Hello all,

I just picked this 03 evo 8 up last week and it drove fine and started fine on the west coast. I came back to the east side of Washington state and it seems to have developed hard start. It usually takes 6-8 cranks to start(hot or cold) while depressing the gas pedal seems to help a bit. I could really use some help as I'm not in the position to drive a long distance for a tune. Plus, im really trying to learn how to tune and have done a lot of reading. The only problem I run into is finding maps that are how they are supposed to be for comparison to see if im going into the right direction. Please pm me for map. Thanks for all your help.

Mods:
built 2.0
GT35r
1000cc injectors
272 cams
full 3 inch exhaust
AEM EMS V1

 

It sounds like you need to remove some fuel from your start tables.

 

or add some fuel.

Try bumping the initial crank pulse table about 10% up. see if that helps.

 

Does your car have a crank trigger plate/disc?

 

Thanks for the reply guys. So i messed around with start fuel a bit and then initial crank pulse table and really had no success. Upon some more reading I have found out that this seems to be normal with the AEM EMS V1. something to do with the stat sync. So while my laptop was hooked up, I watched stat sync while start and it takes a hot minute for it to sync up. Once it is synced it fires right up tho. It also varies on start time too, which kind of makes me think thats the problem. Sometimes it'll kick right off, other times it'll take a couple seconds. The only fix that I've really seen so far is the 12 tooth crank trigger disk, which correct me if I'm wrong but I'd have to delete my balance shafts in order to install it.

 

You learned quickly!
I am not a tuner so I guess you have to ask the real Pros. But this is the only solution I saw that works consistently.

 

I'm honestly thinking of just going back to the stock ecu. I bought the car with the AEM EMS in it. Apart from taking forever to start it runs pretty well minus a vacuum leak that I'm going to do a leak test on tomorrow to try and figure out how bad it really is. I've noticed that they have quite a bit better drive-ability with the factory ecu in tho.

 

Trigger plate requires that you delete the balance shaft. The trigger plate makes your car run much cleaner. It also only works on non mivec evos.

If you don't have an AEM tuner in your area, and or you don't know how to tune an AEM very well then the stock ECU is a much better option.