TheMowerman

I have a 2003 Evo 8 that spun the main bearings. I decided to put a stroker kit in it and now with everything back together it cranks but doesn't start. After cranking for a while, I smelled fuel. I pulled the plugs and they were all wet. I left them sit to dry out over night and tried again in the morning. After two tries at starting I smelled fuel again. I had the car jumped because the battery is a little weak. I checked the compression and was getting around 120 psi in all cylinders. I checked spark from both coil packs and I have spark (plugs gaped at .024). I pulled the vacuum hose from the fuel regulator to see if it was leaking fuel, it was good. I can now smell fuel from the air filter. Checked for codes with my OBD2 tool and found no codes. The cam position sensor broke when I was taking the engine out and I replaced it with a sensor I got on ebay. At the time I thought it would work, but now im not so sure. Can anyone verify if there is a difference between cam position sensors used? Here is the part number #J5T23071A and the list of vehicles it fits.

DODGE
2001 - 2005 STRATUS

EAGLE
1997 - 1998 TALON Turbo

MITSUBISHI
1997 - 1999 ECLIPSE Turbo
2000 - 2004 Eclispe 2.4L 4 cyl
1997 - 2002 MIRAGE
1999 - 2004 GALANT
2003 OUTLANDER
2003 - 2004 LANCER

Not sure where to go from here. Here is additional info that may or may not be relevant.

9.1:1 Wiseco pistons
eagle rods
100mm 7bolt crank from a 4G64
New timing belt and bs belt
new water pump
Timing marks are all aligned
all connectors and hoses connected

Abacus

iTrader: (9)

If the car spun a bearing , did you put a new oil cooler on? There is no way to get metal out of the cooler.
I'm unsure of the sensor, but if its questionable I would replace it with a new one . I would also make sure you have the intake and exhaust cam sensors in their correct location.

Check for spark
If you installed different injectors then the ecu will need to be adjusted.
Write down everything you did and go over the list again.
Easier to start on pump gas then E85 if thats a factor.

Was the head checked?
Same cams/valves as before?
If the head is questionable I would put some air in each cylinder at tdc and see if the air is leaking out of the ports

The first start is important and you want to avoid a large amount of fuel sitting on the cylinder walls. Once started the oil will need to be changed after 20min.

TheMowerman

Ah, yes I did install a new oil cooler, forgot to mention that. Everything in the head is exactly the same except for the cam sensor that I replaced. The head was checked for straightness. I just replaced the spark plugs and got a new cam position sensor. Same problem except It seemed to fire once but that was it.

I was feeling around to see if I missed something and noticed that the IAC valve was warm to the touch. Is it supposed to heat up? It was also randomly ticking at several times when I was working on the car. I didn't know what it was at first but found it eventually. I found a video on youtube explaining how to check it and it seemed to work okay.


Other than that I didn't find anything out of the ordinary.

Supergoslow

iTrader: (12)

Did you put your crankshaft positioning sensor back on the right way? You probably wouldn't have any spark if you didn't but for what it's worth I had mine flipped and also battled a no start case until we looked down there and realized it, then she started right up.

TheMowerman

Yes, I could clearly see which way it was on by the outline of the timing belt gear.

TheMowerman

Okay, I started double checking everything again and realized I had the wrong diagram for the timing marks. I'm not sure how I managed that, but it happened. The timing belt is now aligned correctly. It started right up when I turned the key, but there was a tapping noise from the top of the engine. It ran from about 20 seconds, there was a metallic bang and it stalled. It kinda freaked me out, so I pulled the plugs turned the engine over by hand and didn't get any binding or seizing. I decided that it was safe to do a compression test. I got 110psi in cylinder #1 and 120psi in the rest. They all held that pressure when I checked for a leak down.

I pulled the cylinder head cover and found two lifters that were sitting about 3/32in low. The rockers were both very loose. The bad lifters were on cylinders #1 and #3 on the exhaust side. I'm not sure if I should get new lifters or try to clean them. I using 5w-40 full synthetic. Also, I don't understand what made the metallic bang that stalled the engine. Is it possible to have a bent valve and still get consistent compression results?

LetsGetThisDone

iTrader: (1)

You wouldn't get good compression with a bent valve. The bang was probably the lifter collapsing and letting valves slam shut. I would replace all of the lifters.

okevolutionVIII

iTrader: (71)

I know it's not very common but it caused me to un-loom the whole engine wiring harness(which led to a nice wire tuck job) plus buy a new map, crank and cam sensors and a new IAC. I disabled the immobilizer with ECUFlash and it started right up so the immobilizer wasn't allowing the car to start with either key.

TheMowerman

Thanks for the replies. I got new lifters in and it's running good.