Debugging of my Caterham begins

[mrmustang]

57 minutes ago, MV8 said:

If you saying the pump runs as soon as the battery is connected but with the key off, then it sounds like the CAT sourced T2 is configured for pump control but is miswired for power to the ecu or the pump. If the T2 had power all the time I expect you would not be able to shut it off with the key (ignition stays on as well). I'd pull the pump relay and see if the pump still runs and do the same with just the fuse pulled. If it stops, trace from the relay to power and ground on the relay control terminals. The fuse socket should not be shorted to more than one terminal of the relay socket. 

Maybe I misspoke, the pump cycles when the power (IE: cut off) is turned on, but kicks off 5-10 seconds later, car turns off normally with the regular key. Pump does not continuously run. I'll start with the basics you laid out hopefully next week, once all the parts have arrived (tuesday/wednesday time frame)..Until then the car remains stagnant, unless I get motivated to do the oil and oil filter before then.

 

Bill

Edited January 17 by mrmustang

[mrmustang]

Just a quick update as I had an hour of free time this early afternoon and I'm proud to say the original Delphi FF52 fuel filter, with it's June 2002 date code has now been excised from the car. Both the previously mentioned  Fram G3727 and the ACDelco GF952 are within a 1/16th of an inch difference in length, I decided on the FRAM G3727 as it appears to be a better built unit of the two, I'll hold on to the other just so I have a back up in the garage. Pressurized the system found no leaks, and fired the car up on the second turn of the key. I'm now waiting on the new Motorcraft SP463 Plugs to be gaped at .050 per Tom (1turbofocus) the high impedance 30lb/hr injectors, and the MSD coil and wire set. If I get time tomorrow I'll do the oil and oil filter change while I wait for everything else to arrive...Then dive in to the rest in short order and hopefully be able to take the car around the block and further.

 

Thanks to all who have assisted so far.

 

Bill

Edited January 19 by mrmustang

[mrmustang]

Oil and oil filter change done. Oil filter was found to be not that old (a K&N unit, not even finger tight), but the oil appeared quite dark, and may not have been of a synthetic blend. 5 quarts of synthetic Valvoline "advanced" 5W 20 oil and we are good to go. Brake and clutch fluids have been flushed, they were clean and clear, but at least now I know when it was last done. Filled the overflow tank of the radiator half way, but have not run the car long enough to open the thermostat to see if I'll need more or not. Really don't want to run the car till I change the injectors, plugs, wires and coil at this point. Hoping that everything else starts to trickle in to the local post office today, as I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in regards to the baseline.

 

Bill

[mrmustang]

New high impedance injectors are installed

Tomorrow plugs, wires, coil

 

Then will fire up and see how it goes.

 

Wish me luck

 

Bill

[mrmustang]

Everything is here and installed but the new oxygen sensor, part came in to the local store, when I saw the bottom of the box was all taped up I insisted they open it up, good thing, as there was a beautiful, highly carboned, beat up and quite used oxygen sensor inside. Sigh, ordered a pair (one as a spare) on Ebay, still new in their packaging, should have them Wednesday or Thursday if I'm lucky. Then it's time to fire the car and see where we stand.

 

Bill

 

PS: Before you say use the one that is currently installed, I would, but the wires have been cut and spliced one too many times for my tastes.

[mrmustang]

Ok, 6pm yesterday, the oxygen sensor arrived, an AC Delco AFS-73 per the notes I have in the files, sadly the sensor came in with a female plug on it instead of a male plug, forcing me to use one of the used spares found in the travel box as a substitute/donor to use the female plug. Wired up, soldered together, and installed, I set the car down on the ground, installed the cut off switch, and turned the car over. First attempt was a fail, car sputtered, caught, then died. Cycled key and tried again, this time the car caught, sputtered to life, and stayed running. Let run for a minute before attempting to add a little throttle, which immediately caused the car to stall. Cycled key again, motor caught and continued to run. This time allowed the car to warm up until the temp gauge showed movement. A quick throttle jab with my arm (car still in the air at this time) in the footbox caused the engine to rev accordingly......Shut the car down, took it off the ramps/jack stands, removed the doors and backed the car out of the garage for the first time in weeks. A quick half lap of the neighborhood and the car was running well, no pops, no hesitation which made me a little more comfortable and I took two full laps (1.1 miles each) cycling through the first three gears without any issues. Pulled back in to back the car into the garage, felt the clutch drag a bit with the car in reverse and the pedal to the floor, popped the car out of gear and proceeded to give the pedal a few pumps which took care of this. However, makes me think I either have some air in the system, or a master or slave is possibly going out. Worse case scenario is a clutch replacement, but seeing how cleanly the clutch worked in the first 3 forward gears, I'm not inclined to tear into them just yet.

 

Thoughts?

 

As for the oxygen sensor, does anyone have a correct part number for a sensor that would have the female plug installed, I'm confident on my soldering skills, but would still prefer one that was not messed with.

Female plug on left

 

And of course, if there is no picture, it didn't happen

 

 

Thanks for following along.

