Fred's 1994 Type R Mazda Lantis

[Fred]

You don't get one of these everyday! Apparently my Lantis has a fire breathing ignition switch, not just a fire breathing V6! :-D






However it still has no gas in it, so they're unlikely to see it unless I tip some ute race fuel into it and cross my fingers that it doesn't melt! :-D

[Fred]

placed in a quiet cul de sac nearby where it's probably safe from vandalism, theft and incompetent drivers

So the last time I drove this was Tuesday May 31st. 30 + 31 + 16 = 77 days ago.

This thing is totally empty of fuel, barely starts. It's sidelined until further notice. Poor thing.

And boy was it a pain to start. I ended up having to empty my ~8 litres of 91 RON emergency fuel into it to get it to stay running. The battery made a heroic effort after no charging and potentially some minor drain over 2.5 months. Cranked and cranked and cranked and spluttered and ran briefly before not running again and so forth. Air in the fuel lines for sure. I could keep it alive by pumping the throttle repeatedly. Without that it'd fall down and die.

Then I tried to move it. Handbrake came unstuck pretty easily. But when I set off it felt like the car was going up and down, as if it had a flat tyre. So much so I stopped, got out, and had a look. All four were fine. I think it might have been suspension geometry and brake binding. No.... most likely the tyres had flat spotted sitting for 2.5 months with a fat Lantis on them. After a decent thrash and some highish speed runs (~130kph) and some very high RPMs (7500+) and some heavy braking on the ABS from high speeds until things smelled funny, it was back to normal.

So I celebrated by going and doing a burnout by way of small roll back and then understeery corrected steering until I lifted at the top of first. Love LSD :-D

Way to celebrate today. This was the sixth car from a total of 6 I drove today. All mine :-D

[Fred]

Moved it back closer since then, and filled it with gas, and used it a bit here and there, and then one day: NOTHING. 9.8V when I checked.

So this is my bad solution: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 7585409024






Shoehorning an old 55AH UPS SLA in there! :-D I have 15, worth 100usd new, worth 10usd recycled. 13.06V after 4 months stored not on charge! Nice. MASSIVE discharge current allowable, but claim 17A max charge. Well, we'll see how they go, then, won't we! :-D

[Fred]

Carried one out to the car, hooked up my home made 8ga jumpers, *just* started. Unhooked, loaded into the car, drove it in. Not a promising start, but not bad considering the cable length and totally dead battery dragging it down, too.

Whipped out the old one... and installed the new. I'll let these speak for themselves, but the result was a fast cranking engine that started easily. Win!

https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 5913399296
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 4537561088
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 8682579968
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 7734616064

Inlined:

[Fred]

Freshly street legal again today. The utilitarian bitch soldiers on. Today's chore was dragging the caravan around for a WOF, along with its own. Poor neglected unloved car. This battery hasn't lasted long, had a few dozy starts, then a crash start today. I guess I'll go through them one by one, then recycle the lot.

[Fred]

The replacement soldiers on, though. Still on the second battery!

In other news, I plan to thrash this legally in a couple of weeks. And if I want to do that, it'll need a working driver's seat...

...because the one in it broke! Hmmm. Two weeks to fix that, and remove the tow bar. No worries.

[Fred]

Ended up not going to the drags due to lack of working seat, lack of good front end in 740 sedan, work leaving drinks, and other reasons.

So today, the day after the last drags, I pulled the seat out and fixed it:

https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 5970772992
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 7764941826
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 2201423874
https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 9414373377











Seat feels better than it ever has. Must have been partially cracked for a while and just finally let go that day. Stiff and back to stock behaviour, now.

[Fred]

(21:09:31) Fred: f***, took lantis to fill up with fuel, had to crash start it at the gas station, all OK then, battery low, jumped it to get going in the first place, and not charged yet, and dubious battery in the first place.
(21:10:13) Fred: "heat" light on the dash came up and it's running on not-6 cylinders at idle, sounds fine revving at 10% throttle but give it any more and it dies and starts falling to a stop
(21:10:27) Fred: pumping the clutch got me up a couple of minor grades
(21:11:07) Fred: i wonder if the cat has blocked or the MAF is f***ed or the fuel pump is rooted after running nearly dry or?
(21:11:16) Fred: with 10% throttle it feels/sounds good
(21:11:20) Fred: just other places it's all wrong
(21:11:31) Fred: i feel like a freeems on it, and it'd be running mint again
(21:11:34) Fred: but... maybe not?
(21:11:48) Fred: in any case, it's full of gas, and parked again, so it can f***ing stay there for a while
(21:19:13) Fred: "This is the catalyst heat sensor light. It comes on when the engine is started and it should then go out. If it doesn't, assume the catalyst has failed. If the light comes on while driving it means your catalyst has failed. The catalyst usually fails if the car misfires and sends some unburnt fuel down the exhaust."
(21:19:27) Fred: could this explain the dying car? ecu in some protection mode?
(21:35:47) Fred: last time it ran like that it had been sitting parked for months with an empty tank, this time 2 weeks or so with an empty tank, but with a good drive in between, and a fill up in between, i feel like it can't be air in the lines? it's going lean for sure, pumping the gas makes it run OKish, that's how i got it running the last time

[Fred]

Sync loss!!!

Likely caused by bad embedded ignition coil making interference.

Figured it out by checking the fuel system via return line and continuous
good flow there at all throttle levels. Then put the timing light on each lead.
Some all good at idle. 1 or 2 intermittent at idle. Under more load, 4 or 5
fully dead, 1 or 2 intermittent! 6 + 1 sync style = gets sync, fires a few,
loses sync, cease fire, regains sync, repeat. Should have recognised it!
Hopefully the KL-ZE dizzy fits and works in this car. Otherwise I see a
wasted spark FreeEMS setup in the next week or so so I can take it got
get a nice shiny new WOF...

Glad I figured that out! Should have trusted my gut feel that higher load
could not be achieved with a blocked filter.

[Fred]

Pulled the dizzy out of the KLZE last night: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 5345755136







And pulled the presumed bad one out of the car tonight. https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 4260147200

Tomorrow I'll fit the KL one and a better battery and hopefully it's back in the land of the living. Fingers crossed.

EDIT: For the record, they appear to be completely identical. Both being JDM ZE engines, I guess that's not too surprising.