Thread: Car Wont Start After Turbo Install

Hello Fellaz (and ladies?)

I did some searching on this forum and the old one - searched for "wont start", "turns over", "starting issue", and other keywords, to no avail.

First I'll explain what I've got, then what it's doing.

t-25 setup, 370 cc injectors, 54mm honed MAF, top-mount IC setup, Calum ECU programmed for 4-bar, bored MAF, 370's.; Walbro 255lph, Nismo AFPR, New hot spark plugs (ACDelco Rapidfires)

Here are the symptoms:
1. I turn the key to "on" and hear the fuel pump priming.
2. The Fuel Pressure Tester gauge (eventually) gets up to 58 psi (after turning the car on and off a bunch because the pump only turns on for 2 sec at a time).
3. Push in the clutch and the car turns over (starter works fine) but keeps turning over. Upon turning the car over, each crank lowers the fuel pressure reading on the gauge.
4. I pulled each plug and reattached it to the wire and cranked to visually verify spark.
5. The plugs were wet with fuel - thereby verifying fuel in the cylinder. SEE #1 BELOW..
6. Battery voltage is at 11.6 volts
7. I installed the battery to the trunk per the instruction on the forum. It worked all summer last year when the car was stock. Now, when I try to start the car with the 150V Circuit Breaker, the breaker trips. I am currently trying to start the car with the breaker eliminated. SEE #3 BELOW...


Here are the things I am thinking:

1. The fuel on the plugs did not catch on fire when I held a cigarette lighter flame to them. BAD GAS? I will dilute the gas with some 93 octane. There's approx. 1-2 gallons in the tank right now.
2. I have not tested the cap/rotor to see if maybe the spark energy is weak. My friend told me it'd start up even with POOR SPARK.
3. DIRTY/BAD ENGINE GROUNDS? I bought the ground kit from one of our forum members and haven't installed it yet. Would bad grounds trip a circuit breaker?
4. I don't believe I have a vacuum leak. I'm using screw clamps on everything - and zip ties on all small hoses. I am recirculating my BOV, too.


Any other ideas? Any seconds on the ideas I have?

steve

when you do the first start up arent you supposed to unplug the spark plug wires or something..idk i did a lot of research on this and have some notes but they are at home

Nice to see you are finishing up your turbo project.

Hope you get this problem solved.

-G

Yes. You have to unplug the distributor and "prime" the engine to get oil everywhere it needs to be. I did this, then briefly undid the oil supply to the turbo and verified that there was oil going to the turbo. Good question though.

Re-check all of your grounds.

yeah, i couldn't start a car because i never tightened the bolt. I hand tightened it, and killed a battery wondering why it never started,
then checked and retightened , first crank, started.

Thank you. I will do that next for sure. I realized, only yesterday, that this could be an issue.

you might want to post this over on the other site as well, because some people don't read this forum.

Ok, problem solved!! Under the direction of one of my many helpful friends, I ran a long wire from negative battery terminal (battery in trunk) to the front strut tower. That's all it took!! The car fired right up! So I'll be installing the grounding kit anyway, and making that wire a permanent installation all professional-like.
This is a relatively new forum so this'll no doubt be searched and read a lot - so let me just say this: when in doubt, ground it out!
(like that? I just made it up!)
Thanks everyone! See ya at the track! ;0)

Steve

goos to se you got the problem fixed