 

Bill

 

 

 

[mrmustang]

On 1/16/2025 at 9:34 AM, speedwagon said:

I am following this topic as I have an old haltech (e6ex i think) that uses ms dos, and I haven't established the windows 10 will get the job done.  Thanks to all here as for me every day is a learning experience.

Wanted to follow up on this, spent a few days blowing the dust off an older Win 10 laptop with a serial port, updating software that is at least 2-4 years old took two days all by itself. I have parts incoming for the cable I need, and have downloaded an older version of DescProW software that was suggested from someone on the Cosworth support forum. I was able to get it to open in "offline" mode on my Win 11 (H2) box, but it has no serial port, hence my decision to resurrect the old Win 10 laptop, will check online mode once I have the parts needed for this interface.

 

Bill

 

PS: I miss radio shack

[slowdude]

2 hours ago, mrmustang said:

Wanted to follow up on this, spent a few days blowing the dust off an older Win 10 laptop with a serial port, updating software that is at least 2-4 years old took two days all by itself. I have parts incoming for the cable I need, and have downloaded an older version of DescProW software that was suggested from someone on the Cosworth support forum. I was able to get it to open in "offline" mode on my Win 11 (H2) box, but it has no serial port, hence my decision to resurrect the old Win 10 laptop, will check online mode once I have the parts needed for this interface.

 

Bill

 

PS: I miss radio shack

 

What ECU are you running?

 

Revilla on the UK forums did a few schematics a while back with the wiring and parts numbers. I'll try to find it. I may have uploaded it into the documents.

 

Great follow so far. Might be worth migrating to a build thread.

[mrmustang]

2 hours ago, slowdude said:

 

What ECU are you running?

 

Revilla on the UK forums did a few schematics a while back with the wiring and parts numbers. I'll try to find it. I may have uploaded it into the documents.

 

Great follow so far. Might be worth migrating to a build thread.

Pectel T2

 

 

[Vovchandr]

17 hours ago, mrmustang said:

As for the oxygen sensor, does anyone have a correct part number for a sensor that would have the female plug installed, I'm confident on my soldering skills, but would still prefer one that was not messed with.

Female plug on left

You have the plug on the left? Slightly unusual if so. 

 

Glad to hear it's being sorted out. 

 

Very amused to hear you talk about win10 as old. I only recently updated to win10 on my main desktop. In meantime my Pectel runs on win98..

[mrmustang]

47 minutes ago, Vovchandr said:

You have the plug on the left? Slightly unusual if so. 

 

Glad to hear it's being sorted out. 

 

Very amused to hear you talk about win10 as old. I only recently updated to win10 on my main desktop. In meantime my Pectel runs on win98..

Yes, I have the female plug on the left, the one shown was clearly wired incorrectly as one wire was burned completely through it's sheathing, thankfully this was in a pile of spare parts in the travel box, and not something I then needed to deal with.

Win 10, while not yet outdated, is a few revs down, so in my mind, old. Any laptop (this one 8+ years old) that cannot run Win 11 is old. 3 gig of ram, and AMD chip set, yeah, old and outdated, but should work for what I need.

 

Bill

[MV8]

Somebody put the wrong part in the right bag (very common). That gm part number (25312178) would have a female connector. Most 93-95 cadillacs use this O2.

[Vovchandr]

2 hours ago, mrmustang said:

Yes, I have the female plug on the left, the one shown was clearly wired incorrectly as one wire was burned completely through it's sheathing, thankfully this was in a pile of spare parts in the travel box, and not something I then needed to deal with.

Win 10, while not yet outdated, is a few revs down, so in my mind, old. Any laptop (this one 8+ years old) that cannot run Win 11 is old. 3 gig of ram, and AMD chip set, yeah, old and outdated, but should work for what I need.

 

Bill

 

Gotcha. For what it's worth I'm not entirely sure Pectel even does open loop vs closed loop. It might but I haven't found it and my car runs the same with upstream O2 as y does without it. 

 

With that said I still replaced mine with a new unit while troubleshooting. 

 

@catsv7 is knowledgeable on this matter and might have an insight. 

 

Edited February 1 by Vovchandr

[mrmustang]

2 hours ago, MV8 said:

Somebody put the wrong part in the right bag (very common). That gm part number (25312178) would have a female connector. Most 93-95 cadillacs use this O2.

Sadly, I have two identical from that seller, both in sealed factory bags. I'll swing by the local Chevy dealer and talk to their parts guy.

 

Thanks for the sanity check.

 

Bill

[mrmustang]

2 hours ago, Vovchandr said:

 

Gotcha. For what it's worth I'm not entirely sure Pectel even does open loop vs closed loop. It might but I haven't found it and my car runs the same with upstream O2 as y does without it. 

 

With that said I still replaced mine with a new unit while troubleshooting. 

 

@catsv7 is knowledgeable on this matter and might have an insight. 

