Few of the old timers will remember me, had a CA ages ago in my first S13. Owned a G35, a pair of s13s, and now in 3 weeks my new toy will be ready. I purchased a July 89 R32 GTST and it will be arriving in Jacksonville. Been without a toy car since december and has resulted in me spending money on stocking up on parts and giving me plenty of time to read up on all the ins and outs of a skyline.

Well, now that that is out of the way I see boostboy is still around, I see TMS, and I saw some stuff from of the other old times and hoped I could get my friend some help. We are working through his s12, it has an FJ20ET. It is running good for the first 30 mins of use, then it gets into what seems to be closed look and running like dog s***. it will start to break up and run ultra lean. He has

replaced the fuel pump
back flushed the lines
cleaned the fuel tank
replaced the plugs
replaced the distributor
replaced coil
checked compression
checked vacuum
replaced Coolant temp sensor
Fuel pressure checked with fuel pressure gauge
compression is within spec
timing is spot on (checked and rechecked)
ECU has stock rom in it

Engine was imported like this, haven't really got any idea what else might be an issue. He has toyed with going to an SR/CA ECU, but trying to avoid doing that with all that is already invested into it. Any ideas? The amount of data and info on these engine is laughable compared to what I even had access to when I had my CA back in 2006.... which is saying something.

Any ideas of things we might be missing?

Standalone. TMS is the only person I know with direct FJ knowledge. He's not on here much, so you'll probably want to message him with a link to this thread or he'll never see it. He got rid of his S13 (it got cancer, in a bad way) and so he's not in the CA scene anymore.

Trying to get those old factory engine management systems to act right is a bit of a challenge. If he really loves the dinosaur 2 liter engine, the best thing to do is what float says. Good to hear from you as well, Gabby

UGH, spent all day with the car today. Cleaned all the injectors and even hard wired them to the battery to see if we could get them to flow carb cleaner properly. They all work. We smoke tested it, found a pair of small leaks, sealed them up and still this stupid thing is acting like it is hitting fuel cut. Runs great, but when it reaches .3 bar the car totally cuts power and falls flat on its face. Seems we have narrowed it to the ECU, literally the only thing left we haven't changed.

Thanks Dee, been doing a bunch of different things..... got 21 days till this hits Jville and then I can enjoy. I have an almost entire car worth of parts sitting in my spare parts room right now waiting. Had I known what I know now about Yahoo Auctions and importing parts.... I can't imagine how much more fun my CA would have been.






few pics since I purchased it. The car was in great shape but needed paint, had the importer Paint it for me LP2.

Man, I love R32's!

Hi Gabby, indeed, sweet R32 you got there! Lucky car, I must say, as it fell on very good hands.

As my wife drives a RHD Mitsu, are RHDs allowed to circulate in the United States? Just wondering.

She is a beauty! can't wait untill I get mine!

Cams wrote:Hi Gabby, indeed, sweet R32 you got there! Lucky car, I must say, as it fell on very good hands.

As my wife drives a RHD Mitsu, are RHDs allowed to circulate in the United States? Just wondering.

There is no real law stating you can't have a RHD car state side, there are however strict regulations on how soon the car can be allowed in the country. This is a july 89 and just this month turned 25 years of age and is now federally legal to own and drive on the roads as that is when it becomes exempt from both DOT and EPA regulation. My husband likes to joke about me becoming a postal worker, as all of their vehicles are RHD.

Sideways s12 wrote:She is a beauty! can't wait untill I get mine!

thank you. She was a little rough paint wise when we got her from the Auctions in Japan. Had it painted LP2 in June just before it got shipped.

float_6969 wrote:Man, I love R32's!

Me too, can't wait to install the Greddy coils, ARC sways, and Blitz FMIC among other things to really start tearing up some pavement.

http://rivsuimports.com/inventory/ns011119.html

here is what it looked like when I bought it and a short video. Will look nothing like that about 12 mins after it arrives at the shop. Going a little crazy..

You said something about Yahoo Auctions and JDM parts?! Any tips on this you might want to share?

Share? Well I haven't purchased a USDM performance part in nearly a year and 1/2 now. Yahoo auctions is so much cheaper and higher end parts it is stupid. The SSR Varden sport wheels sitting in my parts room were $73 plus fees to get it here. The Greddy Type S coils for my R32, $750 including fees for what they called "used", but they didn't have a drop of dirt on them and the collars spun like new. The Electronic rollers that came with them, one had a scuff on the top bushing. Otherwise they were new looking too. Had to have less than 400 miles total... hell my BC had 300 and they didn't look that good when I sold them.

I have been using multiple brokers to get stuff from over seas. Best to worst....

Rivsu imports
GTRgarage
fromjapan

Rivsu has been the best. they are who I got my car through, and have supported me every step of the way when I needed parts.

GTRgarage I have been working with for more than a year. Kunio is amazing to deal with and has even turned down selling me something because he knew the prices were higher than average, as well as covering me when something isn't as high a quality as the listing describes. (sometimes it is lost in translation, other times it helps to really dissect the pics)

FromJapan has been alright. They are totally self serve which is nice, as sometimes brokers don't want to deal with bigger items or their fees are higher than you would desire. They don't have any real "face to face" person to communicate with, and you are totally on your own for buying as to if it is real, good condition, and a reasonable price.

It has been real eye openning, case and point. I bought a BNIB Blitz SE FMIC for my R32. the S13 ones state side were in the $800-1000 range. I paid $450 shipped for the same kit BNIB which I couldn't even find a price listed state side..... an S13 one over there would have been even more reasonable. I couldn't hardly get a CX racing kit for that price.

