Thread: Cranking, not firing properly, too burnt to troubleshoot....

Dude, I had no idea there was a bleeder cap on the thermo housing! SONOFABITCH!

Guess I'll crack that open, and start the car while pouring antifreeze in the radiator. I use prestone 50/50 as well.

Which way to tilt the motor? towards the driver side or pass side? Or do you mean putting the front in the air all together?

Well there is your answer!!!!LOL!!!! I just tilt the engine towards the cabin, as in the whole front. I usually have the front of the car on jackstands while doing this. You dont have to start it til after you bleed it....that's how I do mine. Before I start mine put the bleeder cap/screw back on( now ar is on all 4 wheels) and leave rad cap open. Rev it a few times to make sure all air pockets escape, if all looks good, put rad cap back on and idle til rad fan kicks in.

But since you have idling problems you need to fix that or you will have fun keeping it steady, well as long as you can do it then you are good to go.

Bleeding is super easy.

Turn the blower to hot.
Jack up the car all the way (the radiator fill cap should be the highest point).
With the thermostat bleeder out, fill slowly until it weeps, then replace the bleeder.
Fill as much as you can and leave the cap off.
Start the car and slowly add coolant. The coolant will drop until the car is all the way warm, then it will start to rise.
When it starts to rise, put the cap back on.

After lifting the car up (it was in an elevated driveway, too), I opened the bleeder valve on the t-stat housing and coolant came pouring out. I now have a feeling it was due to the upper hose being slightly compressed while being stuck between the wastegate and the neck for the radiator.

I have now decided to replace the stock radiator with a half size (although almost 4 times as thick) radiator that will run with one fan. I'm picking one up locally for $220, that the shop owner uses on his 640whp civic. He claims to never see above 210* temps on hot track days here and in Arizona.

Well after troubleshooting a bit more, a couple friends came by from their shop after work to check out the car. We got it to start and idle somewhat, and one of my friends decided to almost cover up the MAF with his hand, blocking some airflow. The idle actually improved and it started to fire perfectly. They could rev the hell out of the motor with his hand covering the airpath in front of the MAF.

Either this means that there's definitely a vacuum leak (which I haven't found), or I need to replace the fuel rail. Going to replace the fuel rail today and see if it seals correctly.

Minor update:

Pulled the fuel rail out this morning, and it definitely looks bent. Injectors 2 and 3 are literally canted towards eachother, and injector 1 wouldn't seat properly.

Now, after inspecting the o rings between the fuel rail and the intake manifold, I found one that was torn pretty bad, so now I need another o ring as well.

Going to hit up Checker or Autocrap today if they're open, and see if they have a replacement I can use.

Tekkie can you please keep me in the loop with this half radiator your speak of. I have tossing the idea around of doing somting like this to my car.

Also you will be fine with one fan. I use/used one OEM fan on the drivers side with no issues at all.

Rob - I ended up staying with the full size OEM radiator. The Civic half radiator that I picked up to test fit is physically too tall for the radiator upper and lower supports. I'm thinking it can be done by just cutting the lower support and welding a custom support bracket for it, but I'd rather not deal with it right now.

I'm going to end up cutting off the upper support, and pushing the radiator forward at an angle so that I don't have to worry about manifold/wastegate clearance.

I'm still having issues with the drivability of the car, though.

The setup:
8.5:1 CR DET block w/ forged internals
Supertech valves
Brian Crower cams (STG 3)
Brian Crower springs and retainers
Apex'i head gasket
ARP head studs
740cc Nismo injectors at 3bar
z32 MAF
GT3076R .82 A/R
TiAL 44mm wastegate
New Nismo AFPR

Problem is as above. There is no intercooler or piping hooked up to the setup at this time. Running as N/A setup until I can figure out wtf is wrong. Basically, it runs really lean at idle, if I can get it to idle. ECU seems to be in control of idle, because changing the RPM idle value in the bin immediately affects idle, although the car still tries to drop it's idle and stall out. Fuel pressure is consistant around 40~42psi, doesn't really fluctuate when revving the motor if I can ge it to rev.

When blipping the throttle, the AFR goes rich for a second then leans back out beyond 17 (off the wideband's scale) When driving the car, the day I decided to try and drive it, the car would go INSANELY rich, and choke on itself, and bog down. I had to feather the throttle to even be able get it to go anywhere.

All obvious signs would point to vacuum leak, but doing a vacuum leak test with a can of brake cleaner or starter fluid wouldn't help because I can't keep the car idling long enough to test.

Aside from the above, I have annoying oil leaks that can be taken care of, but I need the car at least driveable so I can get it to the shop. I guess I could tow it, but really don't want to if I don't have to.

What are your thoughts, guys? I can't really time the car or do much else if she doesn't even want to stay running. Oh, and Mechanical timing is good to go. At TDC, cams are at 10 and 12 o'clock and there are 20 rollers between dots on the cam gears.

Sometimes while idling, it improves dramatically and runs fine for a split second, but STILL registers as uber lean.

Very wierd progress, to say the least!

I deided today to reset the ECU self learn, since I hadn't done so after upgrading the injectors. (D'oh!) I also reflashed the ECU with a program that calum had sent me. It now idles fine! It seems to have some hiccups, but I could probably attest that to plugs being slightly fouled.

The only thing I DON'T like, and STILL relate to being mechanical related, is that the dizzy is advaced as far as can be. (turned to the radiator). I selected timing mode, in NDS, and the car still ran, and actually ran a bit more smoothly. I didn't do anything to the timing yet, though. base idle timing in NDS reports 3~7 degrees BTDC. If the car SHOULD be at 15 degrees at idle, and the dizzy is advanced all the way, I would think that the exhaust cam is likely off.

That, and the persistant knock sensor that no matter how many times I clear the ECU, still happens to pop up. (Yet no CEL).

Anyhow, looks like I just may have it driveable by the end of the day *crosses fingers*

Advancing is towards the fire wall.


I may have read what you typed wrong.