"You Get What You Pay For!" "Could Things Get Any Worse?" "What's The Worst That Could Happen?" Greetings All!!! I'm kinda new 'round here, and I'd like to ask a question. Perhaps someone can help me understand Why My Injectors Won't Fire? But first let me share the story of how I came to own this car... I was working nite shift a few years ago at a local paper mill. I got off at 7am and started my 45 minute commute home through rush hour traffic. Stuck in gridlock, I was reading through the local Tell N' Sell want ads and came across an ad for... "Mustang For Sale" 300.00 has OF wheels xxx-xxx-xxxx I said to myself "Ohhh! I know exactly what a 300.00 mustang looks likecrapola, but what the heck are 'OF' WHEELS???" I called got directions and wound up at the house of a divorcee that was moving back to Chicago to manage mobile home construction since the market had exploded (about the time of KATRINA and a number of tornados in the Mid-West). The car was a 300.00 car alright. It had been parked under a large cedar tree and had seen untold years of rain under it's shade. It was covered with dirty tarp, cedar needles, a smattering of mold on the paint, infested with wasps, a 2'x2' hole in the top, and had a flat tire no battery! attempted to start the car with the battery I had and couldn't. After hagglin' for a bit I got the car for 150.00! After I got back with the cash, She started tellin me her "Ex-husband was a ASE certified master mechanic, and he had done some work back in the late 70's/early 80's on supercharger work for the automotive industry." Daniel Basa??? Nevuh Hoida Him! Well I figured I could git er dun and wind-up with a pretty decent '90 fox vert. Boy was I wrong!!! Over the course of the last few years, I have changed these items in an attempt to reach stage zero...(while chasing a "running" condition!) fuel pump (60 psi at the rail) four new injectors fuel pump relay fuel filter fuel pressure reg. distributor cap and button TFI Module wires plugs timing belt map sensor ecu A neighbor spoke of a problem with his ignition switch. I looked into that hoping to find that "EUREKA" moment but it came up nutz! My last diagnosis showed that the injectors were not receiving a signal from the ECU to fire. Having already "shotguned" a number of parts I need to get a second opinion. Are there fusible links that would power down the computer? Where can I find them? What color would the wires be? I'm not sayin this guy really did put the whammy on this fox... but I have put 'bout a grand into a car that still doesn't even run yet!!! arrrgh!!! Come on live Dammit! LIVE!!!
umhm make sure your injector harness is grounded and that all your grounds on the motor/carare good other than that you might have a bad ecu happens all the time give those a whack and if im right a 90 is a distributor car so no it has no crank sensor
I imagine there are several points to ground the harness. The Haynes manual may number them but it is definitely clueless as to where to point the average "do it yourselfer" to start looking. A bad harness ground can give these symptoms? REALLY???
That is exactly the case! Upon deeper inspection i have noticed that a test light will not blink when hooked to the injector plug and the key is rotated to KOEO! COULD IT BE A GROUND? The dealer said that to test the ecu I must bring the car into the dealership. How do Itell if its a ground or if its the ECU???
Well...a good place to start is check fuel, spark, and timing. If it cranks and sounds like it has compression the timing is probably good enough that it should at least run (maybe- you might want to check the cam timing to make sure it isn't way off). Are the plugs wet after cranking, have you tested spark?
The spark is there...i have confirmed that the tfi module is good etc, ect. Where the issue begins is where is the fuel at? I have 60 psi at the schrader valve on the fuel rail, but the injectors do not pulse at all! I can start the car on starter fluid but that is about it. With the KOEO, the fuel pump RUNS CONSTANTLY! There isn't a brief pump operation hum...IT IS CONSTANTLY RUNNING! Should I give the ECU a whack??? Where is that technique usually most effective? I had an auto technician tell me it could be the pick-ups in the distributor???Waddaya tink???
If the injectors are not firing you certainly found one part of your problem....Hm. Also, I'm pretty sure the pump is SUPPOSED to be always running with the key on. The fuel pumps on these cars are pretty loud and emit an audible whine. By any chance have you tried running the codes on the car?
i am new here i have a 93 2.3l hatch i have had it for 3 years it runs great i have 2 extra motors for it and was thinking about maybe boring one of them to a bigger displacement but dont quite know if that would be a good idea any thoughts would be valued thanks DANIEL
I don't get any codes except for the EGR error code. The problem involving starting the car has been intermittent, but it has fallen into a "not running at all condition". When it was intermittent, I could tell when the car was going to start. When the fuel pump would cycle on and prime the fuel system, it would then shut off at some predetermined time/pressure and it would crank right up! If the pump kept running, I knew that it would just turn over and not start when I tried the key. I've heard things like the ignition switch, the pick-up on the distributor, even the ECU I replaced is suspect. I don't wanna shotgun any more parts at it unless I can tell for sure that I can find a Bona Fide fault in the system. MAN OBDI DOESN'T TELL YOU A DAMN THANG!
This may be way late, but you should be able to find the EEC4 troubleshooting guide on here, although you may have to go over to the 5.0 tech area. At this point, I would get the book and go through the list and steps there. However, having sent an 89 notch to high school one day running fine, and having to bring it home on a trailer, after frying both the ECU and my Actron scanner, I can relate. That reduced me to the blinking check engine light code reading level, and I got no codes. Pissed. I went through this, tested a few sensors, etc, and then started testing grounds back to the ECU. Everything was good back to the box, which tested bad. I swapped the box, and voila, it checked things, and started giving me codes! Then my little blue baby fired up. Then I changed the baro sensor and it ran fine happily ever after. I did get the spare harness and box in a deal for another $100 2.3 engine and A4LD, so I had them on hand. They should be cheap and easy to come by.
what i think you should do is go to the injectors then work in reverse from them and find out were you do have power then replace or fix the section that looses the power.
Technically, I believe the injectors have power all the time when the ignition is on. The puter fires them by grounding them inside the ECU. So there are three parts: are the ground connections to the EEC4 ECU intact? Do they have power when the key is in start and run? And is the ECU "sending" the signal to operate them. This actually happens by the EEC4 box grounding them. You really need the troubleshooting guide, so as you do not go randomly replacing or checking the wrong things.
Head over to the 5.0 tech forum and read or search for threads on this. Jrichker has posted several excellent, comprehensive threads on eec 4 troubleshooting. This will get you running.