I have grown to be a bit of a brand snob. I guess that comes with age and seeing that I can get a SET of SSR's shipped to me for less than a new set of XXRs (paid 570 total for them), but over all it is just crazy to think the money I spent on things here verse what I can wait a month for and get over there. yeah I get the waiting sucks (believe me it has been 9 months for this skyline), but in the end it is so worth it.

ca18detgabby wrote:UGH, spent all day with the car today. Cleaned all the injectors and even hard wired them to the battery to see if we could get them to flow carb cleaner properly. They all work. We smoke tested it, found a pair of small leaks, sealed them up and still this stupid thing is acting like it is hitting fuel cut. Runs great, but when it reaches .3 bar the car totally cuts power and falls flat on its face. Seems we have narrowed it to the ECU, literally the only thing left we haven't changed.

Does it have the turbo ECU and the turbo airflow sensor? Isn't it the N/A by any chance? Maybe it's pegging the VAF. Any possibility to check the output voltage when the fault happens? When does it lean out w/ regards to the the fuel cut?

If you know how to do the CA ECU conversion, I'd go ahead ASAP, regardless.

Congrats on the R32. The most beatiful piece of the R line.

blownhemi wrote: Does it have the turbo ECU and the turbo airflow sensor? Isn't it the N/A by any chance? Maybe it's pegging the VAF. Any possibility to check the output voltage when the fault happens? When does it lean out w/ regards to the the fuel cut?

If you know how to do the CA ECU conversion, I'd go ahead ASAP, regardless.

Congrats on the R32. The most beatiful piece of the R line.

yep the ECU is a Turbo FJ ECU (pulled the ECU out and cross referenced the # vs one on YAJ) and the VAF is showing voltage properly. We even pulled the cover off to make sure it didn't have a modded spring or anything as reading showed that in the older days guys would use this to modify metering. It was all stock inside. We even checked to see if the ECU had an Eprom chip that was maybe tuned for something else. We even cleaned and lubed the Flapper within the VAFS to make sure the door wasn't sticking as some people had experienced similar issues with that.

We have been reading about doing an CA or SR or even KA ECU conversion, just a matter of willingness to invest more time and money into something that seems so close to working.

We pulled the plugs, it shows that it is extremely lean with white marks on the plugs. I would wire in a Wideband, but it is pretty apparent that it isn't getting enough fuel so we didn't bother with it.

ca18detgabby wrote:Fuel pressure checked with fuel pressure gauge

Did you check pressure on the fly, or stationary, at idle? What FPR are you running? Was it also among the items that were replaced with a known working one?

ca18detgabby wrote:We have been reading about doing an CA or SR or even KA ECU conversion, just a matter of willingness to invest more time and money into something that seems so close to working.

Yes, it really seems so, as if it's one of the trivial things, but it also seems like you've covered all of those.

blownhemi wrote: Did you check pressure on the fly, or stationary, at idle? What FPR are you running? Was it also among the items that were replaced with a known working one?

Fuel pressure as checked Post Walbro (45PSI IIRC), it was also checked at the FPR both flying and at idle as it was assumed that the fuel was the issue. The FPR is the factory FPR from the FJ20. it is one of the few items we haven't replaced, but it shows no signs of needing to. We even tried removing the vacuum source from the FPR which from reading should bump the pressure 10PSI @ the rail. None of this improved or changed anything.

blownhemi wrote:
Yes, it really seems so, as if it's one of the trivial things, but it also seems like you've covered all of those.

normally between myself and my husband we can sort through these issues w/o even seeing the car. Regardless of make and model fuel/time/air, we can figure out most anything. This has become a real quandary among my gear head friends as all of us are left with.... well we fix this so it can't be that. The only other thought is that something replaced with a "good known working" component isn't as "good" as we thought.

I love working on old cars when I have an issue with an OBD2 car.... when I work on old cars I wish I could just plug a code reader in it.... really is a viscous circle. ... lol O well.

does this thing uses an O2 sensor? how about an air temp sensor?
do you have any documentation on what inputs/outputs are to the ECU? Even a wiring diagram will help, I don't care if it's not in English

Have access to the chassis harness as well.

It does use an 02 sensor, but is a single wire and provides little information to the car from what I gather from reading. I also haven't been able to find a sequencing to put the ECU in test mode, but I do believe something like that exists because there is a switch to set it into diagnositic mode on the ECU.

FJ20s use a Bosch flapper door AFM and no air temp sensor as far as I know. I've seen FD AFMs with sensors in them, but later models.

I've never had a one-wire O2 sensor that worked so I doubt it's that. If you haven't tried it yet, unplug it and I'll bet Ryan's chocolate starfish nothing will change. Try unplugging the water temp sensor and see what that does.

Check your vacuum hoses and make sure none are getting heated up. I had an L20 that would drive fine until it warmed up then it would cut out. I had a vacuum hose laying across a hot part of the engine and it was warming to the point of losing vacuum and shutting the engine down. It's the same era system so the FJ20 could do it too.

I cannot emphasize standalone enough. You are dealing with a 30 year old 8-bit system with crusty wires and suspect sensors. It's only the painful simplicity of the system that allows it to continue to work at all in its golden years; it was never very precise in the first place.

I feel all warm and fuzzy inside when TMS makes a post in the CA forum.... or maybe that's the roofies he slipped in my drink....