Car sat for a long time. Crank, No Start...

tldr: I have spark, but I don't know exactly how to check for fuel on this car. Got slight combustion with brake cleaner into tb. Nothing at all without. I do not have an accessport, but I do have a generic code reader, and vcds for audi/vw that may give more information than the generic one...

Year/Make/Model: 2008 Mazdaspeed 3
Mileage: 115k
Location/Alitutude: SW Missouri
Concern: Car cranks, but does not start. Issue started 5 years ago, been sitting ever since. Recently, car still cranks, but does not start.
DTC's:
Modifications: None
ECU/Tuning Software: None
Tuner: None
Is the concern intermittent? No
Can you duplicate the concern? Yes

Questions:

1. How can I check for fuel on this car?
2. I plan on fixing this chewed coil wire, but should I be able to start/see combustion without spark on one cylinder?
3. Car has been sitting for a long time, gas is probably bad, other things may need checked as well. What would be a checklist of general things I need to look at or refresh since the car has sat for so long?
4. Any tips on a deep clean in the engine bay? Engine bay smells like mouse urine. Luckily there was no evidence of critters inside the cab at all.

A bit of a back story:
5 years ago my ms3 was a spare car. Girlfriend totaled her vehicle so I let her drive my ms3. Car comes home one day just fine, next morning it cranks but doesn't start. At this point I already had a running project car, so this car just sat dead for years. I just found valves sitting on the top of the cylinder head on my project, so putting that aside for now, and wanting to try and get my ms3 running.
After sitting on the street for years it seems a mouse made a home in my engine bay. He lived his entire life up until the very end it seems. He also took out one of my coils so I have spark, but only on 1, 2, 4. I assume I should still be able to start with 3/4, or at least get combustion.

Thanks guys, looking forward to getting this car running again and using it as a daily for a while.

 

Have you tried to simply boost it? If you've got a coil pack wire not connected I'd be fixing that first

Here's a thread about how to troubleshoot
https://mazdaspeeds.org/index.php?threads/how-to-diagnose-thread.1229

@Easter Bunny or @L337TurboZ may be able to help more

 

Start pulling stuff apart looking for more chewed wires.

 

I appreciate the troubleshooting thread, lots of good stuff there. Do you happen to know exactly where I could put a guage on the fuel line prior to hpfp?

I did use a jump pack on all my start attempts the other day, and prior to that I jumped with another car, and even a new battery.

 

FORSCAN will give you a lot of detailed data on PIDs for Ford/Mazda.

It will also give you snapshot data for any events that triggered DTCs and let you run certain diagnostic functions. I've used it to troubleshoot or look at more detailed info than the AP will provide.

https://forscan.org/faq.html#licensing

 

EDIT: No it does not appear from what I see online that it works. I'll buy a forscan cable.
Do you know if any odb/usb cable will work? I have one used for VCDS on audi/wv. I will definitely be using this software either way. Does it do real time reads similarly to how accessport shows fuel pressure?

And am I reading this right? As long as you're fine with renewing every 2 months you can just use it for free?

 

I just use it via ELM Bluetooth adapter on my android phone. I think I messed with it on my laptop with the cable a few years ago before I was tuned and returned the cable.

I've never paid anything to use it from what I recall or maybe I did once but I've never had to pay anything since if I did initially pay.

There's some info on the FORSCAN page about which ELM protocols are compatible.

Yes it will show real time PID data and even let you datalog as well as take snapshots.

I know it's pretty popular over on the Focus forums because it also allows you to edit the firmware on Fords and turn on/turn off certain features. My buddy used it to turn on the adaptive headlights on his Raptor.

 

I appreciate it. I went ahead and got the year license for Windows, it was only $12. It seems that is a more full featured program compared to the phone app which is a "Lite" version. I will definitely be digging into it when the cable comes in Friday. Just in time to spend the weekend looking over the car again.

 

How would you go about fixing the wire? Would a butt connector do the job? Doing that feels like it should be temporary, is there a better option other than replacing the harness?
Oddly enough I could have swore this plug came off cyl 3, but where it is chewed on the harness leads me to believe it is the plug for cyl 2.
Image of where it is chewed, there is maybe 2mm of wire coming out from under this tape on the corrugated plastic so I think I'll need to cut into it or peel the tape back if possible.
Also, is it fine to get rid of this foam highlighted in red under the intake manifold? I think it is housing some of my late mouse friends smell.

 

As far as underhood wire repair of critical wiring you can never go wrong with a properly soldered connection. Get some high quality waterproof heat shrink tubing to go over your repair and you are good.

All my connections are done this way for my oil temp, oil pressure and Ethanol content gauge. All the provided harnesses were not long enough so I had to extend them.

If you need to re wrap exposed wire TESA tape works very well or you can order some high temp braided split loom and use TESA Tape with that if you want to go over board like some of us.

Tesa's Most Advanced High Heat Harness Tape 51036 Mercedes, BMW, Audi, VW https://a.co/d/6loNgGI

https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/keywordsearch.asp?KeywordStart=split+loom&KeywordButton=Go

 

Yes that foam can be yeeted into the bin, it will make for louder ticking from the injectors, the gen 2 speeds did not come with it.

Important thing with electrical is ensuring it water tight that means heat shrink. Some folks will say don't solder car stuff others say hey I've used it for years it's fine with heat shrink. Here's a way to do it https://blog.1aauto.com/how-to-fix-a-broken-wire/

 

I've heard both sides of that argument also Awa. I still feel a properly soldered connection is superior.

