BAD LUCK.. Engine dies randomly

92hb_hb · Post by **92hb_hb** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 3:22 pm

Lately I've been having bad luck w/ my s300..

Since i've had it hooked up.. My car has randomly died about 10 times when i'm coming to a stop.. The engine would just shut off and sometimes would not start up till after a few minutes and numerous attempts.. i'm scared to drive it on the major streets due to the heavy traffic and having it dye in the middle of the road. My latest experience happened today coming home for lunch.. I just pulled off to a small side street and suddenly the car just shut off and I had to coast to a stop.. I turned the ignition off and on again and it started right up.. drove about 1000 feet and it died again at the stop sign.. Again, i got it to start and eventually made it home safely.. Its been parked since and I haven't touched the car at all..

It has also died twice just idling in my drive way.. There's no pattern or symptoms evident when its going to die, it just dies.. I've never had this happen to me when I had my stage 2b, or s200b..

when its running normally, the AFRS look good and there's no evidence of any problems.. Lately its been happening more offen and i'm not really confident driving it on the street anymore since it may die where ever and whenever..

I dont want to rule out the s300 unit, but this problem did arise when i installed the s300 .. But it may also be the Main relay.. I"m not sure,

any help or input would be greatly appreciated..

Post by **Spunkster** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 4:42 pm

Try your ecu in another vehicle.

Post by **Hondata** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:35 am

Replace the main relay. You can also open them up and re-solder all the connections.

92hb_hb · Post by **92hb_hb** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:57 am

UPDATE..

Okay, I opened up the old relay and resoldered all the joints.. The problem still exists, the engine still dies when ever it wants to.. So I went and pulled a newer main relay from a 99 teg and plugged it in.. It seemed to work a little better, but again the engine still died whenever it wanted..

I also noticed now that sometimes while idling, the engine will want to die, but suddenly corrects it self and stays running, but eventually it will crap out all together..

Additionally, sometimes the sensor display on the Smanager goes crazy and the numbers become very erratice. For example, the RPM's will display numbers in the 10's of thousands and the fuel and ignition tables will jump from the low maps to the high maps.. I have to unplug the USB cable, plug it back in, and hit the datalog button to get it to behave like normal again..

I should also mention that I made a simple flowchart for you guys to help troubleshoot this problem.. When the car dies and I turn the igntion off and then back on again, I'll either get one of the situations below:

SITUATION 1. ----> FUEL PUMP PRIMES & CEL goes off ----> Engine will start and run until it decides to die again.

SITUATION 2 -----> FUEL PUMP PRIMES & CEL stays on ----> Engine will not start.

Situation 2 occurs more often and I have to make several attempts and wait a few minutes before Situation 1 occurs.

This engine dying thing has gotten progressively worse over the past few days, so bad that I dont even drive the car anymore, let alone up and down the street.. This problem never happened on this car or when I had the s200 unit...

QUICKSILVER RACING · Post by **QUICKSILVER RACING** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 9:34 am

I had a similar problem years ago when I first installed my B16 Set up. Everything was stock. Engine dies randomly. It turned out to be a faulty distributor. We didn't clean the distributor when we first installed it so it ruined the rotor caps. Turned out that the distributor bearings were rusted and ruined the rotor caps randomly.

When the second time it happened to me it was the PGMFI MAIN RELAY.

Post by **Spunkster** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 10:58 am

Have you tried my suggestion?

92hb_hb · Post by **92hb_hb** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 2:27 pm

I will try that.. but I'll have to take out the s300 since there would be no other car available w/ a similiar setup..

Post by **Spunkster** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 2:47 pm

No, you leave the s300 in and you have to uplaod a different base calibration to test it.

92hb_hb · Post by **92hb_hb** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 4:17 pm

UPDATE...

Actually, I think i figured it out.. SUCH a stupid stupid mistake!!..

Well, I got in the car today and happened to look at my wideband lamda settings in Smanager. Turns out, the source was accidently selected to D10 (ELD) and not D12 (EGRL) where my wideband signal is connected to.. The ELD was also not disabled in the MISC tab so I higly suspect that was the culprit and why my engine/ecu was having this problem...

BTW, I was able to idle and drive the car around the neighborhood playing w/ Smanager for about 50 minutes 2night, and not once did the car die like it was doing in the past few days.

LMK if you guys think this could have been the cause, so I can have the confidence to drive the car further away from home w/o worrying about it dying in the middle of nowhere..

thanks..

Post by **Hondata** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:44 am

ELD / D12 selection is for display only.

92hb_hb · Post by **92hb_hb** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:56 am

SCRATCH THAT..

the stupid problem just arose again.. I got into the parking lot and the car was idling for a about 2 minutes when the engine decided to die again..

another thing i noticed right after the engine dies, is that the fuel pump primes again, but the CEL stays on..

randomly, it may go off, and when it does, the car will start up, only to die again when it wants to..

Post by **Spunkster** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 12:44 pm

Spunkster wrote:Have you tried my suggestion?

92hb_hb · Post by **92hb_hb** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 5:27 pm

That was my last resort, as there's no one conveniently located nearby that I could get to..

Anyway, I think I found the culprit this time now.. I took out the ECU out tonight and looked at the solder job.. some of the joints did not look too good, so I decided to desolder and re-solder some of them..

Additionaly, I did a couple tests to narrow it down to the ECU. I plugged in a regular LS ecu and turned the igntion on. The fuel pump primed and the CEL light went off.. Did this serveral times and it confirmed that it was not the chassis wiring or the main relay. THen I did the same thing w/ the problem ecu and w/ the s300 hooked up. Turned the igntion on and the fuel pump primed, but the CEL stayed on. I then took out the S300, jumped J12, and cut J1, (basically put it back to stock) and tried again.. WHALAA!!! the pump primed and the CEL went off.. This confirmed to me that the header chip and 28 pin strips needed to be re-soldered..

I think I can close the book on this problem now.. Thank goodness..

cardinal811 · Post by **cardinal811** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 1:16 am

So for my data log with all the sensors bouncing around and my fuel staying on full blast your saying is the HONDATA S300 did hondata install the S300 into your ecu or a local agent. I'm still lost with my issue and I cant find an obd1 honda/acura that someone owns that I know because I moved to a new state rescently

92hb_hb · Post by **92hb_hb** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 7:39 am

I socketed the s300 myself.. I orginally had my s200 in the ecu, but i desoldered the female socket and soldered in the male pins..

All in all, I am pretty certain it was the soldering that caused my issues.. I'm going to be driving the car a little more in the next few days to see if the problem is eliminated totally..
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are you having the same problem as I did? was your car cutting out ramdonly too?? or were your readings just jumping all over the place?? I can bet it's a soldering issue, just like mine was..