 2021 9:36:32 GMT
I am zero help on the magic electronics side of things  but Bilbo did do his own tuning so might be able to help?! Have you tried taking out the fuel pump fuse and cranking it to get oil pressure up without risk of flooding it, then putting the fuse back in? Has the battery got good power? TBH I have this same issue with a totally standard car (not an MX5) right now. |
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Post by martiny on Feb 16, 2021 11:41:31 GMT
Regarding wannabe's priming idea, your tune has flood clear set at 70% throttle so you can crank it over at full throttle and it won't (shouldn't!) inject any fuel.
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Post by martiny on Feb 16, 2021 11:59:53 GMT
I can't immediately see a glaring problem but they have so many places to hide...
So I gather it was kinda starting but reluctantly 6 months ago and now it just doesn't wanna? I'm going to guess that it's because it's way colder now. Do you have any datalogs or anything to tell you if it was lean or rich after starting 6 months ago?
One idea I'd just chip in as it happened to me in this cold spell with the car mostly unused: I eventually concluded my bad starting was because the low battery wasn't driving the fuel pump hard enough to get the fuel pressure up. So although I had big cranking pulses, not a lot of petrol was actually being injected. In Fuel Settings>Injector Dead Time I increased Battery Voltage Correction and it all came good.
(I had set the dead time and voltage correction to the supplied value for my injectors (0.144ms/v correction) but had a couple of datalogged starts where I could see how lean it was running for the 30 seconds (!!!) it took for the unhappy battery to struggle back up from around 11 volts to 14 volts. So that was exactly the info I needed to plot fuel correction against volts and after I bumped the correction up from 0.144 to 0.296 ms/V it now starts just fine even if the battery is a bit grumpy.)
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Post by martiny on Feb 16, 2021 12:09:43 GMT
PS Another thought: Your cranking rpm might be a bit low. It's set to 300 rpm. Might work better if it was raised, maybe to 500-ish.
Cranking rpm is the revs at which the ECU decides the engine has started so it switches from using the cranking fuel pulses to just the regular running fuel injection (plus afterstart enrichment and warmup enrichment at first). So it's good for Cranking rpm to be set a bit faster than the engine usually cranks on the starter. You want it only to reach Cranking rpm when the engine definitely fires.
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Post by schercheeroo on Feb 16, 2021 16:40:07 GMT
My cranking rpm is set at 300 rpm and it's always started okay.
The general settings in your cal looks okay.
I would start by adjusting the "cranking pulse %" map. Try adding 20% to the whole table (don't be scared of making big changes, its not permanent and you can fine tune things later).
Leave the throttle alone! Crank it, if it fires, cool. If not add some more fuel (5-10%) and try again. Don't touch the throttle.
If you've done this a few times, and it still fails to start, You'll be in a great position where you will know without any doubt that the engine has too much fuel.
So reverse the process, take out 5-10% from the cranking pulse width table (leave the throttle alone).
It won't take long to find where the engine wants the fuelling to be. I suspect you need more fuel.
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Post by onepaintedman on Feb 16, 2021 17:46:18 GMT
Fantastic advice. Really helpful and practical. Thanks guys! I have had the battery on the trickle charger all day today (It was a new battery 5 months ago, but with all the snow and cold weather and my cranking sessions, I felt it could do with a top up), so will try out your suggestions in the morning. 👍
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Post by atlex on Feb 16, 2021 22:13:39 GMT
Totally unrelated but .. good to see you're still about Drew :-)
I've got the corns nestled in my courtyard, I really want to put it back on this spring..
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Post by onepaintedman on Feb 16, 2021 22:35:26 GMT
Totally unrelated but .. good to see you're still about Drew :-) I've got the corns nestled in my courtyard, I really want to put it back on this spring.. Still skulking at the back. The Alfa and Citroën had all my attention (and money) invested in them last year, so Ronin got parked up and left. Finally got the sills sorted around September and then ordered all new discs and pads for MoT (Didn't end up getting the parts until the beginning of this month due to stupid Brexit)! Still haven't fitted them because I want to sort this starting issue first. |
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Post by dadbif on Feb 17, 2021 8:01:33 GMT
I cannot see anything wrong either, but bearing in mind the cold weather, I agree with both previous comments, low battery coupled with insufficient fuel.
Let us know how you get on with a fully charged battery and modified cranking pulse widths.
Mine started better when I tried it the other day, better than it does in the summer, so perhaps I have too much fuel at start up?
When you get it going, try the cold start feature on auto tune, that should smooth the warm up cycle.
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Post by onepaintedman on Feb 17, 2021 15:25:25 GMT
Well - tried it all and still nothing. Wondering if my fuel pump is shot (Even if I can hear it priming with the ignition on)?
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Post by dadbif on Feb 17, 2021 22:37:01 GMT
Pull the plugs, check if they are wet to confirm fuel, then ledge one against the head and crank it to confirm you have a spark.
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Post by onepaintedman on Feb 17, 2021 22:51:47 GMT
Will pull the plugs tomorrow to check if they are wet.
Checked for spark on all of them today with an in-line plug tester. All good 👍
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Post by wannabe on Feb 18, 2021 8:04:12 GMT
Does it have an alarm / immobiliser?
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Post by onepaintedman on Feb 18, 2021 16:29:38 GMT
Does it have an alarm / immobiliser? Hmmm, good point. It does have an immobiliser but the light is going off to indicate that it's disarmed. |
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but 
le sigh