My FE3 progress thread

[Mazda_Powered]

BG chassis is a BG chassis, so it should lol

[FE3-323]

i can make a traction bar work for your ZX2 brody.
Phil--- i try my best in most of my photos to crop out the "garbage" but sometimes its unavoidable. im the only die hard mazda fan in my family

[FE3-323]

Car is down. start it up this morning & it randomly dies within 30 seconds. try re-cranking it- no start.
Jump out & look under the hood for anything suspicious - get back in & try a 2nd time. dead within a 5 second count.

as of now it feels like the ECU took a ****. completely clueless otherwise........ time to check my piggy bank & see if theres enough for standalone

[Racerboy]

Car is down. start it up this morning & it randomly dies within 30 seconds. try re-cranking it- no start.
Jump out & look under the hood for anything suspicious - get back in & try a 2nd time. dead within a 5 second count.

as of now it feels like the ECU took a ****. completely clueless otherwise........ time to check my piggy bank & see if theres enough for standalone

That sucks. Hope you find out the issue soon! (that is, if it isn't the ecu.)

[M323GTR]

Car is down. start it up this morning & it randomly dies within 30 seconds. try re-cranking it- no start.
Jump out & look under the hood for anything suspicious - get back in & try a 2nd time. dead within a 5 second count.

as of now it feels like the ECU took a ****. completely clueless otherwise........ time to check my piggy bank & see if theres enough for standalone

You are megasquirting it lOl

[Racerboy]

If you want a full stand alone ecu, I'd go with either Hydra Nemesis, or a stand alone system called Vi-Pec. (I just found out about it, and it's pretty nice. Vi-Pec actually plugs right in according to their website. Also, Vi-Pec has quite a few cool features, such as Quick Tune, where it tunes the air fuel ratio itself, instead of having you tune for it. And traction control in first gear, and antilag, and launch control, and flatshift. And it fits inside of the stock ecu case, so it looks like it belongs. It's website is: http://www.vi-pec.com/ecus/pluginecu)

Edit, lol, we both posted at the same time.

Also, just found a place that carries the Vi-Pec. http://johnreedracing.com/mazda/90-9...vipec-v44-pnp/

[FE3-323]

^ funny guy.

called over my local friend recent new owner of a 323.
Tested his b6 ecu. initially no spark from his ecu- so i tested another ignitor & saw spark. plugged back in my ignitor & had spark again. (strange- never in all of my BG years have i seen an ignitor issue)
Needless to say i put a different ignitor in & seemingly haven't had an issue. Im about to try & drive to work so my fingers are crossed

[Mazda_Powered]

may have just gotten too hot or something. I've replaced 1 ignitor in my BG life so far lol

[FE3-323]

drove it a few miles & the same issue. Wound up getting towed home

im leaning heavily towards the disty or ECU being @ fault.
its definitely intermittent spark.

Brody..... the vi-pec is neat looking..... but the price!!! **** that.

[MD323]

if your burning thru ignitors and or have intermittent spark id investigate all your grounds and the disty. the ECU has internal current limiting so you reeeaaally need to juice them to fry it. also the opt-amp input circuits on the ecu board for crank and cam signals is pretty bulletproof and if either would fail it would be a hard failure not intermittent and there would be blue smoke/ burns on the baord.

[FE3-323]

I hear ya shawn. I have serious Doubt its the ignitor. & certainly not the coil.
I've already half pulled the ecu out. I'll be cracking it open as soon as its out.
Im just taking a break from it for the moment. (sometimes its good to walk away for awhile & come back after a breather)
Im thinking pickup signal from the disty is barely hanging on anymore. thankfully i still have the hall effect disty laying about-i'll test that first & if the problem is cured.
I'll swap the internal components on the optical & see where that gets me.

[Racerboy]

Brody..... the vi-pec is neat looking..... but the price!!! **** that.

isn't the haltech system that you have been looking into around the same price? And then you'd have to wire it all in? (the Vi-Pec plugs in to the stock harness and plugs.)

[FE3-323]

yes the haltech is around the same cost. but there appears to be more options & capability with the haltech.
shortly wiring isn't a big issue for me.

[Racerboy]

yes the haltech is around the same cost. but there appears to be more options & capability with the haltech.
shortly wiring isn't a big issue for me.

ah, ok. I'm not a wiring guy, so I tend to avoid that if possible, and thats why I like the other systems like Hydra and other plug in systems. (and speaking of Hydra, I also found a place that offers Hydra 2.7, their top of the line ecu, for $1600. Just letting you know so that you have as much info as possible before you go out and buy a standalone ecu. What version of haltech are you looking into?

Oh, and just to let you know, I just found the hydra nemesis for $1600. http://www.vinnytenracing.com/hydra-ems/

[STW]

Such intermittent problems are bitch to figure out... How much of the wiring did you redo? A loose crimp or bad solder is liable to cause no end to problems. It took a good while to iron out the problems in my wagon. Faulty crank angle sensor wiring will throw the ECU out of sync. If you can inspect the wiring with some sort of recording multimeter, you might be able to spot if the problem is somewhere in the wiring. Checking out the electronics will be much more difficult.