Well, my car has been running like *** for the last 3 weeks.
I have a K&N typhoon intake on it.
I HAD a piggyback in it.

A while back I had put some NGK Iridium IX spark plugs into it, had the RRM piggyback and the typhoon in it. After I put those in, the car ran great but I noticed that my milage had gone straight downhill. Instead of getting ~350 miles a tank, I was getting maybe 180.

I took out the spark plugs and checked the gap (I believe they are supposed to be gapped at .044?) they were gapped at about .022. I tried to regap them thinking it was the problem.. maybe it was maybe it wasnt, but what I didn't know is that you CANT REGAP THEM with using the cheap usual 1$ round gapping tool. They broke. My friend had a set of unused spark plugs, so I put those in while I ordered some more plugs.

The plugs he had given me were really big, they didn't fit well. The plug coils stuck out and the car misfired (not TOO bad). I didn't think anything of the coils not going in right because the Iridiums I had did the same thing (I don't know the model now, but I'm pretty sure Schucks ordered me the wrong ones to start)

I ordered some cheap spark plugs from Schucks and some NGK wires from Ebay. While those were on order, I tried to gap the plugs differently and see if I could get the car to run right. No win, still ran bad.

I got the new plugs, gapped them and put them in. Perfect fit although it ran the same as the previous set had. I put in the new NGK wires, helped out the idle problem a little, but still ran bad.

After that I took the piggyback out to see if that would help (I had installed the piggyback with the cheap wire connectors, it didnt have a very good connection, although it ran just fine before the whole ordeal). I soldered the connections back together this time thinking that bad wiring may be the problem, if that ran fine, I was going to put the piggyback back in with good connections and hopefully, end of the problem.

Taking the piggyback out didn't solve anything, the car ran the same as before.

I decided to take it into the dealership the other day, got rid of all the evidence of the piggyback.

Theyre computers told them that it was the mass airflow sensor that went bad. "They coat the intake you have with oil and it gets onto the sensor and makes it misread" Ok... well fine, going to cost me 450$!!! But.. as long as my car works... great..

Called them back today after they had put it wrong only to hear "well.. we put the new sensor in.. and it actually ran worse... we found a piece of paper for a speed.. chip.. a.. piggyback... did you put something in the ecu?" I told them what was up, asked them to check the wiring. They weren't happy about it but they checked my soldering job and said it was ok.

Right now, he said they were going to reflash my chip and see if anything is wrong with it, if that doesn't help, they are going to have to reorder a new chip and put it in. I really don't think its the chip. I really don't think its the mass airflow sensor, although he said that mine "was acting sporadically, and they may have to leave the new one in."

A new computer costs $1200, but he said they were going to try to do it under warrenty.

Any ideas or anything on this?

 

If you alsolutely need a new ECU, get one off Ebay for < $100. First off, how'd the plugs get "regapped" at .022? Did you check the gap before you put those in???

 

wow a whole bunch of stuff doesnt sound right here . . . first off being that you stuffed spark plugs that didnt fit in there, god only knows what that did. If they are sticking up to far on the boot side to push the coils up then they might be sticking to far down into the cylinder. If thats the case you got a problem. Re-install all the stock stuff and reset the ECU. And god help you if the deal decides they dont like your mods . . . goodluck man.

 

Why would you run the wrong plugs in your car instead of just going down to autozone? It's better to not have a car than to potentially damage your valves, cylinder head, or pistons. You can pick up a new ecu from car-parts.com for around 100 bucks. Best of luck to you, and don't let the dealership run away with your money when you can replace some of the stuff for nothing. If you need a lot of help pm me and I'll give you my cell.

 

not much help to know now, but iridium plugs have a pre-set gap and you cannot adjust it. doing so, will, as you found out, damage the plug.

+1 for getting the correct part or waiting until you have it.

did you ever try and reset the ECU after you took off the PB?

 

I ordered them from Schucks, they said the gap was fine, I put them in. It ran just fine but my gas mileage was..yeah.. so thats when I checked the gap and noticed it was wayyy down.

And as for inserting plugs that were too big, I didnt think anything of it because the Iridiums that I ordered specifically for my car were the exact same size... which is why I'm guessing they never gave me the right ones to begin with.

And yes, I have reset the ECU multiple times just in hopes that it would magically run right, and yes I let it idle for 15 minutes every time.


