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speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:14

I don't have anything planned for the dyno yet. I have to put at least 1500 break-in miles on it first, then I'll worry about the dyno. And yes, I will WORRY LOL. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to DGRR or not. I might end up still putting break-in miles on it using the trip to NC if I go.

No, I disassembled the alternator before I took it to get coated. That's how they coated the inside of the housings as well as the outside. What I'm saying is I think the coating needs to be removed from certain places so electrical contact can be made, but I'm not sure of that. I'm just hoping that's what it is. The alt is only putting out around 10v right now. I measured it at the main post (where the one wire connects) while the car was running. I'm charging the battery right now, and I'm going to pull the alt off and disassemble again. But first I'm going to do more research to see if anyone else has had this problem.

iani1.1 · Postby **iani1.1** » Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:14

ah i thought the stator and all that got powdered as well. hm, i wonder if the fc alternator works the same way.

speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:14

Not sure. Someone on 7club said he masked off parts of the inside that he thought might need to be conductive. At one point tonight the battery looked like it might be bad and not holding a charge, but now it looks as though it is. I haven't started the car again to check the alt though. But I don't imagine a properly charged battery will help much, if at all. I was going to attach an extra ground wire to the outside of it to see if it changed anything, but first I checked between the alt and the water pump housing to see if it was already grounded and it was. I started going through the troubleshooting procedure in the FSM and only made it to the second step before discovering my batt/alt idiot light doesn't come on when you turn on the ignition LOL. So I can't really go any further into the procedure than that at this point haha.

I discovered back in January that the wideband isn't working again. Last time I thought it was bad I bought a new sensor (after doing some research and seeing that all signs pointed to a bad sensor) and after installing the new sensor, I discovered that it was just unplugged LOL. Luckily I kept the old sensor and I think I might be putting it back in because everything is plugged in correctly this time haha.

I had a problem with the way my wideband gauge and switch was wired. Before I had it wired so I could turn on the gauge even if the car wasn't on, but when I was putting stuff back together a couple weeks ago I wired the switch to the ground and the power to ignition power lol. So I blew the fuse between the switch and the gauge and it would only turn on when I turned the key. Now I have it wired correctly with a new fuse, but the wideband as a whole still isn't working, and it looks to be a bad sensor again. Oh well.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 9:14

Eric, you can test your sensor easily. Get a rag and unload some brake cleaner into the rag to soak it well. Take the sensor (obviously unscrewed from the exhaust pipe but plugged into the gauge) and wrap the sensor in the brake cleaner-soaked rag. Your WB02 gauge should read full rich immediately and stay there.

If it doesn't go full rich, or goes full rich then swings back to lean, you have a bad sensor.

speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 9:14

I can't even do that. All I get is 3 dashes, which means that the gauge isn't reading the sensor, which can be for a couple reasons...either it's broken or something is unplugged. I checked all my connections and they're all good, so that tells me the sensor is bad again and I'm really getting sick of this shit.

What I'm thinking of doing is hooking up my laptop to the tuning cable to see if anything registers.

Earlier tonight I swapped in my other alternator so at least that's working again. And that tells me it's definitely the alternator that's the problem. I started taking it apart but I figured I'd at least throw on the other one so I can drive the car (and use it as a troubleshooting tool to verify that it's just the alt), and then I can take my time with the black alt. Although I scratched the powder coat while I was taking it out so I'm unhappy about that haha. Maybe sometime down the road I'll get it coated again and tell them to mask off the inside lol. But for now I'll leave on the good alt.

I also finished my power cable reroute. I had drilled a hole in the tranny tunnel next to the go pedal to run the cable through, but I didn't like the idea of the cable just sitting there and possibly getting worn through, and I didn't have a grommet the right size (plus with the insulation on the inside it was too thick for a grommet) so I was just going to wrap the cable...nah, too ghetto. That's when I thought of using a bulkhead connector...
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-G1431/
That's the one I got. I had to enlarge the hole to 1 1/4" but it's worth it to have it sealed and not worry about the wire rubbing through and starting a fire or something. I think I'll still hook up a fuse for it though, just in case, if I can find one that's 120a and wire thick enough to match up to 2 gauge power wire. I'll take some pics and post them tomorrow.

After taking care of those things I started working on the wideband, and got pretty much nowhere. After doing some more research I looked over my wiring and now I have no idea how it worked for the past 3 years LOL. I had two wires that were supposed to be grounded that were spliced into a wire going into a control box of some sort that sits next to the ECU, but there are no ground wires coming out of it LOL. I moved those two wires to a chassis ground and I'm still trying to figure out if the wiring is correct. According to the installation manual I need to connect the yellow wire to the stock O2 sensor heating wire, but the FD O2 sensor is only one wire and it's not heating, so scratch that idea. I'm going to talk to them tomorrow and see if I can figure this out without having to buy another freakin sensor for $80.

Oh, and Security Service ripped me off for $175, through 7 $25 overdraft fees...even though I have overdraft protection for $500! NICE! So I'm going to close my account with them tomorrow and they'll be lucky if they don't get a foot up their *** too.

chickenwafer · Postby **chickenwafer** » Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:14

Haha all kinds of sh!t pissing you off huh?

Hopefully you get the wideband figured out. It may just be worth it to completely uninstall the wideband and re-wire it from scratch so you know you have a clean install, rather than trying to chase your tail through changing one or two things at a time and not knowing if you're making it better or worse.

