Ran into a little snag lately.

The Talon will not crank or start. The fuel pump has power and runs, the starter has 12v. power to it but the signal wire to the solenoid does not power up. The ignition switch and clutch switch seems to work because I can toggle the fuel pump on and off with the clutch switch and the key in the start position. So in my mind that leaves the starter relay.

Does anyone have a spare starter relay that I can try out?

I am sure there is one in the auto your more then welcome to try it.

Apparently the Autp DSM doesn't have the same relay or it was already scavenged. Thanks for letting me check for it though Mitsu90.

As I suspected, it is not available at the Adanced-AutoZones. I'll have to call Mitsubishi and see how bad they want to bend me over for a new one.

If anyone else might have one...let me know asap before I give money to the dealership.

no problem.

Where is it?? I can probalbly borrow you the one out of the Talon.

That little square box relay that goes in the center counsole? I actually have 2 sitting on the shelf right now. Give me a call.

Actually this relay is the center of three relays that are under the dash right above the driver's left knee. I could only see it after removing the lower dash cover under the steering wheel.

Joe, I think you might be talking about the silver fuel pump relay which is currently working fine. Sorry, I should have been more clear at the beginning. I actually had no idea where this relay was until I had to look it up in the manual.

I'll try to get it out tonight. Give me a call to "remind me" if your in a big hurry. We can then meet in Peoria to pick it up.

Forget my PM....I got it out.

Call me tomorrow and you can swing by and get it in Peoria.

Thanks to black92_tsi I was able to keep from wasting money at the dealership for a new starter relay. Unfortunately, that means my starter relay was not bad.

So I pulled the starter checked it and it was fine (What a pain in the a$$ that is with all the other items still hooked up). So that only left the ECU. So I pulled the ECU. Everything looked fine, so as a last ditch effort I put a different EPROM in the ECU. When I checked the starter wire everything seems to be working fine. Just to double check, I put the original EPROM back in the ECU and I got the same results... everything working fine!

So that means that maybe there is a loose wire or connection somewhere damn it! There re no hard parts left to check.

So I will check out the harness as I put the starter and the ECU back in. Then get Black92_tsi's relay back to him.

Sorry man, wish it would have worked. Hopefully it was just a dirty contact and now it's clean from being unplugged and plugged back in.

Unobvious (is that a word?) electrical problems...dem er da werst. Time to break out the ole multimeter.

I remember when I had my TSi, the wire that led to the relay for the starter (thin wire with a clip on it) snapped off right at the clip. Everything worked fine, except that wire prevented the key from actuating the relay to turn the starter. How I deduced that is beyond me, but I was elbows deep in the hood crimping a new spade connector on at 10pm in a mall parking lot in the low 40 degree November weather.

Daily
$hit
Maker

AHAHAHAAAAAA! Now with the starter back in, it doesn't work again. And this time voltage is getting to the starter solenoid. I think I'm going to have to pull that damn starter again!

Well, I've gotten some other opinions and more info to work with, but still no clear cut fix.

The starter has been deemed to be a rare possibility that should be saved for later after other fixes are tried.

So I've done some more diagnosing. In the mean time the engine has been starting every time since the night of the last test drive (I have no clue why). Regardless, I also noticed the engine died a few times on that test drive when going over bumps and the engine falls on it's face between 5 and 10psi of boost. So I added a ground from one of the engine mounts to the frame to see if it was a ground issue.

That dieing problem hasn't repeated it's self but so far the engine is still falling on it's face at the beginning of boost. I noticed that my 'Check Engine Light' was on so I slapped some new batteries in the palm/logger to check the code(s). Strangely, the logger will not read any data from the car. It's as if it is not plugged in which I know is not the case because I checked every data-logger connection at least twice. I did swap the EPROM again to see if it was the issue. No luck there.

Now the Engine dieing a few times over bumps, the engine falling on it's face at early boost and now the data-logger not reading all leads me to believe that there is a wiring issue or the ECU is half baked. For the record the ECU appears to be fine by the naked eye and I can not change or initiate any of the symptoms by wiggling or twisting the ECU and harness around.

Another interesting tid-bit that some may remember is that I had nearly the same symptoms documented last June. They mysteriously went away and I attributed the performance under boost to lack of fuel in the tank. This time, however I have a 1/4 tank of fuel which should be plenty. In fact I know that I've ran just fine with less than a 1/4 tank of fuel many times before.

Any ideas? Or does anyone care to come help me trouble shoot this electrical issue? My truck is going under the autobody knife this week so the Talon will be my DD and I want to get this figured out' Fortunately I am taking this week off work which will make things much easier.

I just traced most of the grounds and found that the group closest to the ECU has been smashed a couple inches back from the connector. I'm not sure if this is the problem, but I will repair them and see where thattakes me.

I fixed the ECU grounds, disassembled and cleaned the battery ground, and even tightened all of the Alternator bolts that I found starting to loosen up from the 8500RPM rev limit. Still no apparent improvement on the loging and engines failure to perform above 5-10psi.

I would like to try replacing my ECU temporarily to see if that's the common problem for these symptoms. But that would mean that I need a socketed ECU that I can put my EPROM into. Any takers to let me borrow their ECU for a day?

Have you tried checking/swapping the ignition transitor or coil? I had a stuttering and cutout problem a while back, ended up being a dirty transistor connector. I think all the swapping back and forth I did to try to find the problem clean the connector.

If you can wait until after I get mine started, I can probably borrow you mine. I should start mine tonight if the rain holds off.

Another thing you might try is a different EPROM chip. It would have to be flashed to your specs, but it might be safer than putting another ECU in there with the danger of electrical problems. I'm almost positive the ECU will be fine since the car is still running and you don't see any signs of fryage on yours, but just thought I'd bring up another suggestion.

