STILL [Syty] Broke & Stumped!

[DOlivares]

YOU blowing an ECM is understandable... women-drivers and all....
(I never forget an old feud!)

But seriously, folks, I think "we" may be back down to 3 based on the horrific results of...

Road-Test #3 last night!

With a fresh ECM/MEMCAL (working perfectly in the Typhoon last year and being electrically isolated all that time) and air-temp around 40°, I took off on my "night runs" and damn near had the WORST NIGHT ON THE ROAD--EVER!!  This trip basically picked up where the horror-ride of last Sunday evening left off!

Start-up was the usual hunting/starving/pumping-to-stay-alive crap I always have, but part-throttle take-off was a li'l better.  However, the 6-minute DIE-OFF was back like clockwork and I had to pump and pump and PUMP to get onto the access road and then the expressway... not quite as bad as the very worst-- just worse than any time in November!  But, instead of smooth sailing as soon as I began cruising at 65mph, I get REPEATED AND UNPRECEDENTED STARVE-OUTS (SES-light comes on after chugging begins) all the way to and from my destination 9.5 miles away!!!  This was unquestionably the very WORST highway performance ever logged in that vehicle!!!!  The fix consisted of 3 or 4 quick pumps on the gas-pedal and I was good for another minute or so... then the same HOR$E$H1T all over again till I got off the expressway.  Then everything was "FINE"... darting around on deserted streets under 50mph, except for a couple of starve-outs under sustained cruise-load.

Folks, this is a batch-fired FUELING problem-- not spark- or advance-related-- yet its also not a problem with the gas pressure or supply.  Today, I'll be hooking up my analog meter to prove that point... for myself and all the skeptics out there in SyTy-ville (and besides if the brand-spanking-new super-Walbro fuel pump were truly having intermittent fits, I could not fix the problem with 3 hits on the pedal... there wouldn't be enough pressurized gas in the line to smooth things out as I lengthen those FI-pulses!)  Either this NEVER WAS an ECM problem, or else, by hooking into the existing Syclone harness, the "new" perfectly working Typhoon-ECM got dragged-down and destroyed as well-- which still makes "ECM failure" (if any) just ANOTHER SYMPTOM of a core-problem that lies elsewhere!

Now, I'm not sure I wanna send in the old ECM for rebuild... they'll probably just check it out, pronounce it FINE, and charge me $25, plus shipping both ways.

But for the cold-start-up difficulties and lack of "choke function" (fuel-pulse enrichment + fast-idle) and starve-hunt-pump-rev sequences for 30 secs until the tach takes off on a 2000 rpm increase (depending on where I'm holding the pedal), THIS SYNDROME IS VERY MUCH LIKE THE TIME MY Turbo-TRANS AM HAD A BUM-ALTERNATOR:

Once upon a time... in a Sodom-Gomorrah-like planet called Washington Metro, thankfully far, far away now... there was this Jedi Warrior (guess who!) nicknamed "Batman" who used to terrorize LS6 Chevelles, Corvettes, GNs, and turbo'd rice-burners on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (and "New York Ave. Dragway" between 3-4 am) who was always suping-up his TTA/Millennium Falcon in his NASA-based Garage.  With a run-down battery and a too-late-diagnosed dead alternator, he packed up his newly arrived 140A alternator, got a jump-start, and headed off to his Batcave in Greenbelt, Md. before the real rush-hour gridlock solidified.

He got out of Va. and through DC without incident and things were cruising fine on the Parkway until he was just a few miles away from his destination.  At that point, the depleting Optima battery began to poop-out and the car began to struggle and starve and lose speed.  But a few pumps on the pedal were sufficient to restore cruise for a few seconds... first 30... then 25... then 20 and so on.  The low-batt condition was shortening the FI-pulses and thus starving the motor for fuel.  Whacking the pedal would widen these pulses slightly-- similar to the action of an accelerator pump on a carburetor-- and thus keep the A/F mixture in a proper running range for a few cycles.  However, as the battery dragged-down lower and lower, the engine eventually just DIED for lack of fuel; no manner of pumping the pedal would stretch those injector-pulses into delivering an adequate spray of gasoline to enough cylinders.

So, Batman had to dead-cruise to an island on an on-ramp, dodge streams of traffic, hike over to El Torrito's (before the days of widespread cell-phonery) where he got Robin to come rescue him and get the TTA-mobile towed to the Batcave... where the new alternator went in, Optima got charged, and they all lived happily ever after....  I think they all went back to El Torrito for a victory dinner afterwards, but details are sketchy.

The moral of that story is THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M GOING THROUGH NOW, except my 'Clone's electrical system is in tip-top shape!

Does THIS give any among you a clue?  I'm more STUMPED than ever now....  Who knows a good EXORCIST??

Dennis O.

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: L1D2B at aol.com 
To: seravilo at netzero.net 
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 11:43 PM
Subject: Re: STILL [Syty] Broke & Stumped!


Make it 4 - I blew at least one.
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