Gone COP, runs good....but.........

[cribbj]

Oh the suspense.......

 

[kc95sc400]

Oh the suspense.......

Just another hour or two I promise.

Don't know if I will be able to drive it till tomorrow though, when my wife gets back.

 

[kc95sc400]

It runs!!

Nobody warned me about the need to change dwell time though. Was running like poop at 5000 us, seems happy at 500 us. 700 us starts running funny and stalls at anything lower than 300 us.

 

[kc95sc400]

Alright, straight from one issue (not confirmed to be fixed yet, LOL) to the next.

Car is purring like a kitten at idle. Revs up nice in neutral. Supercharger is quiet as a mouse which is nice cause I can actually hear my motor now.

But..... having trouble restarting it after a shut off. The first two times it was like it was flooded. Disabled the fuel pump and cranked it until it tried to run, turned it back on and would fire right up. Couldn't get it to start the last time, have decided to take a break for a few minutes.

Smells like fuel. Ignitors are cool to the touch. Haven't checked much else yet. Next stop I guess would be the relays I'm using for power to the coils. Using two relays and the coil side of both relays is getting power from what was the power wire to the drivers side stock coil and the ground is to the chassis. The switched side of the relay is getting power straight from the battery through two 30 amp fuses.

 

[cribbj]

You probably already know this, but with key on, you should get +12 to the injectors and coils. All these devices work on a negative trigger signal, and if any are getting pulled to earth accidentally by a stray wire that's been pinched, you'll have problems.

That'll cause the injectors to open up & start flooding the engine with fuel, and you'll let the smoke out of the coils.

Also, ensure that center input terminal of the ignitors is well grounded. You'll get a weak spark if you have a high resistance ground and the coils aren't getting full charging voltage.

How much of this system is new & untested? I think you've been running with this Adaptronic and fuel system already haven't you? So is it just the ignition and the supercharger that are new/different?

 

[kc95sc400]

99% sure all wiring is good.

Had it running a few times and was idling and revving up great. I would think a grounded injector or coil or something otherwise wired wrong would cause a noticeable mis-fire.

The 1st time I got it started was running like crap. I swapped the IGN3 and 4 ECU outputs as I mentioned I thought I "might" have mixed them up. Made thing worse so put them back. Realized that the engine wasn't really missing just acting kind of funny so I played with the dwell settings and got it running solid. Ran at idle with a couple of revs here and there for a good 30 minutes.

I have been reading on Adaptronics website and have a few things to check. I think there's a good chance it's just a setting that needs changed somewhere. Possibly the RPM to run setting as my battery is getting weak and the setting is at 250 rpm which I'm not 100% positive it was hitting last time I tried.

I made several changes to the motor and bolted on a used V-2 S trim. Drove it around for a few days without problems except the 3k miss.

Changes:

1. Eliminated idle valve (which does make it harder to start but nothing cracking the throttle for a few seconds doesn't fix)

2.Put a wastegate on the intake controlled by 2 VSV's to in theory control boost. It works in vacuum as a bypass valve and closes properly when reeving the engine but haven't checked the boost relief side of it yet due to my ignition problem.

3. Installed the COP's and the AEM box. I am still going to be disappointed (yet probably relieved at the same time) if this does indeed prove to be the problem at 3k. I was very excited about this box and the car was down a week waiting for the stupid thing.

4. Used the throttle body stop screw to get it to idle. Have a EVAP purge VSV plumbed to the intake to add some air when the engine is cold or the AC is on or a couple other conditions.

5. Couple of changes to the intake piping, nothing major.

Ran as stated above with these changes.

Then, swapped out the used V-2 S trim for the new V-2 Si trim which was a simple matter. Took out the AEM tried the stock ignitors. Took out the stock ignitors for the Bosch units.

Coils are getting power through 2 relays which are powered when the key is on. Ground for the ignitors is to the 14mm strut top bolt which also has a ground wire going to the throttle body. Should be good.

I actually passed out last night and didn't mess with it much more, heading out to the garage in a few minutes to slave on it now.

 

[kc95sc400]

That diagram you posted doesn't apply to me BTW. Mine is like this x's 2....

 

[cribbj]

Gotcha, so you're doing two sets of 2 in and 4 out. Same result.

A weak battery will cause all kinds of spooky behavior. Don't know if the Adaptronic has an injector mapping table vs voltage, but if not, the weak battery will cause some very flaky injector behavior.

BTW, the 4 banger crowd seems to have had better luck with the AEM 4 channel boxes, so at one time I'd considered hooking up two of the 4 channel boxes for the Ferrari, but then simply lost interest, since the inductive + HKS solution was working so well and was such a clean solution. That could still be a solution for you if you're stuck on going to CDI. That or a pair of DIS4's, or you could even try a single DIS4 or single 4 channel AEM and wire your coils in parallel, but you'd lose some of the purported advantages of the CDI by splitting its output energy to two coils per channel.