Here's an update though. They reflashed the ECU and still the same problem. I really think they are looking in the wrong place... But he's supposedly doing all that under warranty, I guess because I didn't have the PB hooked up when I took it in, unlike the intake. Basically it was just a couple wires that had been messed with so I think hes trying to be cool about that, even though he knows whats up.

I dont know what they are going to try next but I'll keep you updated.


Oh and if I did need to get an ECU on my own, how difficult would that be to put in?

 

ECU install, cake...

 

K im confussed here, you have a piggy back and a speed chip? The dealer charged you $450 to clean your MAS? You were running a .44 gap on your plugs?!? and then you put wrong plugs in your car?!?!?! and now your wondering why its not running right?

Ugh...don't even know where to start on this one.

 

I dont know if you are serious or not... do I clear things up? I.. donno.. you are a moderator.. so um..

ok

450$ for a new MAS, installation, shipping (not to clean it) - but now they don't know if I need it or not (it made the car worse with the new one in but my old one was "acting sporadically"

.44 gap? iridiums are supposed to be pre-gapped at .044, the ones I had were .022. Not really important.

the "speed chip" is what the guy at the dealership called the piggyback

annnnnd the spark plugs that are in the car right now ARE the ones for the car (and the dealership veryfied that it was not the sparkplugs causing the problem); HOWEVER, the car is running just the same as the other pair that was not for the car.

 

did you get a cel or ses? I ran bosch plugs in my car it it caused missed fire all over the place. so i went back to NGK plugs since those are stock on my car

 

Yeah, CEL.
The error code pointed towards the MAF I guess, but seems that wasnt the problem.

An update for today - They took a computer out of a Lancer they had in the junkyard and put it in, no help. I guess now they are looking at a sensor on the crankshaft. Said that it supposed to see your RPM's and adjust fuel according to that. I don't know why they are looking there exactly but he told me something about that they got the car running normal for a short period of time, but then they went to try again and it started acting up again.

 

the diagnostic computer that mitsu uses will pull an error code if the car is running any sort of intake. the MAF wasn't programmed to read that much airflow.

i hope you are kidding. IT IS IMPORTANT.

...so let's get things straightened out from the ROOT of your problem.

- the car ran fine with your intake, PB ECU, and Irdium IX's
- gas milage decreased
- checked plugs and the gap was WAY off
- regapped the plugs and then replaced them with plugs that WERE NOT FOR YOUR VEHICHLE

seems to me that is where the problem started. try picking up a set of PREGAPPED Iridium or Titanium plugs for your lancer straight from the shop. in the shop computer it is very likely that the 02-03 lancer will pull up the same plugs as the 04-05's....make sure you get the ones specific to your year....this is important. (there was one set that claimed to work with all models....it really caused a misfire in the 02-03). then work from there. if that is where the problem started, that is where you need to concentrate. once that 'area' is all sorted through and you are 100% sure that nothing is wrong there; move on to something else. keep us posted. i'll watch for an update.

mark

 

Maybe you're right. Might be important. Maybe I should call them and ask them to just put stock plugs back in, if it fixes it, good; if not, whatever. The plugs that are in right now are NGK V-power, don't know the model number; they're the only plugs they had in stock at the time to fit my car.

But if it was the plugs, wouldn't it show a misfire error code?

And I think it's kind of weird that the error code pointed towards my MAF, but when they replaced it with a brand new one, it ran worse...

But, anyways, theyre supposed to put a different crankshaft sensor in and see what that did. I guess they must not have had time to do it yesterday because I never got an update from them.

And here's the other thing: I can't really take my car back and do anything with it or they'll drop all the labor charges onto me. I have to let them fix it.

Be funny after they spent about 12 hours of labor on the thing to find out it WAS crappy spark plugs huh?

 

i have NGK V-power in my car; they are a step colder though. my car was running super hot for NA and i kept cracking plugs every 1,500 miles. when you get the cash try putting OEM plugs back in the car. honestly, i am fairly surprised that wasn't the first thing mitsu did. depending on how bad the misfire is it may or may not throw a code. i was running on 3 cylinders and the car wasn't pulling a CEL.

also, when my car was hooked up to the mitsu diag computer (i was there for a recall, no CEL, nothing mechanically wrong) and i was "pulling a code" for the MAF....mitsu claims that their software reads codes that aren't ODB II compatible thus won't throw a CEL....IMO that is a bunch of crap but i'll let you decide for yourself whether or not you believe it......the car is still messed up after the MAF wasnt it