aLmk's Turbo FA5

[aLmk]

Update (copy and pasting again from 8th):

Yea pretty upset about this because I know it's my fault with the grounds. His response to my last question was a can of gas and a match. So I'm not sure of there is much more to test at this point other than replace the ecu which sucks because that means I need to send my flashpro off to hondata and wait to get it back from them.

Why would you replace your ECU? that probably won't solve anything. If your car started even for one moment...your ecu isn't dead. Your car will not ever start if the ECU is undetectable, it will just crank and crank.

Yea I know. He hasn't said I need to replace it yet. And he doesn't want to say the ecu is dead exactly because of that. But it appears all tests lead to nothing is wrong other than ecu is undetectable and cannot be communicated with.

You guys have any more thoughts as to what to check out? I assume since it did start the one time fuel pump isn't bad and ecu probably isn't bad. Maybe I just need to keep waiting a few days and spend a lot of money and the issue will just work itself out for no tangible reason.

Now that the car is at shop, ask him to look for some harness melted by the header...
Conectors under the dash...
Imobilizer... ( Is it written this way ? )

Pretty sure he has checked/tested all of this.

If your ECU is in short circuit ( hope not ) , it could be any negative wire sensor touching a positive principal wire, bypassing fuses...or maybe you could be using a wrong fuse for any reason.

Could be inside main harness this short .

So, if you remove your ECU, you should detect if its burnt, and if so, you´ll have to find why it happened. You could burn your new ECU.

All fuses are correct. Now as for the ecu being burnt how can you tell if you remove it? I have a feeling that's not the case though as the car started yesterday for 2 seconds.

the ecu isnt burnt.

if you still have your stock fuel pump, id throw that in and see if it starts.

I do but idk how that would make me be able to communicate with the ecu.

well, u said it started for 2 seconds before dying. so the ecu is good. and the ecu was communicating then. my thoughts, between the car randomly dying while driving and just starting for 2 sec before dying, is that it could be the pump on its way out and its failing. no idea why fp doesnt detect the ecu tho, that is sort of unexplained. but switching pumps wouldnt hurt anything just to see what happens

when ryans pumps stopped working his fp didnt detect the ecu either.

I thought it only didn't detect the ecu when he had the fuse pulled out. Ryan, can you clarify please?

You are correct. My ecu was undetectable but it was a different circumstance. You can have a dead fuel pump and still communicate with the ECU normally.

Hmmm not sure. but this sounds exactly like ryans issue. he started his car and it was running then it just died outta nowhere. and his pump wasnt priming. maybe u have the same issue as he did where his one wire failed or watever between the 2 fuse boxes or watever, and so u will need a standalone relay for your pump to run.

It's possible but I thought he could detect his ecu the whole time until he pulled out the tap a fuse he was using for his new powe line to the fuel pumps.

My flashpro was plugged in the ENTIRE time i had my problem It was plugged in when the car initially cut out...and the power light was still lit just like normal. If the ECU was undetectable it wouldn't do this...it just blinks intermittently. I know 100% that the ecu wasn't undetectable at any time other then when i pulled the fuse out

The ECU can or can´t be burnt. Not all burnt.

There are internal components that could make it start the car and it die right after.
Could be any of the things you made to install the turbo. Pump, injectors, conections to ecu, relocation of the ground ecu, removal of MAF ..etc

You´ll have to open the ECU and look for burnt components.
Is it a scanner that tells you that can´t conect to Ecu or just the flashpro ?

Is there a service manual in 8thCivic ?
Probably all the steps to find the problem are there.

im surprised u didnt think of it. i would certainly do that before buying a new one! id call them, explain the issue, and arrange to send it to them! id do it today. give bill the address and have him ship it out for u

I did think of. I called then earlier but the message on the phone said I needed serial number and ecu number and all that do I hung up. But called back later and just said **** it I don't care of they want that info I just need to know if they can check it. They said they can yadayada and I will need serial no. and stuff to get an RMA number. I just got off be phone with bill and he has one last thing to do to test everything. He has created a new ground wire for the battery. He will have battery grounded to the body and to the block. No grounds are being stacked. The wireloom thing is grounded to frame rail by itself. He is doing this to ensure everything has a good ground. If this yields nothing the only option is to send it to hondata to see what they say. He has checked everything else, power is everywhere its supposed to be, all fuses are fine, etc... Unless anyone else has any suggestions I will be sending the ecu to hondata if this last bit of testing yields nothing.

The motor is also grounded to the frame.

Battery ----ground to----> frame

Block -----ground to -----> frame

Don't ground the battery to the block and the motor.

Hondata suggested to do that on the phone so I think he's doing it right. Basically he is ensuring the motor is grounded properly.

Well it is their product

They know best I'd hope.

At least that is how I understood what he said on he phone. He asked if the battery had been grounded to the block and that to the frame rail. I just called hondata back to double check and clarify but he didn't answer. I don't understand why you would want the battery grounded at both spots since stock it is grounded only on the frame rail. I don't understand all this electrical stuff that well.

