So, went through some weird **** last weekend, and thought I'd share some lessons learned...

So, it all started when I swapped out my FIC 650 injectors to some RX7 470 injectors. I have been having some missfiring issues and was brought to thinking the 650s were too large for the Megasquirt 1 to handle.

Anyway, swapped the injectors and made the change on my Megasquirt to use a bit more fuel. After that I tried cranking the car over and it wouldn't start. I cranked it probably a 1/2 dozen times before the battery seemed like it was weak and couldn't crank anymore. I checked the battery and it wasn't that bad, it should have enough cranking power to deal with it. I ended up leaving it on the charger for a bit, and same thing, I could hear a crank, but just for a sec. I tapped on the starter a bit and it turned some more, so I thought my starter was going out. I was going to pull the car in my garage, but it was uphill of where the car was parked.

Figured at that point, I'd just bump start the car. I pulled it out in reverse and tried to jump it and all it did was skid the tires. Hmm, that's a bit strange I have jumped a car in reverse before. I then turned the car around then tried again to bump start it a good 1/2 dozen times. It was also skidding in 2nd and 3rd gear. The guy that was helping me also sat on the back trunk, as I thought I didn't have enough weight back there.

Ended up having it towed back to my garage which was only a few hundred feet away. Well, at least it was in the garage now, and then spent several hours having fun replacing that starter. Oh, that was fun. So after all that hard work, it cranked for 1 sec on a fully charged battery. !!! WTF!

I cranked over the motor with a wrench just to make sure the motor could rotate. It rotated fine, but given that this was the first time I was doing this, I wasn't sure how much torque was normal. It was a bit tight, but it did turn over.

I thought, maybe when I swapped the injectors, something came off the old injector and went into the combustion chamber, so I pulled the plugs and they were swimming in fuel!. Oh, ****, guess what I found? A couple of the cylinders were full to the brim with gas... almost to the level of the spark plugs. I then cranked over the motor emptying out all the gas.... what a scene that was! Just to verify the injectors, I put the plugs back in and cranked the motor for a single crank, maybe 3-4 seconds. Pulled the plugs and I could see a good 1/4" of gas in the chambers.

Swapped back to stock injectors and it fired up fine on first crank. Ended up having to change the oil as there was tons of gas in there, and the oil was very thin.I put a 9Volt battery on all 4 injectors ,and sure enough 2 of the injectors didn't even click, they were completely stuck.

Where'd I get my injectors from ? Ebay.. Yeah thats right I got screwed on injectors that were supposedly fully cleaned, tested and all that. They did look good, but thats about it. Never been burned so bad before...

Here's the ad btw, quality control, my ***!
1989 91 Mazda 1 3 4CYL Fuel Injectors Best Price Guarateed 195500 2010 | eBay

 

have you tried the 1 year warranty? Is this something that can be fixed with a cleaning for example?

 

Thanks for sharing the experience. Just a few days ago I was agonizing between a set of eBay RX8 injectors or a new set of ID1000's. I ended up spending the extra to go with the IDs, and you're helping to reassure me it was the right choice

 

Wow, you could have popped the motor with it hydrolocked like that. Glad you caught it.

You probably already know this, but: if you can't get a car to start in 3-4 tries, you need to investigate why instead of keep trying. The only time its worth bump starting it is if you have a dead battery or starter. If car doesn't start with both those working, don't bump start it.

EV1's suck

*edit: you guys got e85 where you're at? if so, just use the 650's on e85, it should bump the pw up enough to make them work I think

 

Wow this sounds similar to what happened to my 1.6 .... I'm pretty sure I hydrolocked from fuel but I have to break the motor apart and make sure

https://www.miataturbo.net/general-m...d-noise-80301/

 

... words.

 

Yeah the vendor will give a full refund if they test out bad. Already sent them back. What a hassle, just got suckered from their convincing ad and I have bought my fair share of ebay stuff.

 

I'm pretty sure reputable companies sell pelnty of EV14 injectors in sizes more suitable to your needs. I suggest you pursue that route.

Even Five-O is better than that EV1 junk.

 

I'll take EV1s cleaned and flowed by a reputable company over the garbage Five-O sells any day of the week.

 

I guess we'll agree to disagree.

I've seen more successfull five-o running cars than anyting EV1 based, and if I was taking chances, I'd rather take chances on a newer style injector than one designed in the 1980's

 

First mistake! My MS1 has handled these injectors with ease on shitty non HR code. DDed for almost 2 years now so don't be afraid to use them.

 

I am not going to compare EV1 or Five-O, however on a few race cars that the owner did get Five-O, we had nothing but issues even with injectors out of the box. Specially in RX-7 case where we had primary and secondary. I have spent hours on the dyno pulling my hair out as one rotor would go super-lean once into transition and found out that it was the NFG out of the box injectors. Just my 2cents and sorry for the thread hi-jacking.

 

That's good to know, that was the whole point of this experiment. Which shitty code you running btw? That might be a point of experimentation, going back to non HR code and see how it handles it....

 

I'm trying to figure out how this is even possible with there being 2-3 decades of EV1 cars running around.

I'm all about EV14, but this is a pretty weird statement.

 

You're trying to figure out how its possible that I have personally encountered more of one injector vs the other? um.........

Anyways, the point I should have made was to stick with proper ones and not even dabble with crap. I used rx7 460's on my 1st miata build, they sucked big time. They worked, but were mediocre at best, even when I finally had them dialed in properly. I've used nothing but ID1000's ever since. And that includes my other cars. idle at 14.7 all day every day, consistent, the whole 9 yards.

But anyway.

**EDIT: actually, we set up my friend JT's 1000CC Five-O's on an MS1, running pump 91, and aside from having only enough resolution to run 13.5-14.0 at idle, they actually worked great. He's still running them.

 

Maybe you're a lot younger than i thought.

Anyways, suppose this is all off topic, so carry on.

 

Don't downgrade your code, keep HR. You'll only get less PW resolution and more of the problems you're trying to avoid. Just get your settings right, tune a bunch, and your FICs will do all you ask of them

 

It has nothing to do with the injector tech and everything to do with Five-O being shady *************. bcrx7's experiences are not unique. I wouldn't touch a Five-O product with a 10-foot stick.