First issue after installing Esmeril Kit
 

Ok guys, i bought a used esmeril kit and installed it over the weekend. I have had no real issues thus far. I am still running on the EXTREMELY rich map that comes with the kit from Esmeril so while driving to break it in i am staying down below 5500 RPMS. This is mainly due to it stalling or bogging when you go above that due to how rich it is.

I have not had an issue yet and driveability in the lower RPM range is just like stock. I have only put around 100 or 150 miles on the kit.

Now on to my issue. Driveing the car last night, in low RPMs still, the car kind of stumbles for a second. I am holding my speed ar 55 or 60 in sixth gear just cruising down the highway. I get a flashing cell and the car continiously starts to stumble. Its not a lurch you back in the seat kind of stumble. But more of a one where you can feel it in the pedal and know that its happening. after a few seconds it straightens up. I slow down a bit ant put it in fith to experiment and see if it does it again. It does. it starts with the little stumbles and flashing CEL. I limp the car home for about another 5 minutes with this CEL and stumbleing intermittent.

Once home i pull the codes. It was a P0301 which is the misfire on the first Rotor. I understand this. along with the P2097 i believe.... it wsa the one about a cat and the exhaust ( i have a midpipe).

Once home i pull in the drive and the car Idles fine. Dits in the drive and has a pretty constant idle. no stumbleing or lurching in the RPMS.

This morning i go out to give it a quick start up and drive it around a few blocks to see if the issue is still there and explore the problem a little more. When i start the car, it fires right up. Sits at idle fine with no isses. I took it around about a three block radius and drives fine with no stumbles or issues.

Does anyone know what could have caused the CEL and the stumbleing. I have Okada Project Coils and upgraded wires. I am thinking it may be plugs? They have not been replaced within about 15,000 miles and that coupled wiht the really rich tune could be causing my misfires. Does anyone else have any other theorys they think may be going on. Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I finished install a new Esmeril kit on my car about 3 weeks or so ago. Mine ran great. I only have surging at idle at the light twice. Other than that it was real smooth running. I have 700+ miles on the kit right now but still untuned. In your case, I would check the condition of the spark plug first. My plugs were about 23K miles old but they work just fine right now. I will, however, replace with a colder plugs before I tune the car. Hope it just the plug issue on your car that cause that misfire. But whenever you have that funny feeling on that gas pedal, alway let go of the gas pedal right away just to be save and avoid getting into boost at all cost during this period.

Thats the thing, i have not really been gettin into boost. I have been keepin it under 5500 RPM. Never really going WOT and at max maybe hittin one or two pounds.

The tune that came with yours out of the box is not so rich that it will not turn high RPMS? I think i read somewhere that a few people where dealing with this when they first installed there kit untill they adjusted the air fuel.

Do you have a Wideband O2?
I'd check the plugs if it's running as rich as you say for over 100 miles then you could definitely have bad pugs now

Yeha have hte wideband. durring every day driving its not horribly rich, but when you feel it start to get into boost (and i am talking right when the turbo starts spooling) it hits the extremely low 10s and pegs my A/F gauge at 10 (lowest the gauge will go). I am hoping its the plugs. I really do not know what else it could be unless the motor went. But thenyou would not think the idle would be ok and it would have started right up this morning.

What kind of tuning is it that he sent you? A Chip? Piggyback?

It sounds like it's setup to dump fuel (LOTS of it) the second you hit boost.... I'd go ahead and start finding new tuning options.

Are these cars even capable of utilizing piggyback systems like the SAFC or NEO?

It comes wiht the int-x which runs off of the microtech software. they set it to go pig rich out of the box so you do not blow your motor. I should be able to dial back the AFR with no issue. Its jsut i want to make sure my motor is ok along with everything it needs to boost. I have only had this kit on since sunday night so not much tuning time. Not worried about hitting boost yet, just trying to make sure this thing will not grenade my motor if it hasnt already.

Good morning!

What you are experiencing is insufficient spark.

The Cat Code is normal and some cars pick up on it and others don't even give you a CEL but its because your car is running outside its normal AFR range and O2 sensors catch this and assume the readings are because of a faulty Cat Converter. This has nothing to do with your issue.

What is happening is ignition. Your spark plugs (which I am assuming were the ones in the car before the install) were fine when running stock but now that things are rich they have gotten saturated and probably need to be changed. There is a cheaper option than stock for this so if you are interested let me know and I will point you in the right direction. If the spark plugs are new then its your coils or spark plug wires. Even though you have not gotten into boost, your car is still rich in certain parts of the RPM range, so your "barely enough" stock ignition coils(which might already be tired from normal use as they go bad at around 20-30k for most people with stock cars) are no longer able to keep up. It could also be less than ideal spark plug wires. Again, in stock form these components were probably already marginal, now that you are dumping fuel in it just aggravated the situation. When your system goes slightly above 0psi it gets really rich, and all that fuel will not burn...some of it will stay remain and this could foul up your spark plugs in a hurry, specially if you have a weak spark to begin with.

I am not saying you have to change everything. I would start with new spark plugs and I would re-gap them to .018-.022" (I can explain how if you don't know), this will help with the issue. Also, tuning the car a little so it doesn't go into the 10's AFR would greatly reduce the issue (I can also give you some pointers for this since you have a wideband)


PM with your questions and I will give you some pointers.

