Gevo

Guys. I have the plenum off.. didn't take much work actually. so. My injector works fine. I tested the solenoid and could even bow through it a litle while powering the solenoid. So, here I am... one thing left to check. Wireing.. .why would wiring cause intermittent problem? We all know troubleshooting inermittent wiring problem is the biggest pain in the ass..... any other ideas whie my plenum is off>?

Gevo

This question is those running orange flamethrowers and those who have tried them. How ws your engine running? My plugs are showing super rich condition, so I figured after runninga few cycles the compuer should catch up and adjust.... however, can this cause the no. 1 cylinder to run to rich to operate properly?

sphealy

iTrader: (1)

I would blow out the fuel rails to be sure nothing small is stuck in it before you put it back together.

sphealy

iTrader: (1)

I'd you think that's the problem switch the injectors around and see if the problem moves with the injector.

Gevo

This I didnt think of. No since i am so damn good at removing the plenum this shouldnt be that much work lol..

Thanks... im currently testing the only other thing i can think of.. the wiring. Im going to put in new spark plug for good measure... perhaps when its warm it doesnt work properly..?

sphealy

iTrader: (1)

Trying switching the spark plug wires around to see if you have a bad wire. Same principle of swapping the injector around. It's a good way to rule out stuff without spending money.

Gevo

Sphealy, again good idea. I will do it one at a time though.

I did double check the tiny, fine strainer at the top of the injector and in fact i saw some dirt particles. I blew it out and am ready to install everything back. I will still swap 1 and 3 injectors.

hopefully it all works.

Gevo

PROBLEM FOUND!

So, the day started off with me figuring out the least number of things to remove to get to the injectors.. and I ended up with this.


Soon after, for the first time in months, in decided to rain in LA.. so I then had to do this.


I removed the #1 injector (reminder, newly purchased/refurbished orange flamethrowers) and tested the solenoid, seemed to click fine and I tapped the power multiple times in quick succession and it didn't miss a beat. Then, I did a rudimentary flow test of the injectors. I removed the top o-ring and fitted a rubber hose. WIth the help of my brother I blew into the hose and intermittently tapped the power to the solenoid and sure enough a tiny bit of pressure was being released. It was clear to me the injector worked. SO, then I pulled the FSM wiring diagram for the injectors to see which wires in the harness I am going to test. Lucky for me, this is a very simple diagram! Three injectors per circuit, evidently 3 injectors fire at a time... to be honest I was surprised but I guess this is a non-direct injection system and it works..


Since the problem was ONLY known by 'pulling the plug test' to becylinder #1, I tested the circuit resistance against the other circuit and everything seemed fine. A visual inspection of shorting wires was also performed of course. So, at this point I was on and off the forum in this thread and SPhealy gave the simple yet extremeley valuable advice to swap injectors. I swapped #1 and #3 and went about to re-install everything. Everythign went pretty quickly actually until it came time to clean the plenum and intake manifold mating surfaces. This takes forever since I am so anal about it. (Also, a trick I thought of a while back to reuse copper crush washers, flip them or use them in a different location. You can get at least 2-3 uses out of them)

Anyway, got all the stuff back together and even found two hoses connected to the vacuum system that were loose, I assume they may have been contributing to the overall poor operation at least a little bit. Anyway. fixed all of it.. put the plenum back on with a new gasket, installed all other components and went to start car. ..... No start.. no fire... nothing.. just cranked.

DNN DNN DNNN.. that was such a terrible moment for me.. as I had assumed that my no spark condition was solved through the replacement of my TPS connector. So, I was feeling very ˟˟˟˟ty at this point and decided there is nothing in the world that will stop me from definitively figuring this out.
In my no spark condition thread I had written that i messed with the tps and the car started to work, the E2 and VC wires were no longer shorting.. so although I hadn't seen a definitive location of the short I assumed it was the case since I had not touched anything else at that point. Well, turns out the problem was much deeper in the harness and messing with the TPS had caused the two open wire locations to move ever so slightly apart.

I proceeded with the best idea I could come up with short of ripping the harness out. I connected the multimeter leads to the VC and E2 terminals in the harness (at disconnected TPS connector) and turned it to check the resistance. It showed the resistance as .5 Ohms, AKA short.


I started to jiggled the harness and at some point it jumped to it's proper resistance (as per ECM troubleshooting ) of about 110 ohms. Cautiously I started to un-due the wire loom and move wires apart and eventually found the following...


FINALLY! I DEFINITIVELY found the shorting source and could put this issue behind me!!! Cleaned that up and quickly wrapped up the wiring.


