Don Moncrieff wrote:
The big day arrived. As far as I could tell I was ready to start my 88
turbo 13B after two years of preparation. I had wired in Tray's EC2. I
mixed the fuel. All relevant switches on. Full pressure at 60 psi! The
warning light on my Grand Rapids EIS was blinking like crazy (the screen
seemed to indicate that this was related to the engine being cold). I
pressed the start button. The starter kicked in with enthusiasm. The
engine turned over. I could hear pressure popping as the apex seals slid
by the exhaust ports. But the was it! More tries. Same results. No
start!
After some snooping I discovered that no fuel was getting into the
fuel rails and there was no spark.
The Haynes Manuel was a challenge for me. With a lot of confusion I
finally realized that I had assumed that "primary" as in "primary fuel
rail" also indicated where the fuel was supposed to go first. How mixed
up can one get! Anyway I switched the fuel hoses so fuel entered at the
secondary rail and it worked! Fuel pressure stabilized at about 40 psi
and excess fuel poured out the return hose! Wow! A problem still existed
since pressure dropped to about 2 psi a minute after shutting the fuel
pump off. I decided to live with that for a while and turn to finding
the missing spark.
The crank angle sensor checked OK
Coils checked OK
Igniter (I don't know how to check this)
Wires to and from the EC2 checked OK
I had shortened the high tension leads and they showed slightly less
resistance than the original leads.
I pulled a plug, attached it to its lead, turned the switches on,
pressed "start", the engine turned over as if anxious to go, but no
spark!
I then thought "I need some suggestions" so here I am.
Thanks, Don Moncrieff
P.S. Please do not suggest "Give up!"
Don, there used to be a low cost pulse sensor prob that one could buy from
Radio
Shack. I am not sure about the exact wireing but you might use one of
these
to check for a pulse to the igniter. I am sure Tracy can help you here.
Paul Lamar
Hi Don,
Sounds like having fixed the no fuel problem and the problem now is no
spark You mentioned connecting a spark plug to a ignition lead but the
results was no spark. Did you try this for both the Leading and Trailing
spark plugs? 3 of us flying rotary engines have had the lead ignitior fail
due to a small ohm resistor in the base on the unit opening up. We have all
replace that resistor with a high wattage one and have had no problem since.
In this case there is no lead spark but there is a trailing spark, so you
might check that.
You might check and see if you can get a "Noid" light. They have them in
most autoparts stores and simply consist of a neon bulb in a plastic disk
that you plug into the fuel injectors wiring harness. They cost about
$9.00 and the one you want is the one for the GM fuel injector. You could
probably make one. In any case, if you stick one into an injector electric
socket and turn the engine over it should blink as the injection computer
sends the injector pulse. If it blinks then that would indicate the EFI
portion is working and you problem in on the ignition side. If neither the
ignition nor injector systems work then I would look to something like the
Crankangle sensor wiring or harness wiring.
One thing to be careful of is the crankangle sensor. Since the color wire
schemes for the Crankangle sensor varied in some year models, it is very
possible to hook up the crankangle sensor incorrectly just relying on the
color codes of the wires coming out of it or its connector- ask me how I
know {:>). So you might want to check that out and make certain the correct
crankangle sensor leads are wired correctly.
Best Regards
Ed
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