Various Electical issues stumping a tech/service writer of 5 years
 

First post on here, I've been working on cars for 6 years and have driven hundreds of imports in that time. Nothing quite did it for me like the Evo chassis!! I'm in a bit of a situation with my wiring and need some much needed expertise. Cheers :beer: 11111

So this is going to be a long thread, and any images of suspected faults will be included.

Quick backstory, car was non running for 2 years for a cylinder head refresh, cams, twin clutch, and a few others.

It is a 2005 WW SSL with 64k miles on the odometer, garage kept, 3rd owner, meticulously maintained and has always ran perfecly.

Since reassembling the car it ran perfectly for 150 miles before it died on me under boost one evening, having a crank no start condition, CNSC, I towed it home to find there was a loose connection at the bottom of the fuel pump module, the ground wire with the o ring on the fuel pump harness.

Since reassembling the car, there has been a CEL for Fuel Temperature Sensor Signal Malfunction.

2 weeks and 400 miles later, no issues until a rather hard drive on the backroads of Indiana, I parked the car in the garage. A few days prior, I noticed my turbo timer was showing a fluctuating alternator output, of roughly 12.8-13.8 volts. I assumed the idle from the S2 camshafts were the culprit of this. 2 days later, the car is again, under a CNSC. Spent hours diagnosing it and began tracing wires, it wasn't until I had checked all of the basics I found the ignition coil wiring was starting to get hot and melt, along with the cam sensor ground. Resoldered and replaced them, having good resistance across them all. STILL NCNS

The car was REPETITIVELY blowing both the under dash, and underhood fuses (#1 and #8 i believe for the ECU)

It wasn't until I had the random thought to check the 4 ECU connections, sure enough one of the middle connectors was loose. Only passenger I've had in the car is my girlfriend, I assume she had kicked it loose at some point. Plugged it back in, whalla, car runs and the CEL malfuntion indicator began working for the first time in about 6 months. No more blown fuses. Fuel temperature fault code still present. The same connector that was kicked loose, as per RRE's ECU pin out diagram, contains the CEL and fuel temp sensor wiring.

I allowed the car to run for 30 seconds because it was only running on half of the cylinders and the #2 coil was getting far to hot to touch within a matter of seconds. \

After checking some wires, I found the blue crank sensor wire just pulled out of the sensor side connector, the front o2 sensor connector had gotten hot enough to just crumple apart, the starter/alternator/battery wiring had gotten the hottest.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE LOOK AT THESE PHOTOS, AND TELL ME WHAT THEY THINK THE ACTUAL PROBLEM IS.

A wiring harness is a cool $2200.00 new from the dealer, and on a 6 month back order. I can't tell if these wiring issues are due to the ECU connection being loose, a faulty alternator, or if they're somehow related issues, but I wen't a head and pulled the engine side harness out of the dash/engine bay. Take a look:
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...a14ffe2b67.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...304a3eb2e3.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...1ef50fa04c.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...50bc8e1640.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...67eff49a23.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...78c93a841a.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...c7d0ce08a1.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...8c76698f19.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...52ad00ba3e.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...5641863b55.jpg
Fuse box underhood,
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...a1abbd445f.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...2f5e3e7e74.jpg
Ignition coil
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...f338c38165.jpg
Wiring looms around alternator had changed to a greyish color.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...e3512f91d4.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...29b44fb7b0.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...7f0c2d3f90.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...dc9287f841.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...95c83b530f.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...4a058b4b3e.jpg
Swollen ignition coil (near spark plug wire connector)
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...02d988a4a2.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...247cc0547f.jpg
From the positive side of the battery terminals
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...0e4f18e794.jpg
This grey wire turned brown, and looks like it was the hottest of the small harness side wires.

An important side note,

Last night I found the terminal on the starter was loose, the stud w/12mm nut.

AND

whenever getting in boost my girlfriend and I both noticed a funny smell, something was burning, but it wasn't fuel or oil or coolant.

Also, the last time I drove the car hard, I DID do a rather long pull from 3rd-4th-5th backing off around 150, but I managed to get 4-5 more trips before I wen't to drive it and it would only crank.

Very glad I found the issue before something shorted and caught fire. Now I'm puzzled as to where to start from here.

I am sitting on a BNIB precision 6062 and full top mount turbo kit from Sheepey, Inc. I was hoping the next couple grand spent was going to be on a set of rods and pistons, but it appears I may have to hold off till next year :(

Did the battery ever get hooked up backwards/reverse polarity? Also check/tighten all chassis grounds. The fsm has all circuit diagram / splice locations / ground locations etc. If you don't have a copy you can get it free off the evoscan website. The alternator could be an issue too, if the diode trio (rectifier) is toast it could be spitting out AC voltage

I did drop a ratchet on the terminals for a brief moment a few weeks ago, it popped the fusible link for the ACD system, and it was replaced before driving the car again.

How many volts does the battery read at the terminals with the car off?

I read it got a clutch. Is the starter ground at the bell housing reattached?

Okay so I'm seeing alot of wires with internal breaks from overstress/bending.

Stuff like this:
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.evo...8c76698f19.jpg

That needs to be replaced. The discoloration is from heat, the copper is likely severed internally causing high resistance. You'll want to repair any spots like that. As for whats causing your voltage fluctuation, it sounds like you either have a bad connection in your alt charging wiring or a short somewhere.

Do you have access to a clamp meter? Those will allow you to read amp draw across wires without having to break the insulation. You can use it to go through each harness/wire with your key off and make sure nothing is drawing current when it shouldn't. When you find a harness drawing current you can then use the clamp on individual wires to find the culprit.
I would start there and see if you can find anything drawing current when it isn't supposed to. That will give you an idea of any short circuits.

Once you verify you don't have any shorts you can go further into diagnostics and figuring out your no-start. You should verify what you're missing from the combustion process. Are you getting no spark, no fuel, or nothing at all? If you're getting fuel and no spark also be careful that you don't flood the engine trying to get it to turn over.

Just some thoughts i put together for your diagnostic process, it's basically impossible to actually provide really solid help for this sort of thing online, but as long as you go through everything, one item at a time, the problem will present itself to you sooner or later. Let me know if I can be of more help. I hope this was at least mildly useful heh :P Good luck!