 

It's important to pay attention to how you connect the bare wire before you solder for a strong connection

 

Went ahead and used butt connectors to fix the coil pack for now, so should have spark on all 4 cylinders. Got rid of that foam, which should hopefully help with some of the smell. I swapped in 4 new plugs, all gapped around .026-.028. (I don't know how anyone gets an accurate gap on those coin sized gappers) All of the old plugs were sitting at .035-.040.

Of course, when we were trying to start it the other day my buddy thought coil 3 was chewed through, so cyl 2 was sparking with cyl 3's coil. Hopefully that didn't cause much issue. Boroscope on cyl 3 looked a little off, but I couldn't get a clear picture. I will try to get a clearer image again soon. Cable for FORScan should come in today, will tear into the car again tomorrow and get codes, etc.

Speaking of coil packs. Does anyone know the size of the coilpack bolt that holds coilpack to the engine? When the car sat taken apart for a while, those seem to have been lost along with the nuts that hold down the intercooler... Searching the internet I haven't found any confirmed parts yet...

I will attach an image of the old plugs and also the not so good boroscope image.

 

To answer your question about accurate gapping with the coin tool, you don't! The iridium center electrode is brittle and will break easily if too much force is applied.

I use this tool and a feeler gauge to check gap. If you compress too far you can use needle nose pliers to grip the sides of the ground electrode and bend it back. Do not stick something between the the center electrode and ground electrode and pry against the center electrode to open the gap. You will ruin the plug with this method.

PQY Universal Spark Plug Gap Tool with 32 Blades Steel Feeler Gauge for Most 10mm 12mm 14mm 16mm Spark Plugs Red https://a.co/d/duuV0yQ

Coil pack bolts are M6 x 1.0 and 25 mm length. Bolt depot is a pretty good source for reasonably priced hardware.
https://boltdepot.com/Metric_flange_bolts_Full_thread_Stainless_steel_18-8_(A-2)_6mm_x_1.0mm

 

She started! I'm not pushing my luck, I didn't touch the throttle, it's smoking like a bandit and smells reeeeal bad. I fired her up twice and let her run for 10-15 seconds.
Anything I need to do to make sure I don't screw anything up at this point? It was sitting for like 4-5 years. Do I need to do something with the old gas?
How can i turn on logging with FORScan? I got it plugged in but couldn't figure out the logging. I did get a couple sensors up, but when it fired up I got excited and didn't even look at them.
What do I need to log, and how can I start the log?

 

Can't help you with logging for FORSCAN on the laptop but from what I remember on mobile it was easy to figure out and I'm far from the smartest person here. I'd poke around the FORSCAN forums maybe or Google.

As far as the fuel is concerned I'd probably want to drain the tank and put some fresh fuel in. This can be accomplished by pulling the bottom of the rear seat up to access the top of the fuel tank.

You'll find the assembly that houses the in tank pump there and you can disconnect the fuel feed line and attach another line to a gas can or other container. From there you can utilize the in tank pump to pump out the gas and then reattach the fuel feed line and put fresh gas in the tank.

You can turn on the in tank fuel pump by jumping out two points of the relay that controls it in the fuse box under the hood. The exact points are listed in a procedure in the Factory Service Manual.

FSM is one of the benefits of becoming a metal member around here. You can become a Metal member for a starting price of $10 for the year.

It's also in this post kinda, doesn't list the exact points on the relay but it will give you an idea.

https://mazdaspeeds.org/index.php?threads/draining-fuel-from-tank.12242/

 

Awesome, I’ll go ahead and just get the metal membership then.
The car is starting on its own, but it’s not staying on once the rpms drop down to around 1,000.
I think I found out how to log… but not 100% sure how to export it to a readable file other than the forscan file type. I will look into this more. As far as DTCs went, it was my auto wiper sensor, and some other cabin sensor that popped up, nothing else.
I think fuel pressures looked ok, but I do want to just get the fuel swapped out before doing anymore work.
I appreciate all of you guys helping so far!
Will do the fuel tomorrow hopefully and get a few gallons of fresh gas in there.


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You should be able to siphon the gas out of the tank, needs a small hose but can be done (did it to ship my car).
Would definitely be worth an oil change, you're probably due for many fluids at this point. Glad she's running.

Might be worth cleaning that hpfp with how longs she's been sitting, especially that spill valve
https://www.mazdaspeeds.org/index.php?threads/hpfp-o-ring-rebuild-michael-rey-facebook-kit.8069/

What do you think is causing the stall?

 

I’m not sure on the stall. To be fair, along with just sitting for a while I did drop a recirc valve bolt, so that wasn’t on tight. So there was at least a bit of an air leak. MAF could use a cleaning I bet… old gas maybe? It smoked pretty bad when starting up the first couple times, and the smell was like oil, but rank.. if that makes sense. The car smoked badly at idle before it died the first time, I think it’s the turbo seals. I planned on replacing the turbo if the car ever started again.

Touching the gas pedal often made the car want to die. My knowledge is limited, but my gut is saying maybe the car thinks I should be getting fuel that it isn’t when I touch the throttle, or maybe a similar thing with air.

I was able to get past the dying with a little more throttle (really trying not to break anything) and sitting around 2k the car would stay running seemingly fine, but once I let off and it hit 1000 it would die.


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