That just seems like a bad idea.

It can create a loop.

I'm picturing it as

Battery --> Block

Battery --> Frame

But there is also a ground goind

Block --> Frame

So now you'd have the motor being grounded to the battery and the battery being grounded to the frame rail. As well as the block being grounded to the frame. That just doesn't seem right. :scratches:

My head is starting to spin.

Ya I agree with you, but I just called hondata again and the guy answered this time. I explained the test to him and he said that was a good way to test.

Hell if there is any Si local to you just go hook your flashpro to it and see if it detects

I don't think that would tell me anything since I don't think it's the flashpro itself that is broken because be cannot detect the ecu with any of his normal scanners.

Have you tried reflashing the car?

LOL you can't because the ecu cannot be detected. I tried to with a laptop and it said to key on the ignition, but it was already keyed on.

I just didn't know if Bill has tried that again yet.

Sorry if you said he did. I must have missed it.

I was curious if he was doing these tests, then trying to start the car.

Or doing the tests and seeing if the flashpro connects.

I don't think he has tried to reflash the car. I imagine he tests things and then sees if his scanner detects the ecu.

For poops and giggles you should see if the Flashpro connects to the car.

Before we send it off I will make sure he has tested with flashpro as well. Although I doubt that will matter since a regular scanner would be able to detect it as well and the fuel pump would prime and all that jazz.

Yeah but if you had something send the ECU in to recovery mode isn't a reflash what you do to get it out?

What do you see when the flashpro is plugged in to a laptop? Is the firmware and everything up to date?

The ecu is beyond recovery mode. It is undetectable. When the ecu is in recovery mode flashpro hooked up to a laptop tells you that. In my case it tells me ecu is not detected even with ignition switched to on. Yes everything is updated.

The real test is to take the ECU out of the car and put it in another Si. If it detects in another Si.... light your car on fire.

In for just hoping the car magically fixes itself.

Last test came up with nothing. Will be sending ecu to hondata.

oh andrew i forgot, what mucter said can be done. try that!

Don't really know any other local si owners but one and I already have an RMA. Blah blah.... It better be the ecu...

well hondata isn't the fastest turn around time....so id see if you can hit up that local guy first...its an easy 15 minute test that could really help you figure out a lot.

On the phone they said it will be worked on the day it arrives and next day aired to me.

You guys are right. I'm going to try to have it tested locally before sending it off.

Alright so to do this properly, should I disconnect his battery? Take out his ecu put mine in. Reconnect battery, then put his key in the ignition put to on and see if my flashpro detects it?

yupp

Thanks.

Just a little update:
When I picked up the ecu and flashpro yesterday afternoon I talked to Bill in some more detail about what he did, and he basically did everything. Checked every fuse again, check all the wires for power when the should have them. He also checked everything with basically every different way you could have the stuff grounded. The last test, the battery was grounded to the frame and to the motor, the motor was grounded to the frame through the mount as stock. The multi wireloom was grounded by itself to the frame. Basically every test he has done says everything has power when and where it should and that everything is perfectly fine except he can still not communicate with ecu. The only thing to really conclude from this is that the ecu has gone bad, this is pretty surprising, but if that's not the case, then I/we have no idea what the problem is.

I was able to get in touch with another local Si owner that I hadn't talked to in a while and thankfully he was willing to help. He is going to swing over here in about an hour and we are gonna swap my ecu in real quick see if my flashpro can detect it in his car, hopefully it will not detect it so the problem is confirmed and there is a tangible fix. Will keep you guys posted.

[aLmk]

Well just got done testing my ecu in the dude's car and it works perfectly fine.... Fuel pump primes and flashpro can detect the ecu. WTF!!! I'm so lost and I have no idea what to do....

[PetefromtheStreets]

You sure your flash pro didn't take a shit? Perhaps it's ability to communicate with the Ecu is no longer working?

[aLmk]

You sure your flash pro didn't take a shit? Perhaps it's ability to communicate with the Ecu is no longer working?

Absolutely positive. I used my flashpro this morning to check my ecu in his car. And Bill at this shop is using both flashpro and his code scanners. Nothing can communicate with it when its in my car.

[aLmk]

The ecu is back in Bill's hands. He may get some time in it today during hours but te plan is for me to go up after hours and we are both going to look into every bit of wiring that has been touched on the car and try to find something. Will keep you updated.

[aLmk]

Well can't go to the shop tonight, he didn't realize he has to do some stuff after work. I should be able to go up Wenesday.

[aLmk]

Slight update for every (copied and pasted once again):
Well found the problem. It was the transmission.

Lots of:


Then....

His transmission does't explain his boost issue earlier, simply put...something in his transmission is broken, presumeably 2nd gear since thats what he was shifting into when **** hit the fan. Whatever broke, hit the speed sensor and broke it. they (bill and Andrew) unplugged that sensor and everything worked (fuel pump primed, ecu could be reached ect...)...meaning the sensor must have been shorting out or messing up the ECU in some way to make it unreachable. Pretty crazy.....

