That mercury switch is the switch that triggers the relays to turn on the fan.

That might explain why I'm running hot. I'll tear open my wiring harness and get that second wire to the correct pin, otherwise I'll just run a new wire.

So Dee, what do you think my next step should be? I've got start up and it dies. If I flutter the gas, it will still drop rpms and die. I don't have a clue what the problem could be.

AAAAH! fan sensor? well that explains why i dont care :P I wired my fans into my ac switch

livelyjay wrote:That might explain why I'm running hot. I'll tear open my wiring harness and get that second wire to the correct pin, otherwise I'll just run a new wire.

So Dee, what do you think my next step should be? I've got start up and it dies. If I flutter the gas, it will still drop rpms and die. I don't have a clue what the problem could be.

Undo the AFM and see how she acts. Hope you didn't fry the TPS circuitry in your ecu.

How could swapping that 10v wire between the two pins screw up the ECU? That bottom pin, according to the FSM, isn't used. Just curious, since I have no idea how all this witchcraft works.

I pulled the MAF and it idles nice and smooth at 1400rpms. When I pull the throttle cable taut to close the plate, it drops down to probably around 1000. The WBO2 shows A/F at 12.0. When I retarded ignition timing the idle got lower as well.

So what does all of this mean?

The CA18 Witchdoctor just smiles an evil grin and tells the peasant to clean the hot wire of the afm and re-test. If idle is still dodgy, try another ecu .

Anything in particular I should use to clean the pins? I'll do that and try it, then I'll try my OEM AFM just to see what happens (I did drop this AFM by accident). As for the ECU, do you have one, or should I grab one off eBay?

I have one, but try the afm meter hotwire cleaning thing with a dry Qtip or a Qtip with a dab of alchohol (70% and above). And if that doesn't work, I could always provide you with another one,

I'll mess with the AFMs this week. Hopefully I didn't throw away the original AFM because when I looked at them side by side I could have sworn they were the same size. My question is though is it a waste of time? The FSM states there should be 12 volts coming out of pin B on the harness. I'm only seeing 10.6 volts at the harness. Is that the real issue?

How sure are you of your wiring abilities? Is your alternator charging to full capacity? If you wired this stuff correctly, it should be producing the voltage necessary to deem it operational. It's really hard to diagnose anything further than the information you provide. Connect a voltmeter to your afm's signal wire and with the ignition on, blow through the afm and see if the voltage rises to meet FSM specs.

I'm pretty confident in my wiring abilities. I was able to work my way through the FSM checking all of the sensors and did find the problem with the idle switch and temp sensor. The car is charging correctly when it's running too. I hooked up the AFM from the CA16DE directly to the battery (12.35 volts right now) as shown in the FSM and it shows 1v with no air, 2v with air blowing through it. I did the same thing with the blue AFM you sent me and it reads .85v with no air, and if I blow really hard I can get it up to 2v. Is there a difference in the AFMs because they look the same to me externally.

So here's where my inexperience at troubleshooting reared it's ugly head this afternoon. I was curious if the lower voltage at the AFM harness (10.6 volts) was causing the AFM to send a bad signal, no signal, etc. So I jumped the hot pin of the harness to the pin on the AFM, jumped the next pin to ground, and tried to check the signal pin. Long story short my alligator clips must have crossed at some point during the procedure and the ECU is completely toast now. My dumbass should have been doing this ECU side so there would have been no risk of crossing paths.

On top of that, I pulled the loom off the wires at the ECU and I have the ECU side of the temperature sensor hooked up correctly (CA16DE pin 23 yellow wire to CA18DET pin 28 blue/orange wire). The continuity doesn't check out to the harness plug though, which has continuity to power and ground. I think for now I'll keep that sensor unplugged and run the fan off my switched accessory that I'm running the intercooler system off of.

So Dee, I can buy another ECU off of you, or another forum member, or eBay. I just need to know which one since I'm not familiar with the numbers printed on the ECU. The one you gave me is #22 while the ones on eBay show numbers in the high 70s and high 90s.

I got one for you. Check your PMs and we'll go from there.

Well I did some plugging away at the harness today and saw a wire from the harness and a wire from the plug not connected. Looks like I missed the vehicle speed sensor when I did the plug swap. Wired that together and plugged in the new ECU. I did hook up my CA16DE MAF, not sure if that will cause problems. I did that because I had dropped the CA18DET MAF earlier and it was reading lower voltage than the manual stated while the CA16DE MAF was reading correctly. They also look identical, so I am guessing they are the same. Car now starts and stalls immediately no matter if the MAF is plugged in or not.

Sounds like swapped fuel lines, idle control valve(s), or TPS not adjusted properly.

Can't be fuel lines, or I wouldn't have been able to put 30 miles on the car already right? I had adjusted the TPS so it was sending out the voltage the FSM was asking for. I'll start the diagnosis there though. This project is going to be put on hold for a few weeks though. I'm out of town this weekend and my friend's Mazdaspeed Protege is arriving early next week via car carrier. He gave it to me because he doesn't need it (lives in San Fran) and doesn't want to fix the minor front end damage. So I'll be spending all my time fixing it and getting it on the road to replace my silver one. Then I spend time on it cleaning it up and putting it up for sale.

