CAS factory setting picture is backwards?

[agrabau]

This picture, I think is from the factory manual. Information it seems, is difficult to find on setting the ignition timing for these engines, so I just wanted to double check that I'm going about this the right way. I have an S13 swap in my car and it's about ready to fire. I'm using a Q45 TB, MAF and ignitor. I looked on Heavy Throttle's site and it looks like they misidentify a green wire for the ignitor and I guess that was my first problem with getting spark.

Now that I traced everything back to the ECU, I have spark and injector pulse. I have fuel at the rail and all grounds at the ECU have been checked. My trouble is seemingly with ignition timing as the car burps and farts, backfired so big that the ceiling paint came off in our shop and fell all over my car. I checked the following scan on Phase2's site...

http://store1.yimg.com/I/phase2motorsports_1848_9476714

and the two dots for alignment are not correctly displayed. The one closer to the sensor's body is actually to the right, not to the left on the CAS.

Another problem.. when looking at the car from the front.. is it the first dot on the crank pulley from the left, or is it the first from the left as if one were sitting in the car that determines TDC on piston 1? I assume it's from the front but commonly we refer to RHD, LHD as if we are in the car.

Bottom line is that I have air, spark and fuel and the car just farts and pops, like it wants to start but it's upset at me cause I was swearing at it a lot.

Last thing... I made sure that the TDC on piston 1 was on a Compression stroke which apparently is important. I verified this by looking at the #1 piston's intake cam lobe from the front of the car and clocking it visually at 10 o'clock.

Thanks for any advice, first event rapidly approaching this coming week.

Alex

[TheSnail]

Take the 1st spark plug out and stick in a extendable magnet or a long screwdriver to verifie you are not at opposite strokes. You will find that TDC will happen with two rotations of the cams. Your cams are reading compleatly opposite of each other or 10ock for the int, but your crank is opposite of tdc.

[agrabau]

Thank you TheSnail. I did verify that the #1 piston is at TDC. Reading through some archives I see that my CAS is a "type 1" and that the marks are simply mirrored but that doesn't necessarily solve my problem.. yet. It seems that this is a difficult process hunh.

Alex

[agrabau]

This post

http://forums.freshalloy.com/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?

Seems to be very helpful by Entalpy. I think that going backwards to get the pulley back to tdc might slacken the chain and perhaps put me out of time but I might be shooting in the dark at this point.

[TheSnail]

Alex, you do have the valve cover off while installing the cas right?

[agrabau]

Yeah, by reading up on it I think i'm doing all that right.

[TheSnail]

You always go clock wise. If you go to far. never rotate it back becase im sure you saw the pullie move 10deg before moving the cams.

[agrabau]

Seems like very sound advice. I'm getting excited to go back tomorrow and get this puppy finished.

I also read this post from Entalpy which seems like a good thing to check. I wish that the search function on forums were better, if it were I wouldn't have needed to post it seems.

"somethings to help you diagnose your problem here:

here is how to VERIFY that your cams are properly aligned.

1) set engine to TDC compression (cam lobes facing away from each other)

2) look at exhaust cam. find the DOT stamped on the EX cam gear. the tooth that corresponds to that dot that is tooth #1.

3) start counting teeth clockwise from that tooth to the top surface of the head (valve cover gasket sealing surface)

4) the top of the head should be inbetween tooth #8 and tooth #9 (remember the tooth at the dot IS #1)

5) leave motor at TDC. find Dot on Intake Cam Gear. this is #1 tooth again.

6) count teeth COUTER CLOCKWISE to top surgace of head.

7) Top surface of head should be almost exactly tooth #5.

8) as a verification after you have done all that count the # of PINS in the chain between the 2 dots ont he cam gears. there should be 20 PINS.

My guess is that your cams are out of align causing the CAS to be misaligned!

let us know when you have more answers to all this stuff i wrote."

So I'll check that and not rotate backwards.. because I was definitely doing that before. I'll report back with progress.

big thanks to Yury from Natick Ma for the phone help today. I don't even know him and he was very generous with his time.

Alex

[TheSnail]

Also since the car is sputtering, you should be very close. If you are a tooth off. The car will start with the CAS fully advanced or Retarded which ever is off. Before you take it appart again, try advancing and retarding the cas too full blast and see which one sounds more like it is going to start. This will give you an Idea if your crank timing is to addvance or retarded to your CAS.

[agrabau]

Thanks TheSnail, I'll have an update tomorrow. I'll start by checking the cam timing according to that post so I have a baseline, then onto repositioning the CAS.

AL

[agrabau]

Okay, I tested the cam chain timing by counting teeth and setting the engine to TDC. It's spot on. I was actually disappointed because I thought that if it was off that I'd have identified my problem.

I also checked the CAS once again and it seems to be set properly. Someone please endow me with words of encouragement/wisdom as I'm nearing the end of my Nissan rope here.

How do I test for a faulty CAS? I have no check engine light.

Alex

[agrabau]

when i say "no light" I mean that my car has no instrument cluster

[agrabau]

Cam timing is correct.

http://www.dentsport.com/bn450/bn450engine/images/camtiming1_jpg.jpg

[agrabau]

My injectors only fire with the wires seemingly reversed. Does anyone else have Sard 850cc side feeds? Is there a place that I can get answers? It seems that there's comparatively little to no information to be had on this engine.

(i'm coming from BMW/Mitsubishi experience)

http://www.dentsport.com/bn450/wiring/images/mysteryplug_jpg.jpg

[TheSnail]

How are you fireing your injectors? If your firing them by spinning the CAS, how fast do you need to spin it for the injectors to fire. I remeber my old rb i spent 2 whole days trying to figure out why it was not starting. I had fuel and spark, but noticed that I had to spin the cas very fast to get the injectors to fire as well as see a decent spark. After a mutimeter test I found that I was getting a 1/3rd of the signal to the cas. I found out that I left the Main engine realays in the cabin(the two big green rellays) un pluged. I pluged them up and the car came to a roar. It turns out that the harness was in series and the signal from the CAS was a 1/3 of what it should be.

[agrabau]

Snail, that's some interesting information. I felt like I had 1/2 the ignition signal for some reason when I was using the test light. This might be something to look into further. I checked the ECU tonight on a friend's SR20- powered car and it fired no problem. My next guess was a faulty CAS but maybe it's a wiring issue.

I have no ECCS relays in my car because it's a BMW and not a Nissan. I've tried to replicate the power signals interms of switched and constant as best as possible. Which wires should I be looking at closely? Possibly point me to an ECU pin number? Thanks so much.

AL

[TheSnail]

I would look into the way you bypassed the eccs relay. Do you have a fsm? If not here is the link to the s14 sr fsm. It might take 10min to download. Look at pages EC-105 through EC-120

http://www.zilvia.net/faqs/faqs.asp

[agrabau]

Thanks again man. I'm downloading it now. I actually had a copy on disk a while back but I guess it's gone. I have more work to do tomorrow I guess. I'll post a progress report.

[TheSnail]

Anytime. Also check EL-265 two get an idea of the harness. :)