Another MS2 no spark

[Fraser]

Yeah I may mess with the gap a little more. I assumed too tight was as bad or worse than too loose. It was more like .5mm before I changed anything yesterday. I'll try setting it up on the bigger gap end of the spec and see if it helps.
This is driving me crazy.

[Digitalwave]

It can be a pain in the ass. I had a lot of issues crop up when I switched to MS, and the car was running fine on Motronic before that. What's more weird is that you also have no spark on the other Motronic unit you have.

[Fraser]

It can be a pain in the ass. I had a lot of issues crop up when I switched to MS, and the car was running fine on Motronic before that. What's more weird is that you also have no spark on the other Motronic unit you have.

Tell me about it.

It's funny, you read all these build threads and get the impression that people are bolting everything together, plugging in their ecu, and boosting off into the sunset. I'm getting the feeling that's not a typical case. I think I have like 3 days of bolting parts together and a month and a half of troubleshooting ecu issues into this build at this point.

I can't wrap my head around what the crucial piece is that the 173 ECU sees differently than the old 153. The pinouts are nearly identical and people regularly upgrade from 153 to 173.

No amount of cold beer has solved this so far, which is unusual for most of my projects.

[Digitalwave]

By any chance have you modified your wiring harness at all? When I was doing my M20 swap, I extended the coil wiring and accidentally grounded the shielding on the positive wire. That caused a no-spark for me. Just throwing stuff out there...

[Fraser]

By any chance have you modified your wiring harness at all? When I was doing my M20 swap, I extended the coil wiring and accidentally grounded the shielding on the positive wire. That caused a no-spark for me. Just throwing stuff out there...

This is exactly the type of thing that I'm hunting for right now. I have not modified anything on the harness beyond wiring the GM IAT plug into the stock AFM wiring. I did move the coil from it's original location on the strut to the intake manifold just for simplicity in wiring and keeping the coil wire off the turbo- I'll look and see if I fecked anything up in the coil wiring doing so.

I also added a thing or two to the ground post that the ECU uses near the strut tower, like my wideband. I'll clean up that post really well and make sure any other grounds are in good shape. I believe the coil ends up using that as a ground via the ecu as well so I gather that could screw things up if the ground is fickle?

Thanks for your feedback! I still have an e30sport sticker somewhere around here- on a toolbox or something...maybe I can find it. Those were the days.

[varg]

So the coil is getting +12V during cranking, are the injectors firing when you crank it and get no spark? That would rule out any issues with the crank position sensor and associated wiring or ECU not getting power. Can you open the MS or non working ECU and do a continuity test between pin 1 on the back end of the 55 pin connector (with it plugged into the wiring harness) and the coil? Maybe you have a loose contact in the harness end of the connector and only one of your ECUs has a pin that has continuity with it. If so equipped and you have truly bypassed the OBC relay box so that the immobilizer is a non-factor, there really isn't much to the wiring of the coil; +12V off of a relay or the ignition switch, coil grounded through the ECU's ignition driver transistor to the ground plane on the board and out to the ground wires for the ECU which all lead to G103 "behind" the shock tower (according to the ETM, I haven't done any work on IX). If there is ground continuity with the ECU and +12V on the coil's positive terminal, only the ECU electing to not fire the coil or a continuity fault between the ECU and the coil could cause the issue.

[e30davie]

I feel like something is fundamentally wrong with the settings in the MS. I would start with the software and make sure the MS is actually being told to fire the coil. look at the output status. there are many diagnostic things in the MS to check what is going on. I don't know why the CPS is even a question, surely this can immediately be confirmed in the tuner studio software? do you have RPM or not? are you getting any sync issues?

Once the software is sorted and you can see the ignition output being told to ground, put multi meter between +12V battery and the ignition output pin and see if you get any change in voltage when cranking, this will tell you if the ignition output is working. the voltage will be weird as it will be grounding many times a second, but if its not zero and all over the place when cranking its a good chance it is working. An osciliscope would be nice here, but unfortunately we dont all have one of these.

From there its a matter of making sure that pin is connected to the coil ground. simple continuity check. if no continuity i would splice in a test wire from the ecu output of the ecu and connect it to the coil. that should make it fire the coil. if this works. try and find the break in the wire, or do what dodgy e30davie would do and has done, and that is make the test wire a permanent fixture.

[nando]

Good point.

Does the OP have a stim?

[varg]

I asked for a msq in the beginning of the thread and didn't get it. He says SSSquid bench tested the unit and it's known to be good so that's the assumption I'm operating under, that and the fact that it runs with the 153 but not with the 173 or MS. If the ignition/trigger settings are good for one 325 they're good for any 325 so short of SSSquid setting it up wrong or OP changing something that shouldn't be changed there shouldn't be an issue.

Still haven't seen that msq though

[Fraser]

Wow thanks for all the input guys.

I do not have a stim. At this point I'm not even working with my MS box. I have a SSSquid chipped 173 ECU that also is not producing spark. I'm convinced it's something on the car end and like not an actual problem with either the MS or this stock ECU.

Sorry Varg, I missed your request for the msq- I'll sure send it to you but just be aware I'm not even actually working with the MS at the moment, it's at SSSquid where he's troubleshooting it further.

I will look into a continuity fault between the ECU and the coil this afternoon. You may be onto something with a problem in my harness end that's not seeing a connection with the plug on either my MS or the 173.

[nando]

If you dont have a stim, theres no way to verify you crank signal is set up properly.

I reccomend the jimstim since it can emulate the 60-2 crank signal. I have two spares I dont need, I'd sell one cheap.

[Fraser]

If you dont have a stim, theres no way to verify you crank signal is set up properly.

I reccomend the jimstim since it can emulate the 60-2 crank signal. I have two spares I dont need, I'd sell one cheap.

Hook me up. Sounds like something I should have for the future regardless of this current situation.

[tschultz]

My Ms2 tuning has been well over a year. Some of that time I was rebuilding the head and changing parts, but still over 4000 miles of tuning trying to get stock like driveability, cold start, mpg, and throttle response.



My mye28 build thread shows more detail but it has been a process! I am still working out the on/off throttle transition.

Once I get to a point I am happy maybe the next step will be dyno tuning. I think I told you what my issue was. Bad connection at IGBT out diagnosed and fixed by the guru Peter Florance: peter@pftuning.com
Might be worth sending to him for a good lookover.

[e30davie]

What is a stim?

In my opinion one of the major benefits of any aftermarket ECU is the ability to troubleshoot. Open up a laptop and in 10 seconds you can read every sensor and see if its behaving or not. I put ms2 on my b23 a few months back. Best thing I ever did for that engine. Sure you can pay people to look.at it but I'd you can get your head around it all its an amazing diagnosis tool.

[Fraser]

What is a stim?

In my opinion one of the major benefits of any aftermarket ECU is the ability to troubleshoot. Open up a laptop and in 10 seconds you can read every sensor and see if its behaving or not. I put ms2 on my b23 a few months back. Best thing I ever did for that engine. Sure you can pay people to look.at it but I'd you can get your head around it all its an amazing diagnosis tool.

Man, I believe it. Unfortunately when you're a total neophyte to the system (myself), a lot of that diagnostic potential is kind of out the window. I'm looking forward to becoming more proficient with tunerstudio in order to properly utilize all the information MS offers.