Yea I think the two issues - boost creep and ecu/electical problem - are entirely unrelated. I do think second is broken, or a syncro or something because when we started the car, it would not go into second, went into first just fine. But it did make a noise as if something was bouncing around inside the transmission under certain conditions. And yes Ryan is correct with the speed sensor unplugged everything worked just fine, car started and everything.

:bricks: makes me scared about missing 2nd earlier

I didn't miss second when this happened though. The car just died as I shifted it into second. But I must say this trans has been through quite a bit. I got this car when I was 16, I learned how to drive stick on it, I beat the crap out of it when I was a dumb 16 year old, I also at points wheel hopped the **** out of the car because I was young and too dumb to know how bad it was, etc.. I at one point had the water pump replaced under warranty and I am almost positive the water pump broke because of excessive wheel hop. So this trans has seen a bit of unnecessary abuse to say the least. Obviously as I got older and more interested in things I treated the car much much better, but that doesn't make up for 30-40k miles of stupid **** like excessive wheel hop and stuff like that.

Now to explain how we found this issue because its pretty interesting. When I got there tonight around 6 we were just talking about somethings and deciding where to even start since basically everything was checked previously. I looked at the grounds and they were all done really well and exactly how I wanted. The battery and wire loom being grounded individually to the frame rail via the 12mm battery tray bolts etc... We first rechecked all the under dash fuses to make sure they read the same voltage the battery was, and they all did except the 4 related to headlights. I do have HIDs so I decided to unhook those and plug my stock bulbs that I brought with me. Plugged those in and the readings on the fuses were back to normal, but that of course didn't fix the actual problem. After that we moved onto the fuel cage because when installing my walbro over a year ago I did tear into the insulation of one of the wires for the fuel sender and this exposed a small bit of bare wire. At the time the best fix I had available was to put some heat shrink tube over the teared part, but the only heat source we had was a lighter which obviously we couldn't use because everything is covered in fuel so we zip tied it. Now the car ran fine this way for over a year, so I really doubted it was the cause, but just to cross one other things off the list we fixed that correctly. We got new heat shrink tube and used a heat gun to shrink it on. Put it back in, problem of course not fixed. Now in the process of doing the fuel cage, we had to push the car forward out of the lift back slightly to be able to open the doors (the pillars for the lift were in the way). When pushing the car forward we noticed the trans was making a clicking noise, Bill initially asked if it was in gear and I looked and it wasn't. So that was odd, but we both were like hmm... that's not a good thing, but lets fix this problem first then we can worry about the trans issue. At this point, however, we really had no other idea as to what to look at next. Basically everything had been checked other than going through each wire individually. I mentioned to Bill I had done some research last night on here and online and had a few links of stuff we could read, although I told him, I really doubt any of the info I found would be useful at all since most of it dealt with ground stuff and all that was fine in my case. But I did have one thread, where a dude on here had basically same problem as me but in a bone stock DX civic. The problem was, the thread this guy made in an effort to solve his problem had no solution posted, nor that he even fixed the problem, and the thread was over a year old, so I didn't think it would be all that helpful. Here is a link to the thread if you are curious: http://www.8thcivic.com/forums/mecha...ain-relay.html Now after reading this Bill said, hmmm this guy had this issue after he replaced his clutch, and your transmission is making a clicking noise, let's check the transmission. So we went into the bay, pulled the top sensor, nothing changed, pulled the front speed sensor and everything was back to normal! After that we pulled sensor out, started car, yada yada... and realized there is certainly something floating around in the trans, likely a result of some broken gear.

TL;DR: Tonight was awesome and ****ty all at the same time and my transmission is broken.

He will be pulling the trans out to figured out what's broken/needs to be replaced and I will have him put a new clutch in. Unfortunately, this could not have happened at a worse time since I am finishing school in these next 2-3 weeks I really do NOT have the time to do this work on my own although I really would like to and could do it especially since I am completely comfortable dropping the subframe now. But I need to finish school and I need the car running before school is over. I would get no sleep for the next 3 weeks and probably fail a bunch of stuff if I forced myself to do this. O WELL, tis life I suppose.

So what are you guys' thoughts on clutches? I'm thinking Clutch Masters FX 350... Any suggestions?

[ksboi]

Sounds like the fuse block or the connector on the back of it crapped out.

[snizzletoff]

Sounds like the fuse block or the connector on the back of it crapped out.

It seems pretty safe to assume something broke in transmission and hit the sensor since its so mangled. That probably caused the sensor to short out internally and that is the cause of the issue, it makes sense its just super crazy that it happened...

[PetefromtheStreets]

When I took my car out and broke 2nd gear, my car shut off as well similar to how yours did. I raped 2nd clean off and it broke my sensor as well. Although I did not have a shorting issue.

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