I am really in a bind and I hope that at least one of you can help me out with the situation....

Here is the scenerio.....Upon completing the turbo install while I had the car on the jack stands still I started the car to make sure that there were no oil leaks, that it ran properly, and that the car would actually start. I let it run for only a little bit and shut it off, failing to realize that flooding is an issue. when I put everything on like the covers and wheels I took it off the jack stands and tried to start it up. I believe that I flooded the car because it was trying to turn over but would not fully get started. At first we thought that it was a dead battery because it had been sitting for about 2 weeks. tried to jump it for quite some time and every time it got closer to starting. I had to wait overnight and my father jumped it this morning while i was at work and said that it idled on its own and didn't have much of a problem driving. after a little while my starter sounded like my starter was getting weak, While trying to start the car later again tonight it just wouldn't start. It was cranking and there was exhaust coming out the pipes but still nothing.

Would you think that my starter is going bad and I should replace that? there is a burning plastic smell coming from under the hood and I believe that it is coming from the turbo trying to get broke in and burned off, but could it also be the starter overheating? If in fact it was flooded do I need to replace the plugs and try it again or are the plugs salvageable? Its just been such a hard journey and I'm getting frustrated. Has anybody else had these problems with this setup and what are some suggestions so that I can get my car running again. Its just depressing not to have my 8 to enjoy yet.

 

Sounds like your Dad idled it just enough to let it flood again.

Also sounds like you could use a new battery. The burning smell is most likely just the turbo getting hot for the first time, no biggie.


S

 

if you tried to start it that many times, your battery is probably dead and jumpstarting won't really help a heavily flooded rotary that much.

Do you have a multimeter? If so, measure the battery's resting voltage. It should be around 12.7-12.9 volts for a full charge. And somewhere around 11.9-12.6 for a depleted battery.

If its weak the best thing to do is go to walmart and buy a battery trickle charger. Let it charge for like 2-4 hours.

Now while it is charging, you need to pull the spark plugs and see if they are wet. If they are wet then your problem is flooding.

take out the leading plugs, try and spray them with some compressed air to get them dry. Chances are they will still be usable.

Now get some windshield washer fluid (the blue kind), squirt maybe 2 ounces of in each rotor sparkplug hole (its ok if you leave the trailings in), now go into the engine bay fusebox and pull the small fuel pump fuse. Crank the engine without the spark plugs in, make sure that you route the spark plug wires out of the way of the junk that is going to come out of the open sparkplug holes.

At first white smoke is going to come out of the engine, keep running it in 10-20 second bursts until the smoke dies down noticibly. Doesn't have to stop smoking completely but you will see when only slight puffs come out.

Now put the leadings back in, sparkplug wires on, fuel pump fuse in. And most importantly make sure your battery is fully charged! It doesn't hurt to also hook up another car/truck to your car just to help crank it this first time.

Now, crank it without touching the gas pedal. It should catch, as soon as it catches rev it to 3-4K and hold it there until most of the smoke dies down 1-3 minutes, it will try and die on you, just make sure you keep the revs up or you will have to pull the plugs again.

Try and put it back together(wheel on, off jacks, etc) and drive it a few miles immediately after doing this, avoid long stops, interstate is best.

After this your car should be good.

If this doesn't work, put your regular ECU back in just alone and try and start her up. As long as you didn't change your injectors you should be able to get it to idle somewhat. If it starts up then, try replacing the EMU, try it again. If it floods it may be a tuning issue.

 

Dan I appreciate the help a lot. I did just buy a new battery to try to get it to go but the problem is that it still doesn't seem to want to be strong enough to get it cranking properly. My dash lights still cycle as if it loses power and regains it shortly. Didn't know if this was an engine/starter/flooding problem or if there is a short in one of my lines now.

Also for those of you that know the EMU pretty well there are three wires that are not connected to anything on the EMU. I didn't know if those three wires are meant to be untouched or if they came off of something. There is a red (power) a black (ground) and a cream white (which I still am unsure of but they match all the other cream wires.) if I could get an answer to this problem as well I would greatly appreciate it.

Dan, I am going to try to deflood it the way the technician said by holding the gas pedal down and and getting all the **** out and then cycling through that. If that doesn't work I will pull the plugs. I am just so tired of tearing **** apart and putting it back together. Its been a rough couple weeks. And I have been trying to start the car with the help of a jump from my fathers pickup.

 

Be careful with holding down the gas pedal while trying to deflood. On the stock car with the stock ECU it works, but with the INTx at least when you hold it down it doesn't know to cut the gas and will flood the engine right away. Pulling the fuse is best for an aftermarket setup.

Did you get the starter upgrade? If so its unlikely that its a starter problem, but it might be.

Cycle, as in click on and off a few times? If so then the battery is definetly drained.

 

So your EMU isn't hooked up to power?

Does the green "active" light light up when you turn the engine to the "on" position but dont start it?

 

Try unplugging the EMU and running it on the stock PCM. Just don't go into boost and you should be fine if you're running stock injectors.

 

Turns out that when I tried to start the car through the flooded engine i put too much stress on my starter. The starter ate **** on me last night so I have to find a good shop to rebuild my starter for me. I really cant afford to buy one used or the upgrade. so hopefull this fixes the end of my problems

 

So I got the car running and it has been running for almost a whole two days now. The problem I have now arose when boosting on an on ramp to get onto the highway. I hit 6K in second gear and there was the feeling of a major bog/fuel cut fallowed by a flashing CEL. The car then died and had a hard time starting up again. I got it started and the rpms were able to rise but I was not getting ANY power no matter how high the rpms were at. I finally got it to move off of the highway and in front of one of my friends places. The only thing unique that I can point out is the absolute loss of power and when looking under the engine bay I could hear a squeaking and a fairly rough idle, sounded more like a belt squeek then anything else I could explain. The engine sounds deeper and doesn't run as smoothly. Staticlag told me that it may be one of my couplers that came loose and slipped off but it is dark at the time and I didn't get a chance to check it out completely because I had to get back to work. Anybody have any new information that I should check out?

Dan if you are going to be in town this weekend I may need your help trying to diagnose some things. At this rate I wont be competing in the auto-x and will need your help later in the afternoon. This just gets awful discouraging.

 

....or, the quikest way (and this ALWAYS WORKS) is if your dad has a truck, have him pool your car in tow and pull start it.
No matter how flooded it is, it will start right up.
It will start on one rotor (if the motor is blown) it will start on a half a rotor even .
Pull starting is the quikest way if you have the means to do it. All you gotta do is screw the tow bolt in, and you are good to go. Then after it is started, let her run and burn out the crap in it just like Static described.

Good luck

EDIT:
ohhh buddy, sounds like you got yourself in trouble.
does it shake violently and tries to die while in idles? It wouldn't care if it was a blown coupler, as it would only leak when in boost. Wouldn't affect how it runs in vac though.
I hope you didn't swallow a seal, and if you are lucky and you didn't, you need to get it tuned ASAP, and not hit freeways

Good luck again.

 

did the cell stop flashing yet? normally it will flash if the system senses a misfire or a extremely rich condition, i just had a similar concern while the car was either spooling
or boosting...but idle was fine..my problem was a fairly large boost leak at the turbo outlet pipe

 

Well Roto it does do a bit of shaking when at idle. I Would't quite put it as violent but it def doesn't feel right. The motor has never ran so rough for me.

Greg I have seen your post. Mine made a similar sound to yours but wasn't near as loud. I dont believe that is the problem. I haven't gotten a chance to get it lifted again to inspect it for minor leaks.

 

Missed you at AutoX today. A damn supercharged Mini Cooper cleaned up the SM class.