I have an extra EPROM chip that you are more than welcome to. Its just flashed to 450cc injectors right now, but I'm sure NC could reflash it to whatever you need.

I'll check the transistor and coil connections today. I'm sure it's possible but I don't see how those two items could keep the logger from reading. The fact that there are numerous ans seemingly unrelated problems is what is leading me to the ECU.

I have time to wait if your willing to lend.

Thanks Natedogg. Fortunately NC left me like 6 EPROMS preflashed for different settings. I have swapped the EPROM out for the next level up numerous times with no changes in the symptoms to date. (I was thinking the same way as you are though.)

Ok time for a update...

I did quite a bit of troubleshooting yesterday mostly with a lot of help from our DSM brethren. Thank you all for your time.

Dan used his experienced eye to look over my EPROM ECU. He didn't see any major problems or burnt items. He did however find quite a bit of corrosion on the EPROM socket. He cleaned it all out the best he could. Then he turned the board over and found a bit more rust or corrosion on the board, but it was not shorting anything out. He cleaned it off as well and coated these areas with electronic cleaner/lubricant. I REALLY thought this would be the cure for my ails. By the first acceleration of my test drive it was clear that nothing had changed.

We then replaced my 3.5" GM MAF with Dan's... still had the same result.

We thought the next best step would be to see what code is in the ECU for the 'Check Engine' light and since the logger wouldn't work we made our way around Peoria and East Peoria to try my logger on others DSM's to see if it was a logger problem or just my car. We couldn't get the logger to communicate with any other DSM's! (BTW -It's not easy finding DSM's around our area with the factory ECU still in them!)

So I made my way over to Josh's to use his scanner. Once the scanner was hooked up I found one code for the MAS Air sensor (I'm not sure how much I trust this because it is a GM MAF, but the code has never been there before). While there I checked the TPS sensor to make sure it was reading and it measured from .410 at rest to 4.995 at WOT, so it seems to be working. However, it was obvious that something else was going on. As I was checking these things the scanner kept flashing to another screen and back so quickly that I couldn't read it. Eventually that screen stayed on and it stated that there was no communication from the ECU and to check my connections. Ahhh. I knew all of the connections were ok, but we had been leary of the ignition switch since I had been having trouble with the engine starting.

So I pulled the ignition switch and disassembled it. The old Di-electric grease was dry and caked and there were a couple divits where the electrodes generally park. So I cleaned it all up and polished the connection to get rid of the divits. I plugged the ignition switch back in and cranked the engine over fine... but still no connection with the scanner.

So I'm back to the ECU. I've fixed a lot of minor issues and done some needed maintenance, but the engine still falls on it's face at 5-10psi of boost. So I would still like to borrow someones EPROM ECU to see if this is indeed the problem.

Thanks

I got an eprom but it's of no use to either of us,

Well did my ecu fix the problem??

Fortunately (finsncially) it did NOT fix my problem.

Unfortunately this means I still have not found the fix but I now have my cross hairs trained on the MAFT and it's wiring since the Check Engine code is for the MAS Air Sensor. I'm not looking forward to tearing apart all of the custom MAFT wiring to check it out


Thanks a ton for going out of your way to help me out Chris. I've been working through a tooth infection for the past couple days in the midst of a root canal, so I'm not getting to this stuff very quickly.

Sorry to hear that the ecu didn't fix it...no problem borrowing the ecu. You've helped me out a ton.

Did your scanner work with my ecu? I should have left you my logger to try, although you may have aleady tried that.

I have another GM MAF (3") if you need to borrow it.

Did you check the main battery cables(pos and neg) for high resistance?

<Mechanic cap on>

The DLC malfunction sounds like an open in a circuit for that connector. The rapid blinking of JS's scanner when plugged in can support that in a way. How could that symptom be related to the cut at mid-boost?

If the ECU didn't fix the issue, perhaps the connector for the ecu has a stretched terminal that is not making contact, or a terminal is physically backed out of the connector... Are all of your fire-wall passages grommetted?

I'm fairly free this weekend if you want a hand tracing wires. I probably won't be able to make it out to Washburn, but if you're out and about and want a hand tracing those MAFT wires give me a shout. I've had a lot of practice troubleshooting prototype Cat harnesses with design or manufacturing flaws. Course having a schematic handy helps...

Well, I think that I have finally beaten down most of the gremlins this go-round.

Last night I went through the entire MAF-T harness that is custom tied directly into the ECU harness under the dash.

Long story short..I found two MAFT wires had pulled out of their connectors from the ECU harness. With those repaired the engine started and ran, but still had the burbly-back-firing idle. This morning I got in it to drive to work and the EPROM chip gave up the ghost over night!?! WTF. So I switched the EPROM chip and all is well.

I am again at the point of wondering if these standard maintenance items have made the car faster or if it's just been too long since I've gotten in the boost.

Let's summarize the current repairs so far:

Tightened loosening alternator bolts
Repair three grounds at ECU
Added a large ground to the motor
Had the ECU cleaned of corrosion and rust
Cleaned and nearly rebuilt the ignition switch (Fixed the no-start issue)
Repaired and checked all of the MAFT wiring (Brought back the power and killed the check engine light)


My logger still will not read with either one of my Palm cables and the interior is still in pieces from the wiring debugging... So there is still some work to do.

Good news!

Electrical is the most frustrating of all to try to fix.

DAMN IT! The Check Engine light came back on...

But at least this thing is still running good. Good like the kind makes you grab on to the OH SHIT handle... er the steering wheel tighter and tighter as the nose points further in the air as the acceleration continues to build and build. Nice...very nice.

ok now your just bragging

Haha..I don't mean to. Once you get a broke DSM running right again, it always seems to surprise you all over again.