 

[kc95sc400]

I am so frustrated right now.

These coils do not appear to be putting out a very strong spark. I tired rigging a factory coil but apparently doing something wrong. Put a plug wire on it with a plug, put power on it. Ground it and release with the plug grounded. It's sparing out the ground wire rather than the plug.

The spark is much better looking but again, not going through a plug.

I'm very close to just going back to stock and forgetting the whole thing.

 

[kc95sc400]

I think I will try moving the ignitor grounds to one of the factory coil grounds and see if it helps.

 

[kc95sc400]

So I've been trying to figure out what's going on, testing and checking different things to no avail.

I have figured out that with the dwell setting on 5000 the car starts but runs like crap. With it set to 500 it won't start but runs good. The highest I can set it and it still runs good is 700. Haven't tried starting it at 700.

 

[cribbj]

Does the Adaptronic have a dwell vs RPM map or table? Or maybe a battery voltage vs dwell table?

 

[kc95sc400]

I need to explore the software more but I don't think some more. I think there is a fuel trim vs batt voltage.

There is an injection offset and an ignition offset adjustment directly below the dwell setting but I'm not sure what they do and playing with them doesn't seem to change anything. There is also an add dead time when cranking but I assume that is injector related.

 

[kc95sc400]

Voltage hasn't really been an issue BTW, I had it jumped to my wife's van for awhile.

So I've been playing with the dwell. At 500 us it runs good but won't start. So I started adding 5 and trying to start it. At 530 it starts ok and runs good. At 535 starts ok and runs good. Going to keep adding 5 until it starts acting up. Seems it likes a high number for starting and a low number for actually running. Seems like there must be some other settings involved here. IDK what though. Will try and drive it a bit later. If the problem I'm trying to fix is gone then YAY! If it's still there I convert it to a boat.

 

[cribbj]

Is the Adaptronic support forum any help? I can't imagine you're the first one to run COP's on a V8 with this ECU?

How about some pics of those Accel coils mounted on the 1UZ? Were you able to use their holddown brackets with the stock 1UZ valve covers, or did you just put a cover over the whole thing to hold them down?

Have you found any tech specs on these coils, like optimum dwell time, etc.?

It's a pity American aftermarket parts rarely carry any technical specifications anymore. Guess the manufacturers don't think modern day muscle car hotrodders would understand them......

 

[kc95sc400]

Adaptronic is usually pretty helpful.

The coils are not bolted down but they fit very tightly in the holes. Make a nice pop when pulled out.

No tech specs other than physical dimensions. LOL

I think I'm officially giving up. Went to drive it. Was still hell to start. Was actually running pretty good though. Until it died at a red light. Took about 10 minutes to get it started again and was definitely missing a couple of cylinders. Managed to limp home. Stalled pulling into the garage. Got it fired back up and sounded like fireworks in the intake. So either one of the ignitors took a dump already or one of my relays powering the coils maybe or god forbid the ECU.

On a side note, the miss at 3k was gone. Had it up to 5k low load without issue.

Getting this COP setup working is not worth engine damage.

 

[cribbj]

Sorry to hear about all these issues.

Before you give up completely, why don't you try sourcing some Denso bike coils and give them a try? Others have used these with good success, so they're proven.

Or go with "smart" coils with built in ignitors; I've personally had Tundra smart coils on my own 1UZ up to 22 psi of boost without any issues whatsoever (running from an AEM v1 ECU) These would eliminate the extra wiring you've had to do for those external ignitors and it would be a cleaner installation.

I don't believe it's the COP technology that is causing the problem; it's that all your components aren't playing well together yet.

 

[kc95sc400]

Got the stock ignition back in. Haven't driven it yet but I'm not concerned. Starts and runs like a champ. Should say that I have not had any issues with the stock ignition, just got a hair up my arse and thought an upgrade would be good.

Not saying I give up completely but giving up for now. I burnt out on it. My car has been down longer than it ever has because of this. I have a brand new supercharger on it along with some other neat stuff that I haven't been able to test or enjoy. Just want to be able to drive and enjoy the thing.

 

[kc95sc400]

Do you think it would be worth trying the AEM box along with the otherwise stock system. I'm almost curious enough to try it to see if it has the same problem.

Then I could always play around with COP later.

 

[cribbj]

I'm a real dunce on the stock system as it's distributor based.

I think the AEM box needs a static, crank triggered system to work?

You'd probably need one or two of MSD's older boxes.