Ok so im at a loss to whats going on... i removed my exhaust manifold/turbo so i could replace a blown out o-ring. I also decided to replace my front main seal and thread seal some bolts i believed were leaking while i had the car torn apart. I got the timing lined up and cam gear lock put in, secured my timing belt, removed all parts to get to the front main. After changing the front main seal i reassembled the timing. Everything was dead on timing wise once i got the belt in place and didn't need to make any adjustments other than the oil pump sprocket got moved a few teeth over when i was moving belts around. Everything went smoothly, rotated the motor several times and all timing was good. I know the first start sounds rough until the head gets oil primed. I'm not getting the car to turn over more than a few rough fires and sounds like the head isn't priming with oil. My oil pressure isn't moving during crank i noticed also. The only thing i can think of is possibly the crank angle plate got put on backwards? But if that was the case i would have had to adjust the timing when i was reassembling it and i didn't need to do that. I recorded a video of the crank, the head should have gotten oil by now but you can still hear the mivec cam gear flopping over with the little slack that's in that gear on each turn and to my understanding that goes away once the head gets oil. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm not finding any helpful posts so far on this.

 

diagnose this like any other no start

first, determine what you are missing. spark, fuel or compression

 

I've never had a mivec gear stop clacking until the engine starts.

How much have your tried starting? Was the fuel system disassembled? Sometimes they take awhile to start if the fuel system lost prime.

 

ive tried starting it several times and rhe fuel system was not touched. I assume even with the motor not being able to run after enough cranking it would still prime the head after a certen point?

 

i havent pulled a plug to check but every now and then it will fire a few times during crank and when i turn the crank by hand can hear the compression. The only thing i can think of is something with the crank angle sensor. I just find it hard to believe it went bad just from cleaning it up. Im positive the trigger plate and sensor are in correct but if im not able to determine any other possible solution im going to tear back into it and double check. Can you test the sensor by putting the positive lead of a volt meeter to the 12v red wire and negative lead to blue trigger wire of the cas plug?

 

See--- I use a scope to test a crank sensor. The smart thing to do is take a cam/crank correlation wave-form, so if you think you have a timing issue all you need to do is measure the cam/crank position during a cranking event and you can "see" your timing on a laptop screen without any invasive disassembly.

Does the car use a hall effect or pick-up coil style waveform from the sensors?

 

Im 99% sure hall effect, its a 3 wire system.

 

did you have the turbo off?
if so, have you done a boost leak test?

i would focus on the stuff you touched...

 

3 wires will be a hall effect- you are right. 2 wires will be a voltage producing "pick up" style that makes it's own voltage on a floating ground and the voltage increases with rpm.

If the gap is too long, the magnetic field may not be strong enough to produce a voltage that the PCM will read as "high". You really need a scope (or a hella-fast meter?) to see the maximum voltage going to the PCM. I am very surprised none of the Evo guys, who are quite mechanically inclined aren't getting more into scope-diagnosis methods. You can get a cheap "mu" scope for only a few hundred dollars. ("mu" like the greek letter that looks like "u"). Check out aeswave.com

You might have shorted your reference voltage by screwing the wire down and creating a short. Do you have reference voltage on the rest of your sensors? Check something else easy to reach that uses the same reference... there are probably a dozen sensors you can pick from.


EDIT- I just thought of something (I am so dumb).... if you bump the key "starter bump" you should be able to see if the hall effect goes HIGH and LOW at random times when the engine stops at random places in different crank positions. If you do this a bunch of time's I'm sure it will go high atleast once and low atleast once (probably 5 and 0, maybe 12 and 0- I can't remember what the reference voltage on this car is)

 

How did you clean the sensor up? As I was reading your description I thought for sure it was the crank angle sensor or sensing blade as well. It really does sound like the blade was put on reversed, or was put on in the wrong order somehow so the sensor isn't picking it up. Since you had to take the entire stack of pulleys off the crank to change the front seal, is it possible the blade was put on in the wrong order, under Sprocket B instead of on top of it, or under a spacer if you removed the Sprocket B gear to eliminate the balance shafts?

 

So i disassembled down to inspect the sensor and trigger plate and everything looks good compared to images of in time engines online. The CAS is testing correctly and showing close to 12v on the gap and around 5v when trigger plate is between the sensor.

 

Tried starting it again to see if i was getting injector pulse and the car fired up for a good 5 seconds before it slowly stalled out. Thats the longest it has stayed running but the head still has no oil and getting that loud click from the mivec gear... all the other times ive done this the head has primed within the first few seconds of running and have not had an issue with the car staying running during first start. I have someone who thinks its just not running long enough to prime and i should try keeping it running by giving it gas when its trying to stall out. But i dont know... ive never had to do that before and starting to get really concerned with turning it over after this long of trying with no oil getting to the head... could the oil filter i used be the wrong style possibly? I know some vehicles you can find a filter that fits but can have a check valve or something like that that internally that causes the filter not to work. Its a stp S2808XL, O'Reillys web site lists it as for my vehicle but have had nothing but bad experiences from them in the past...

 

I swear, this sure sounds like a timing issue.
When I read your post, I remember this video:

 

i wiped the sensor off with a rag and brakeleen, i took some photos of the timing and the trigger plate and sensor. Everything looks to be in correct, if i had the trigger plate on backwords the timing mark would be upside down and mak8ng contact with the sensor i would assume.

 

Is the oil pressure light going out? If it is, keep it running by giving it throttle. I've never had something freshly put together that didn't need throttle to stay running.