CSX3170 first time out with new engine

[Cobra #3170]

Originally Posted by Barry_R

I have wrestled with a few of these installations as well. A friend who is pretty darn good with electrical and electronic stuff (has hands on some projects in orbit...) says that the FAST guys always blame the ground no matter what's wrong. It's their favorite "whipping boy" and probably often accurate given the installations they see in the garage builder & street market.

As an old street racer and sales guy with a car habit I do not have the true knowledge to diagnose these things - I just repeat what I am told, and keep trying stuff until it works - or breaks. Take my comments as such.

I suspect that some of the aftermarket sales volumes on these kits are as low - or lower than the prototype volumes on an OE project. Means that there are limited development opportunities or resources, and consumer products are fairly immature from an OE perspective. Every customer gets to be a development engineer.

My buddy demands that I install a couple of those big "firecracker" capacitors in line with the power supply. He also concurs with the idea of keeping all the sensor side leads isolated from any high voltage stuff, and wants the ignition box wires completely isolated from the EFI system wires. Almost seems like the two companies never speak with each other (with Holley acquiring MSD those two may have an eventual advantage). I really dislike the wiring terminals and attachment to the box - seems like some sort of mounted pigtail and strain relief to a robust connector would be more effective in a race car oriented product.

And when nothing seems to work you send back the box and they send you another one that fixes the problem. You never learn what that fix entailed, nor whether your wiring was "cause or effect" but you do learn that the mysterious problem really existed in the box and not in your installation.

Thanks Barry,
I am afraid you are right on all counts, there are some very good filter capacitors out there now that were only dreamed of several years ago in terms of capacity. Kinetics does not have much pull with FAST so I may be on my own in terms of getting a replacement box. I couldn't agree more with all your comments especially on customer development of their product.
I did find an area where one of the main grounds could have some unwanted resistance so maybe that will help. Going to pull the alternator too and have it checked for output. We have a test scheduled for July 1 and 2 hopefully I can resolve it before then. Thanks to everyone for your ideas and comments.
I almost went with BIG Stuff but was told support not good, cam't believe it is worse than FAST though. I have the crank sensor at .015" so that should be a non issue, the dry sump belt limits what I can do with the crank sensor in terms of package. Kinetic's had big problems with hot start and had to have a battery charger on the dyno battery to make it run so yes the "box" might be the root of all this evil.

[olddog]

All I have delved into was the 1989 - 1993 Ford OEM ECU. It has a table to correct the injectors for voltage drift. The speed at which the tiny solenoid valve opens in an injector is proportional to the voltage applied. So if the voltage is low, the injector has to be turned on longer to put out the desired amount of fuel. Shorter if the voltage is high. If I recall the table goes from 10 volts to 14 volts. If the voltage drops mush below 10 volts the ECU will shut off the engine as if the key was turned off.