Postby **RX-7 Chris** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:14

Did you get the car back together yet? I expect to see it at Fridays meet.

Learjet45 · Postby **Learjet45** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:14

I will definitely go down to the Springs on Friday if you are going to be there with your FD. I've never actually seen one driving around or up close, only parked on a side street near Cherry Creek. I'm dying to see one up close.

Postby **RX-7 Chris** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:14

Learjet45 wrote:I will definitely go down to the Springs on Friday if you are going to be there with your FD. I've never actually seen one driving around or up close, only parked on a side street near Cherry Creek. I'm dying to see one up close.

Is my car not good enough for you? :lol:

speedjunkie · Postby **speedjunkie** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:14

^Yes it's back together but I'm trying to get the wideband figured out before I start driving it. I don't want to take any chances on blowing a brand new ~$4k rebuild lol. I'm not at all happy about paying that much, so it would piss me off even more haha. I ordered a part from Amazon last night and had it shipped overnight so I should get it tomorrow. If it fixes my problem I plan on fixing the car after work and still trying to make the meet. If not, I still plan on making the meet hopefully lol. I'm really thinking about driving the car tomorrow regardless.

My LC-1 wideband is a 6 wire setup. One red for power, blue wire for heater ground, white wire for system ground, yellow for power for the heater (I think), brown for datalogging and black for calibration. The black wire isn't used if you use the gauge I'm using, the XD-16. The red wire I have hooked up to a switch with 5a fuse inline, although Innovate says to hook it up to ignition power. I now have the blue and white wires grounded together (which they advise) to a chassis ground instead of some unknown wire going into a black 'control' box lol. The yellow and brown wires I had hooked up to AN1 and AN2 on the Datalogit (the way I had it wired was the way another FD owner had his and it worked so that's what I did). The LC-1 also has two wires coming out labeled 'in' and 'out'. The 'out' wire connects via cable to the XD-16 gauge 'in' cable (the XD-16 also has an 'in' and 'out').

I talked to Innovate tech support yesterday and he told me to unhook the yellow and brown wires, the yellow one I wouldn't use anymore at all, and the brown wire I'd only hook up to the Datalogit if I was actively logging, and leave it unhooked at all other times, which is kind of a PITA but whatever. He told me the red power wire is supposed to be hooked up through a relay to ignition power, battery power, or both, I didn't really understand what he meant. He said he saw no benefit to it being hooked up to a separate switch (they advise against this in the manual actually). He said the wideband must be on anytime the car is on because it will fry the sensor if not. I have only done that a handful of times at most and the sensor seemed to live through it. He said the blue and white wires should be grounded together to the chassis, which I had already done. He said the black wire will remain unused. He also said I'm supposed to have a terminator plug in the 'in' of the LC-1, which I never installed. I told him that and he said that was why I was getting the 3 dashes on the gauge. I reminded him that this setup has worked fine for 3 years wired incorrectly like this and I think he was dumbfounded LOL. So I ordered that terminator plug last night since I can't find the original one and we'll see if that fixes it. I really hope so because I need to start putting some miles on this thing.

I put on my FRP wide fenders again last night, along with the front bumper and hood, so now I just have to worry about the wideband thing. I'm going to tear apart the black alternator and see if I can fix that too. Oh I finally got the alternator pulley from Pettit last night too so I put that on, but I don't think I'll be able to use it with the black alternator since it's upgraded and I fried it once before by using an underdrive pulley. I'll post pics of the battery cable setup tonight when I get home.

Learjet45 · Postby **Learjet45** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:14

I've never seen your car either

I've actually only seen FCs, and that's just because I saw Alex's FC and Christi's FC. Haven't seen any FBs, FCs, or FDs driving here or when I lived in Florida for 4 years (although it was Tallahassee, didn't expect any). I've always wanted to see an FD though, even since before I really cared a lot about cars. I've always found it to be a truly beautiful car with a timeless design. I've never seen anything else like it nor do I think I ever will.

Edit: And make sure to post if you will be there in your FD! I'm dying to see it, but don't think I'm going to head all the way down there if I can't! Sorry Chris, you car is not worth 90 miles round trip

Postby **RX-7 Chris** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:14

speedjunkie wrote:
He told me the red power wire is supposed to be hooked up through a relay to ignition power, battery power, or both, I didn't really understand what he meant.

He is saying that the red wire is the main power to the unit and should be setup to turn on with the ignition. By doing this with a relay setup, you aren't drawing the power through the ignition switch.

erod550 · Postby **erod550** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:14

Learjet45 wrote:Edit: And make sure to post if you will be there in your FD! I'm dying to see it, but don't think I'm going to head all the way down there if I can't! Sorry Chris, you car is not worth 90 miles round trip

Seeing Eric's FD is definitely worth the drive. He has one of the baddest FDs I've ever seen.

Learjet45 · Postby **Learjet45** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:14

Haha, I really want to see it. Quite tempted to go down even he doesn't bring it, I've actually got my 6 this time instead of my mom's silly Hyundai lol. Probably going to pick up spark plugs from memphis along the way if he is available, so it's a win-win

You going to go Erod?

And on topic, hopefully you get all your issues worked out easily!

erod550 · Postby **erod550** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:14

I will probably be there. Need to give Chris some stuff to give to Lyssa to give to Operator, heh. Won't be able to stick around all night but I should be able to pop over for a few.

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