Now, I could start the car and see if for no reason it was running better.
Luckily, it wasn't (remember this problem had been intermittent, a bitch to diagnose!)
The engine started fine and ran very rough at cold idle.. I held the throttle a little, let it warm up just a little bit and pulled the plug wire to cylinder one. The engine operation changed as you would expect with one less cylinder (or 2 less at this point actually). I nervously reached for the plug to cylinder 3... pulled it and sure enough, NO CHANGE to engine operation. Reminder that before i swapped injector #1 from cylinder 1 to 3, the engine didn't respond when you pulled plug #1, but responded as you would expect to plug #3. This was priceless advice by sphealy. At this point I am more than convinced the problem is my newly purchased injector.

I will need to do all of this work one more time to swap it out, new gasket, and this time new crush washers. I assume I won't be having problems with the seller to replace this bad injector.

Thanks for everyone's help, especially today's only follower of this thread who gave the most important advice, sphealy. I would love to hand a cold beer to each and everyone of you over a campfire one day!!!

sphealy

iTrader: (1)

Glad you were able to nail it down without to much headache. It's always a great feeling when you figure it out. Let me know how it goes with the injector swap with the seller. As you saw in my thread I need two of mine cleaned or replaced.. My 4 runner already had them so I haven't delt with them and am curious how good the customer support is.

Gevo

I would work with the seller 'Injectordyne" again and recommend his service and product to everybody. I sent him an email about my troubles and the work and cost to me to troubleshoot the problem, and he responded this morning and compensated fairly. I never mind when a product is defective, it's always the customer service and the company's attitude that work for me. Again, I recommend his services to everyone here. If you have any questions his toll free number is available on his ebay page.

One thing he mentioned was that for any possible issues with his product, contact him directly. I didn't really think about this and I contacted him via Ebay, and he wasn't to happy about that, although I didn't file any sort of issues, it was just a message. Regardless, I'm working with him now to replace the one bad injector and hopefully that is all that is left to fix on the 4Runner for a while. lol.

Sturmcrow

When you swapped injector places did you keep the wires in the same positions?

I wonder what went wrong with that injector, since it seemed to work off the engine.

Gevo

Sturmcro, I kept the wires to their same locations. So #1 injector was installed in #3 position with the #3 wire. etc.

I was also very surprised that the injector worked out of the engine as far as the tests I ran. I am sure the issue didn't repeat with cylinder 3 at the end because I called my dad out to confirm that pulling the #3 plug made no difference to the engine operation where as before it was #1. '

Flamethrower injectors sent me a new one, as soon as I get it I will install and see what happens.

If anyone has any ideas how the injector can pass the tests out of the engine and fail in it... it would be interesting to know.

sphealy

iTrader: (1)

Could be what we were talking about before...Under the pressure from the fuel rail a small partial could be causing an obstruction. You may not have applied enough pressure on your bench test or the lack of fluid during the bench test could have given you the false reading.

Gevo

I purged the fuel rail (turned pump on for a couple seconds with injectors off) and I blew out any possible contaminants in the strainers on the injector. I doubt it's that cause at this point, although I can't definitively rule it out. I think that the injector is failing to operate properly under high pressure vs what I could blow into it.

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

Just getting caught up on your thread and you have made a lot of progress. Great job on getting it rebuilt and running. The heater core replacement is a big job and you tackled that as well. If you are suspecting that your #1 injector may not be firing, I found a cheap test light. It is polarity sensitive so you may need to switch the wires around if it doesn't light the first time. I don't know the 3.0 but some test are interchangeable. Seen you may suspect a wiring issue.

Those crimps that the factory uses are a poor design. I suggest cutting them out and splicing together and soldering. Those caused me a lot of headaches, but in the long run it taught me a lot so guess they do some good.lol

My $3 noid light. I wasnt able to find one anywhere and this worked great. It flickered each time I cranked it. I just couldnt get any pictures of it lighted.


I used the 12 Volt red one. Radio Shack Part Number #276-0270

Gevo

Terrys87 thanks r your comments!! Maybe you missed the last og of the thread lol. I am prety confident that the injectr was getting controlled voltage from ECU. After I switched the injectors 1 and 3, cylinder 3 started not working. New injector is on the way so we will know soon!


Yah I do NOT want to do the dashboard job again. Not so much difficult as annoying..

Also thanks for ur 8njector firing test idea. Il keep that in kind if new injector doesnt fix it!

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

After re reading your post I understand it better. When I installed my Flamethrowers, it will idle down lower before stalling. I did have to adjust my idle one way or the other. My guess is that it disperses the fuel better and gets a better burn. I really like my Flamethrowers and think you will be happy with them. I have not noticed anything on the top end but more on the bottom end. Maybe a little better fuel mileage as well.

Gevo

My typos while typing on my phone are ridiculous!

Terrys87, I don't mind more grunt at the bottom, no one REALLY uses the top end power much anyway

Injector will get here tomorrow, I'll install it sunday.

Gevo

I installed the replacement injector, and all is good in that departent the cylinder works well..

Now, I am trying to adjust the idle, i made a thread about it.

sphealy

iTrader: (1)

That's good news glad it worked out for ya.