another question/suggestion (sorry its early for me I should have read your description twice before posting) I noticed you said you did wire management after testing everything, but did you retest after doing the wiring management? If not you might go over all of that again, because stuff can happen when moving around all those wires.

 

When I first experienced the issues, I had everything I could plugged into the dash, except the gauge cluster and the hvac brain, since I was going to be wiring in gauges from those locations. Yes, I tested after doing wire management. I even went back through and essentially rebuilt the hvac harness that I had initially created because I didn't like how I had built it the first time.

 

Ok good, I just wanted to kinda start at the basics. I can't really offer much targeted troubleshooting advice until I can study the diagrams a bit. Next thing you could try though is hooking it up and start pulling fuses until the lights go out. Then jump down that rabbit hole and start pulling fuses that are subs of that fuse etc until hopefully you find the problem.

 

does the low side, ground on the relays have 12v positive power?

pull the light relay... clip a test light to the frame... and then check all the sockets and make sure they are all not hot.

 

So what must be happening is Battery +12v is sending power to the Front ECU and all the lights are turning on. I would think that by accident maybe a power wire is connected to a ground point on the headlight harness.

All the lights are on the live +12 volt circuit.

 

correct... thats what im saying to check... if you test the low side of the relay and it is hot, then you just got to start unplugging stuff untill it goes away... then you trace that circuit down and find the fault.

 

THIS is exactly what was happening. Essentially, I'm an idiot and had connected the ground wire from the transmission to the power lead cuz that positive terminal had gotten taken apart and I didn't pay attention to what was where *FACEPALM* stupid mistake, easy fix. Now, back to the regularly scheduled programming of getting things buttoned up and wire in the new gauges in prep for the first startup.

I. Feel. REALLY. Dumb.

 

So I'm battling a no-start issue.

I've confirmed fuel (pulled the feed line from the rail, watched fuel spit out), confirmed spark (pulled each spark plug and watched them spark as I cranked the car over). I've confirmed the crank position sensor trigger wheel is installed the correct direction, the crank position sensor is brand new. I've confirmed the camshaft position sensor trigger wheel is installed in the correct direction, and the camshaft position sensor is brand new too. I've triple and quadruple checked timing multiple times throughout the course of this whole rebuild by hand cranking it over and over and over again, and everything lines back up. The battery is brand new, but it's been used to try to start the car a bunch so I'm going to put it on a charger today after work.

I'm not sure what else to check, and I'm pretty stumped.

 

Since you just rewired a bunch of stuff, check your coolant temp sensor. I had a wire break on an old DSM and without it connected ECU would read something like -200deg. The compensation for coolant temp basically flooded the motor and it wouldnt even try to fire.

Could also put a timing light on it while cranking to make sure its firing right and not 180deg off.

 

If im not mistaken the timing should be locked at -5 degrees during cranking, so I would verify that with a timing light. Also try connecting to the ECU with evoscan and log while your cranking. Look to see that the ECU is seeing RPM during cranking and log Injector pulse width, and make sure that looks like a sane vale for your injector size and starting conditions etc.

You should also double check over the injector wiring. I'm not sure if your using High or Low-Z injectors but make sure your injector resistor pack is bypassed properly for high-z or hooked up right for low-z. Verify you are getting power VBATT at the injectors themselves, and you can use a timing light in series to verify it is getting signal from the ECU while cranking. Just unplug an injector and use the tester between then terminals in the pigtail. You could also just remove a spark plug and check if its getting wet with fuel after cranking.

You can use EVOSCAN to probe the various sensors and make sure they are reporting sane values, as well as test a bunch of different systems on the car.

 

I don't have evoscan or a tactrix cable or anything that will let me do any kind of logging. I am running FIC1200's for my injectors, and have the injector resistor pack properly bypassed with the FIC delete plug from STM. The injectors are spraying; the spark plugs definitely smell like fuel each time I've pulled them to check things out.

 

You should get that stuff. Its IMO a must have tool in the toolbox of anyone with a modded Evo. Since you know you are getting fuel, then checking ignition timing is pretty much the next step. If that comes back good then its going to be about how much fuel the engine is spraying and you will need those tools to verify that yourself*, and if need be modify it. Also fuel pressure at the rail could be effecting things so you might want to verify that.

*You could use like an oscilloscope to also check IPW but thats probably more hectic than evoscan.

 

Yeah, I should have it, but I don't trust myself to know how to read it or to make changes that won't hurt the car. I've had a lot going on, and haven't really felt up to the task with learning yet another new thing amongst everything else happening.

 

Step one before ever changing anything is learning to read the logs. Just doing that without ever turning a dial in the tune has huge value in monitoring your cars health. I swear tactrix isn't paying me anything to harp on about this

With all the effort your putting into this build, I really believe this is something you should make some time to learn about. However if you would prefer, this is probably the point to engage the services of a tuner to help get it running.

 

If I'd undertaken this whole project as a "because I want to" instead of as a "because I literally have to" (thanks, grenaded motor), then I likely would have gone that route lol. I definitely agree it'd be great for me to learn, and in time I likely will. But I just hadn't had the opportunity to buy the software and cable, and then teach myself how it all works without causing further damage to things.

I'm enlisting some professional help next week, because I am 100% stumped on what to do moving forward. And of course I can't post up the video I took from my phone the other night to show what it's (not) doing.