Best regards,

Chris

Yeah, i am not to worried about the CEL reguarding the cat and what not. More worried about the intermittent stumbleing. Its odd how it would just come and go and it never had a problem untill that drive home last night

After talking to chris and a few people i decided to go with my initial believe and change out the plugs. Just to make sure it was not my motor i took the eight around town again. Started up fine and i drove it around the small town i live in for about 10 minutes. Things were running perfecrly. no issues. just seemed like my normal 8.
Things went so well infact that i decided to take it to des moines to get the plugs for it (about 30 miles). Turns out. This was probably not the brightest idea. Drove all the way in with no problem. again everything was good at highway speed and around town. went, got my plugs headed back and WHAM! The same exact thing started happing again. This time, the car was stumbling like before and the CEL was blinking. The CEL never stopped blinking again. I was fairly close to home once again so i limped it home as easily as i could. When i pulled into the driveway the car struggled to idle then eventually evened out and help RPM. Still makeing the sound of it stumbleing. Tried to start it and NO START. This once again made me instantly think i blew it up. I figured i would give it a shot in the morning.

Go outside this morning and try to start the car. NO START. well i figure it could be the plugs. So i change them out with the ones i bought last night. try to start and NO START. now i am thinking that i really do have an issue here. but in the back of my mind i am thinking, well maybe its just flooded. so, i pull the fuel pump fuse and crank for a bit. then re install it and try it. same exact thing. NO START. That leaves me where i am at now. New plugs and a car that will not start. I will probably go out shortly and pull the codes from my car and see what it says but i am already positve that its goin to be the misfire codes. Any more information guys?

Phil, have you try reset the ECU and try to restart? Disconnect the battery for couple mins and try again. I don't know what the cause is since I never seen one before. Does the interceptor light green or yellow?

Did you get this kit from Whitesnowflake8?

Yes, just like what Staticlag said, who did you buy the kit from? Did that person has the same issue you have right now before he sold the kit to you?

To get it out of the way, I would do the compression test if that is good then you can focus on electrical or PCM that may be the source of the problem.

Nope, the kit came from Diego. who is friends with WhiteSnowFlake. He said he was running yoru tune Static then took it off the car.

From what i hear your tune was rather aggressive and is not a good tune to start with. After lookign at what was on the INT-X when i got it, it was really really rich as if it was the map from the factory. Plus again i have never really gotten into boost at all and can not go over 5500 or 6000 rpms due to how rich it is.

also reset the ecu and still no go. light on the INT-X is green. pretty sure its not a wiring issue

I replied to your pm with 2 things to try out....I still believe its either ignition(sparkplugs are not gapped and they are not stock so the gap is huge on them) or it could also be a loose injector plug.

Engines don't just intermittently run great when they are broken.

Try what I sent you and let me know how it goes.

Best regards,

Chris

Uh? Diego = WhiteSnowFlake8

Aggressive? Negative, it was super rich and safe.

That version of the INTx needs both the green and yellow lights to be lit. This indicates that the throttle is correctly calibrated.

How about this. If you drive over to Omaha I will tune it for free.

My bad it was not diego it was Zee that i bought it off of. I will think about that whole tuning offer. Its quite tempting if i get the thing running again.

after regapping the plgs and checking a few other things i decided to check the INT-X. when the key is forward the green light comes on but the yellow one jst flickers a couple times and goes off. Isnt it supposed to say on? Is this my issue and whats causing this?

subscribed... looking forward to the outcome to this because I also am interested in the esmeril kit

Did a little seaching for myself and fond ot that the TPS needed to be calibrated for the light to be on. Set the TPS to 0% with the key forward. (it was only at 3%). Light now comes on and stays on on the int x. However re gapped plugs and TPS set now we still ahve the no start situation.

Could be a faulty ignition or injector driver on the Int-X. But we can find out by pulling each of spark plug wires one at a time and pointing them at the coils while someone cranks the car. You should see a clear spark going from the coil to the plug wire on all four....be careful if you pull it out too far or place your hand too close to the boot it could ground through you....it tickles :)

Also, did you remove the intake manifold and verify that all injector plugs are in the correct positions and fully plugged in per my last pm?

If so, I would proceed to make a compression test...although I doubt its broken since it was intermittently running ok, it would be good to scratch off this possibility.

Best regards,

Chris

I checked the injector plugs and they seemed ok. when i regapped the plugs i did the good old fashioned listen for compression check (can not get ahold of a tester right now). It was a steady even beat of compression coming from the rear rotor. Then i did the same with the front rotor and got the still same steady beat of compression. I know that this is not the best way to check but its doing what i can with what i got at the time haha. However when i did pull the plugs to regap them, the trailing plugs were dripping with gas.

I am thinking its still a major flooding issue. However, also now when i crank the car over it just cranks. does not sound like it is even trying to start at all. I will go check the coils here shortly to see if i get a jumping spark.... and a tickle if i am lucky .

Yeah its probably not blown.

I'm guessing that its just really really really flooded.

Try pulling the fuel pump fuse in the ignition compartment, then take out the bottom plug on each rotor and crank the engine. Black oily fuel mist should come out. Do this for about 20 sec.

Now squirt just a little bit of water in each plug hole (maybe 5mL), replace the plugs and it should start right up.

Be sure to jump the car while doing this, cause all this will kill your battery & the small ones don't have much life for this type of thing.

3 owners down the road and chris is still handing out great customer service.

im impressed.

well, i checked the spark and yes we do jump from the coil to the while on every coil. spark is there.

I also tried Statics method of deflooding the motor. This still did not gelp with the start.

I also tried putting the old set of plugs back in. They are horrible looking by the way from how rich the car was running. They had exactly the same effect as the New set. I got nothing still.