Just opened the FSM and was reminded of something. When doing the first round of diagnosis, my Air Regulator valve was only showing 12v for 1 second, instead of 5 seconds. Could this be the problem? If so, what would cause this problem?

I forgot that you've driven this already, so negative on the fuel lines.

The TPS voltage isn't as important as the continuity of the open/closed switch. Remember there are 2 plugs on the TPS. One is the actual TPS (the wire coming out with the plug on it), and the other (the one actually attached to the TB) is the open/closed switch. This switch tells the ECU that the throttle is completely closed by closing (creating continuity). This information tells the ECU to start controlling the idle and to switch over to the idle fuel and timing maps.

The other plug mainly shows the ECU a CHANGE in VOLTAGE. Not the actual voltage itself. So if you're cruising a long at part throttle, the ECU doesn't care if it's seeing 2.25 volts or 2.5 volts. What it cares about is if that voltage suddenly CHANGES. If it does, then the ECU knows that the throttle is opening/closing quickly and adjusts the fuel/timing accordingly.

When you are done mucking around with that hard-head factory stuff, sell it and give me a call or give me a call and then sell it... . I promise you won't be disappointed .

Once I get some free time later this summer I'll muck around with it some more and try to get it running. Once I get the black MSP running and sell the silver MSP I'll have some funds to consider the standalone route and I'll drop you a line Dee.

That's cool man! I just hate to see you guys have so many issues after putting in so many hours at assembling your projects only to get jacked-off by engine management gremlins. It's time to evolve if we are to be serious about our projects and that's one investment that pays for itself a few times over.

Apologies to everyone for not working on the Pulsar and CA. I've been busy working on the black MSP and work on other friend's cars. The idle/running problem on the Pulsar just discouraged me and I feel like I might ditch the project. I might consider going back to an OEM harness and ECU just to see if the thing will run, but that's a lot of work where I might as well go standalone. At least if I buy the standalone system, and I still can't get it to work, I can resell the engine and system here and get some of my money back. I contacted Dee through PM for some more information on the standalone solution.

However, here's some photos of the work I did on the black car.

I like it!!! I've often considered picking up the '03 fogs, but I have an Injen CAI, and it would block off all the air flow. I REALLY like the HID conversion. Soooo nice. As soon as I get my CA back together (AGAIN), the motor is coming out of the MSP to get rebuilt. The turbo failed while on the highway and dumped about 3 quarts of oil into the exhaust over the course of an hour long drive (it was full before my wife left) and damaged some bearing in the bottom end. I can't tell which, but it knocks like crazy.

Personally I like the look of the 03.5. The front lip and rear wing give the car better lines. The fogs don't do much of anything anymore now that I have the HID kit. The HID conversion was pretty easy since the car came with H4s originally. It's a kit from the retrofitsource and plugs right into the H4 bulb section. It's tilted ever so slightly, but that might be from my using a cheap eBay knock off headlight instead of OEM and I can barely notice. Very happy with the results though.

I'm in the process of talking things out with Dee about SDS in the Pulsar. Financially speaking, I think I'll stick with the Pulsar and get it running, reach my goals, and enjoy the damn thing. If I can't do it, then I can't allow myself to get a nicer sports car or project car (like the Factory Five 818).

Get the SDS. You'll be happy with it. It was nice that I was able to transfer my standalone to another chassis. Even if I get a totally different car, the SDS will stay with me.

Float, do you have any pictures of the install?

Of the CA in the S14?

float_6969 wrote:Of the CA in the S14?

Yeah. I want to see how clean of an install the SDS ends up being, and what I can start stripping off of the car now that it's in the garage for the winter.

LOL, there's nothing to see. I'm REALLY anal when it comes to wiring. From the engine bay, you would have NO idea that it's not stock wiring. I mounted the SDS in the same location as the stock ECU and loomed all of that wiring up too. The only part that is weird down there is the extra relays and the fuse block that I mounted to the bottom of one of the HVAC boxes on the passenger side. I even re-used that grommet that goes through the firewall.

So I might start tearing into the car this weekend, depending on other chores and such. I'm going to pull off a front and rear strut so I can build the koni+gc to the correct heights. The exhaust is coming off as I'm going to throw a high flow catalytic converter into the mid-pipe because the exhaust is way to loud for me. The power window control box needs to be wired up and installed as well.

Since I'm going SDS this spring, what can I pull out of the engine compartment wiring and fuse box wise? My guesses from what you guys have said: all ignition wires, coil packs, injectors, crank angle sensor, and MAF. What else?

You won't be needing all of the stuff you mentioned, but you will not touch the stock relays. Basically, everything that functions with the ECCS except for the water temperature sensor and the water temperature sender. All valves and solenoids should be removed as you will be provided a block-off plate to replace the idle control section.