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

Don Moncrieff wrote:

IT STARTED! Thanks Paul, Ed and Tracy. Your suggestions were very
helpful. Tracy spotted the key problem--I did not have the EC2 well
grounded. Once that problem was fixed the engine fired on the fumes left
from my previous experiments. What a surprise and what a thrill! It sure
is good to have you all with me. Don Moncrieff

 
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