 

I thought it was best to play it safe given how carboned up the plugs and older, already replaced oxygen sensor was. No cold idle set up on the car, #3 throttle plate rattles a bit, and is set slightly open so it starts I assume, no real pull from 1,2,4 until throttle is given and their respective throttle plates open. Going to need someone to sit in the car and work the throttle so I can take measurements to try and balance them. I did air up the 5 year old Pirelli cinturato tires this AM (11-12.5lbs cold) to 26psi and went for a nice 5 mile loop. Car ran great, my next step is to take it out again for a longer drive and to top off the tank with some 93 octane, maybe some throttle/engine cleaner additive just to try and clean out the rest of the combustion chamber.

 

Bill

[mrmustang]

It's been awhile since I've posted, been trying to work on making the car as safe and dependable as I can while still scratching my head as to why the car takes three turns of the key (after 5 Mississippi's between each full turn to start so the fuel system is primed) to fire and idle. No fast idle appears to be set, and I cannot move the car till it warms up for a few minutes or the car will stall. Well, this evening, after reading old threads on the Zetec and separate throttle body setup (mostly Jervey, vs my TWM/Borla) I decided to go out and pull the hood off for the first time since it was back on the ground so I can pull some vacuum. Well, I see part of my problem right off the bat, the vacuum port plugs are dryrotted and cracked. Pulled this one off and it disintegrated in my hand, as did the other 3. HHHmmmm, maybe this is part of my issue, guess we will find out tomorrow when I get my new box of vacuum plugs from Amazon. I had a box of them, but ripped the new toolbox and cabinets apart and cannot find them. Frustrating, yet I won't loose sleep over the less than $20 it costs to replace with a new setup.

Of course there is good news, as I could not find any drips or leaks after my replacement of the injectors, fuel filter, and some of the fuel lines

 

Now for the next question, should all four throttle plates be adjusted the same way when the engine is cold? I ask as only number 3 is adjusted open at all, the rest are completely closed and do not pull any vacuum with my hand over them at initial start up. I'm embarrassed to say, but I was so happy to have the car running at all, that I added the air cleaner assembly and hood, and drove the car. and never looked at things any closer until this evening. 

 

Now I'm questioning my sanity and of course the cold idle adjustments.

 

 

So, my warped logic would dictate that all four of the throttle plates should be adjusted the same on initial start up. Am I correct to think this, should I adjust them to be slightly cracked open when cold, then balance and adjust again once the engine is at operating temperature? I've watched enough videos (again mostly Jervey related), and have some experience with SU's and weber carbs to know how to balance using the right tools, but when it comes to fuel injection I'm strictly an amateur. 

 

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated, this way, once I've crossed these last few items off my list, I can see if I need to jack in to the ECU, which I'm less than an amateur.....

 

 

Thanks in advance once again.

 

Bill S.

 

[ratchet]

All the butterfly's should be open the same amount. And unfortunately that will be accomplished from the linkage underneath. It should have been done by TWM way back. If it's too far off, you may need to remove the assembly and do it on the bench. Later TWM throttle bodies have air bleed screws that allow minute fine tuning. But cap off the vac ports first.  Not needed in this application. Those open ports are a big leak.

[Vovchandr]

I got little vacuum caps at a local part store or Harbor Freight if you need a quick fix

 

To make them all match pretty well you'll have to go through the linkages sand it's a huge PITA. If I recall you have to start on Cyl1 (closest to front) and go back from there. You'll need the vacuum measuring tool I posted either here or elsewhere. Don't have an answer whether its proper to do it cold or warm. 

 

[mrmustang]

8 hours ago, Vovchandr said:

I got little vacuum caps at a local part store or Harbor Freight if you need a quick fix

 

To make them all match pretty well you'll have to go through the linkages sand it's a huge PITA. If I recall you have to start on Cyl1 (closest to front) and go back from there. You'll need the vacuum measuring tool I posted either here or elsewhere. Don't have an answer whether its proper to do it cold or warm. 

 

I could have gone to the local hardware store (Ace 2.5 miles down the road), but with all of the cars and other fuel related items in my garage, it was easier, and probably less expensive to just buy a 110 piece kit, as eventually I'll need more.  Once those are installed, I'll get to work on the throttle body butterfly adjustments, I'm going to try the adjustment screw at the top of them first, and if worse comes to worse, will yank the whole unit off and dive in that way. Per your earlier advice, I purchased the vacuum tool you linked me to on Amazon, vs using the old (35+ years old) balancing tool I have for my old SU equipped TR's.

 

Bill

 

[mrmustang]

9 hours ago, ratchet said:

All the butterfly's should be open the same amount. And unfortunately that will be accomplished from the linkage underneath. It should have been done by TWM way back. If it's too far off, you may need to remove the assembly and do it on the bench. Later TWM throttle bodies have air bleed screws that allow minute fine tuning. But cap off the vac ports first.  Not needed in this application. Those open ports are a big leak.

Thanks for responding, that is what I figured, I'm going to try the small adjuster screws at the top of throttle body, if I pull the horns and their mounting plate off, I might be able to adjust the linkage while they are still on the car, but have a feeling I'll have to pull the unit and do it on the work bench. Time will tell. I'll post once it is done.

 

Bill

 

Edited March 4 by mrmustang