I recently purchased an 05 engine with 25K miles to put in my 99 however I'm having difficulty getting it running. I'm using the 99 intake manifold, injector harness, and a pnp coil on plug kit from fab9 tuning so as to bypass the mounting of the 99 coils. After having everything in and ready to start I found I wasn't getting spark through the individual coil packs. I eventually found that the crank sensor was out of position. After adjusting it to about a business cards thickness from the trigger wheel I was then getting spark however the engine was backfiring through the intake. I assumed the coils had to be crossed or the wiring on the COP kit was off so I called the guys at fab9 and they confirmed that I had the coils set up correctly. The fab9 guy told me also that the problem might be because the 05 cam sensor reads off of a ring with teeth on the passenger side cam, while the 99 cam sensor reads off of the cam gear and that the timing reading is quite different causing a misfire. However I read some posts on here of people doing the same swap with no piggy back and no standalone and they are running fine as well as speaking to a tech from flyin miata who said the difference wouldnt be so much as to not start. I assumed the timing might be off on the engine but I checked it and it is on point. I should also note that I do have a vvt tuner from diy that I would eventually want to use to control the vvt. I cant seem to find a definite answer to my problem on here so I figured I'd just address it specifically and make a thread. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

TL; DR.

please use paragraphs.

 

Fab9 is completely off the mark. The cam timing pattern between 99-00 and 01+ motors is virtually identical, despite the mechanical differences.

I would start by removing the aftermarket coil pack system and going back to your stock '99 coils, at least temporarily.

 

Unfortunately I already tried that, same deal

 

Did the engine start in the 05 it came from?

With no logs from the ECU it's hard to see if there is proper sync between the sensors.

Cam belt slipped a tooth or two (intake retarded out of sync), bad cam sensor?

 

Hook up the 99 coil pack and see if the engine fires up. I just installed an 02 vvt motor in my 99 chassis and had zero issues. I cut the 99 coil wires at the connector and spliced in connectors for the 02+ coil near plugs using these instructions VVT Engine Swap Ignition - Mostly MIATA

My car fired up on the first turn of they key and ran as if it shipped from mazda with that engine in the car. Sorry I can't be of more help. Just simplify and eliminate the cop's for now.

 

If it's backfiring through the intake, try flip-flopping the coil connectors on the '99 coils. Beyond that, I would check the timing belt alignment.

 

I had a very similar swap and problem. ended up with two things. the crank position sensor was bad - but it would work intermittently. once I had the car running a bit I found that to be an issue. the main problem ended up being a bad ecu. no idea how the computer fried. everything else worked. the engine turned but wouldn't run. all the other electrical worked fine. swapped out a new computer (still a 99) and it fired right up. smells a little rich at start up though.

I planned to do the DIY auto tune vvtuner. in the end for the time and money I think going with a megasquirt setup will be a better bet.

 

is the crank trigger wheel on backwards? It will crank but not start if it is.

 

Stock 99 ECU ?

 

Any news from NY ?!?