SCCA EMod MGB GT V12 Build

loosecannon wrote: Like I haven't had enough drama this year, now the car won't start. It was running perfectly the other day but I went to start it and it wouldn't fire. It has no spark and the injectors aren't spraying fuel but it does crank. I was convinced it was a bad battery but a new one didn't solve the problem. I have checked all fuses, checked grounds, partially pulled apart wiring harness to look for broken wires, checked connections on all sensors, checked dtc codes, reloaded tune and numerous other things and it won't fire. In HPTuners you can permanantly get rid of certain DTC codes so I reprogrammed it to show any and all codes and one extra one for IAT showed up, but I doubt that a bad IAT sensor would cause the car to not start. Jerry from Bad News Racing remotely linked to my laptop that was monitoring the engine and couldn't find any reason for it to not fire, either. After a number of times trying to start it, I realized there was no fuel in the tank but I filled it and manually triggered electric pump to build pressure and it still won't start. It definitely has plenty of fuel pressure in the rail but the injectors aren't opening. This will seriously damage my chances at Nationals in 3 weeks ;(

This almost certainly something simple.

Start with figuring out if the ECU is getting the signals that it should. It sounds like Jerry did that but just to confirm, you're getting cam and crank signals and the ECU thinks it's pulsing injectors and triggering the coils, correct?

If the ECU thinks it's doing it's job correctly the next step is to see if you're getting power to the coils and injectors. Not signal but power. Once you've confirmed power then you need to start looking at signals but I suspect it's a power issue.

Talking out loud (I do a lot of that).....when you were correcting the water pump chain drive, is the crank sensor in this same general area on these LHU's?

Just after posting that, I went to my brothers shop (he's a mechanic) and kidnapped him along with his fancy Snap-On scanner. He hooked it up to the car and had me crank it over while he checked all sensors functioning. There were no DTC codes so I wasn't optimistic but when we got to exhaust camshaft sensor, there was no signal. I pulled it out and discovered a damaged sensor. How did it get damaged? No idea, the head has never been apart and the sensor has never been removed. I put a new sensor in and the car fired up immediately. I brought it up to temperature, gave it some revs then checked the sensor and it looked fine, so I have no idea what caused the other one to fail unless it was from overheating. If this ever happens again, I will be checking all sensors first and I think I have spares for every one of them. On the plus side, while trying to figure this out, I discovered that the main battery cable had been pinched between frame and floor and was able to correct it.

[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/loosecannon/media/MGB-GT/IMG_0305_zpsltnaqbng.jpg.html][/URL]

Good deal.

Winnipeg we have lift off!!!!! let it be known that the PINK is on the prowl.....be very afraid

It turns out that a lot of the EMod field are having troubles. The Whitworth's Mustang is broken, the Tunnel's BMW just broke the rear suspension during a run that took out a lot of important bits and Jeff Kiesel's Sprite just blew up his freshly rebuilt motor. These are just the ones I know about. I thought I was the only EMod car having trouble but I'm in good company.

EMod sounds a lot like the triple jump in track & field. As commentator Dwight Stones aptly said, the triple jump gold medal usually goes to the competitor who's the least injured at the time of the competition.

Will you at least annihilate the 'thin strip' for a test and tune before Natl's?

In reply to Jerry From LA:

LOL, I have a knee that agrees with that statement.

I opened up the top of the engine to check for any bits of sensor left behind and made an interesting discovery. The top picture is the inside of the vacuum pump, which is driven off the exhaust cam. That thing at the end of the screwdriver is supposed to be straight. So, from overrevving or whatever, the vane in the pump became jammed, not allowing the pump shaft to spin. This broke the metal tabs off the end of it and those metal tabs got caught up in the spinning cam and broke the sensor off. The second picture shows the broken tabs on the left, and a working pump on the right. I got it all cleaned up and I would just replace the pump with a block off plate but it has some oil galleries going through it and I'm not sure if I would mess up cam oiling.

[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/loosecannon/media/MGB-GT/IMG_0320_zpsiifqxmwy.jpg.html][/URL]

[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/loosecannon/media/MGB-GT/IMG_0317_zpshldpk82s.jpg.html][/URL]

Were these damaged parts from the Verano?

In reply to 759NRNG:

No, these were Regal parts. The failing vacuum pump is definitely the cause of the sensor problem. The vacuum pump took a bit of a hit when I was putting it in the car so maybe the housing is slightly tweaked and that caused the failure? I don't use the pump for anything so I wasn't too concerned but it is funny how these things can snowball

But is the vacuum pump a vital part of this engine????

In reply to 759NRNG:

No, I gutted it but left it bolted to engine because oil flows through it and I'm afraid that if I just put a block off plate, oil will not drain properly or feed the cam properly. I Googled Ecotec Vacuum Pump Delete but nothing is coming up so I don't think anybody has done it on an LHU or LNF.

Are the cams 'phased' through vacuum or oil press, or both?

In reply to 759NRNG:

Oil pressure. The vacuum pump is just for the power brakes on the Regal. I was looking at cam covers for the Ecotec 2.4 and they don't have a vacuum pump and the covers look very similar. I wonder if I can run a 2.4 cover on my car and eliminate the pump?

Had our final local event before heading off to Nationals and it was marvelous. The car was really great and had no troubles at all, in other words it ran like last year. The facility we were at was very dusty and covered in weeds so we never got any temperature in our tires but even with that, the balance was nice and was a joy to drive. Nationals is going to be fun. https://www.youtube.com/embed/O7EP1DvXI8w

Great news!!!! You looked like you were really haulin'A$$....did you see 70mph?

In reply to 759NRNG:

As a matter of fact, redline in 2nd gear is 70 mph and we were bouncing against it in several places

Loose ....total noob on solo, due you have to qualify/win regionals to make it to nationals....or do you pays yur $$$$ and get in thru gate X?

In reply to 759NRNG:

I was just asked this question last night at the car show. No, you don't need to qualify for Solo Nationals and anybody with an entry fee can go (until the max of 1350 competitors is reached). However, there is a competition called ProSolo that is similar but has drag race starts with a christmas tree on two mirror image courses, and for ProSolo you must have competed in other ProSolo regional events during the season to qualify. That is why I have never competed in the ProSolo in the 2 days before Nationals, I never get enough ProSolo points to be allowed in.

An xmas tree....uh no, go and throw a beat down on the kiesel!!!

I made some changes to improve the shifting

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SqPnl7lShKo

Go over the P again and look at those areas you tell yourself nah, nuttin' gonna happen there....and kick BUM!!!

I made an appointment with a local tune shop for some dyno time and got the whole package with an experienced tuning guy going over the dyno graphs and tweaking, tweaking, tweaking the tune. It took 6 hours, 19 pulls and heaps more money than anticipated but I got what I wanted: more power down low. There were more tables adjusted than I can count but I got 48 hp and 96 ft/lbs more down low than I had before. There was some problems getting the car to hook up on the dyno and we couldn't figure out if it was my clutch slipping or the tires spinning on the dyno but a couple of times it all hooked up and pulled the wheels off the ground. My GoPro battery had already gone dead by that point so I didn't capture it on camera except from behind (wrong angle) or a little bit from the front on runs before I was making full power.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/E3zp0cLHeTs