Fuel Rail Fun! She turns, but has no spark

First off, let me say that today was a good day! It didn’t start off that way however. After last night’s fuel rail issues I needed to get the rail tapped and get myself a new fitting. At lunch I headed over to Solo Performance Specialties World Headquarters to have Dave assist with tapping the rail. He didn’t have a 3/8 NPT tap so I had to head over to Grainger down the street from the SPS offices and pick up a tap. $33 later I was in business and heading back to Dave’s. He assisted with tapping the rail again and then I headed south.

I needed to go to SCPRacingparts.com to pickup another fitting, they had just what I needed and then I was headed back to the office. When I got home this evening the first thing I did was check to see if the new fitting would be what I needed. I put the fitting into the rail with some teflon and hooked everything up. I pressurized the fuel system, and sure enough, it was leaking fuel again! Not a happy camper was I. With a leaking fuel rail I couldn’t do much else so I called up Speed Sports to see if they could help me out by tapping the rail and selling me a new fitting.

They were running a little late and not open yet so I decided to work on the power issue we were having with the Megasquirt. On Tuesday we had problems because the MS signal to the laptop was highly unsteady. We weren’t sure if it was a power problem, or if it was related to a bad ground. Tonight I replaced the wire we were running to the main relay with a direct line from the battery. Once I did this the relay kicks in immediately when plugged to the battery, powering up the megasquirt without the ignition being on.

This corrected the fluctuation issue, which was great news! Now that the gauges and sensors seem to work fuel was the last major hurdle before I could attempt to start the car. I headed up to Speed Sports and had Lou tap the rail and install a new fitting for me. He showed me that I wasn’t using enough teflon on the fitting, and he also managed to run the fitting nearly all the way in, where we were only able to get it in a few threads before.

Once I had the new fitting installed I was starting to get excited, perhaps it would hold and I’d be able to see what happens when I cranked the car. Installation of the rail was easy, I’ve installed and removed it so much in the past two nights that it is easy to do now. Eric showed up and we pressurized the fuel system a few times. All tests appeared good, no fuel leaking out anywhere!

Now it was time, the power was good, the fuel was good, it was time to try and start the car. Eric and I tied up a few last minute things, hooked up the battery, computer to the Megasquirt and watched all the gauges on the PC light up. Eric stood by the front of the car with a fire extinguisher and I reached into the driver’s door to turn the key.

I turned the key, she cranked over, a beautiful sound I must say. After a few cranks I realized the fuel pump wasn’t running, which meant that the squirt wasn’t getting an RPM signal as it should be. I looked over at the display and sure enough, no RPMs registering on the PC. Without RPMs the Megasquirt won’t allow the fuel pump to run for more than 2 seconds, that was my giveaway.

I called Whittle up and he suggested a few things. First thing was to pull a spark plug and see if we were getting any spark. Nothing. Then I checked to make sure the EDIS was getting power, it was.

So that’s where I’m at right now. I’ve got a bit to do tomorrow, I need to diagnose why I’m not getting spark. I’ll check a few things first, see if perhaps the VR sensor is wired backwards, which would cause this. I’ll also check to make sure I have the VR sensor in the correct location. I’m taking off from work tomorrow to try and finish things up on the car this weekend so I can race on Sunday. We’ll see if I reach my goal!

Overall I was very pleased with the progress tonight, even if the car didn’t start I gave it a shot, turned it over and everything seems to work minus the spark issue. We’ll see how things go tomorrow and I’ll post video from tonight’s attempt and hopefully tomorrow’s success.