I need help. I'm having issues with the way my car is running and honestly I'm stumped. I've checked everything. The car feels like there is no power without boost. The afr usage is reading rich but the turbo is glowing. I had the motor in my old 98 and it was running great till the day I took it out. I do not understand what happend. The only thing I can see that's different is I now have a 99. There is a box behind the igniter and in front of the master cylinder that has a caution plate on it. To be honest with you it looks like a resister pack for the injectors. I didn't have it on my old car. Does anyone have any idea what it is. There are two wires coming out of it and going into the body harness. Does anyone have any idea what's different between the 98 and the 99 that would cause the car to run like its a Honda civic till boost kicks in. I won't even drive it. I don't want to damage the motor. Something is obviously not right. It's stock fuel setup aristo pump assembly ect. I do have a single but I had it on the old setup also. Ay thought? I don't know what to do. I don't want to start tearing the car apart if its something dumb like ??? Idk. PLEASE ANYONE. I know it's something stupid but everything is the same. It has to be the year of the car. And some dumb difference.

 

Sounds like the timing is all jacked up possibly. Mix up wiring to the coil packs?

 

How do I test if the wires are mixed for the coil packs. Wouldn't it idle all screwed up? It seems to idle ok. The injectors must batch fire just like the coil packs right. I'll check which order they fire and check it. As far as the timing goes. Thats possible also. My. "Mechanic" changed the cam gear on the exhaust side. I'll pull the cover to check if they are on. How can I check if the pistons are tdc?

 

Ding, cam timing is off. That pretty much explains all of your symptoms.

There are marks on the pulleys to indicate TDC but I generally drop a socket extension down number 1 so I can watch real time.

 

Ok. Thanks. I'm going to check it out. Thanks and have a merry x mas. Hopefully I can get this figured out by the new year.

 

You first say nothing is different other than you pulled the motor from a 98 and stuck it in a 99. But then you say your mechanic changed your exhaust cam gear?? Did he install an hks gear or a stock one, if he swapped stock for stock why was that done?

No, the gs300 does not have an injector resistor box, they are all high impedance. You looking at the drl module, your 98 just didn't have drl's, it started late 99 on some cars luckily my 99 didn't have it but presumably your 99 did get it..

You sure your mechanic set the timing correct for a vvti, it's done different than a non-vvti 2j. If he just turned it til both notches point up and slapped the belt on there then he didn't account for the adjustment swing on the intake vvti gear.

No, the injectors don't batch fire like the coilpacks. If they did then both cylinders would combust.

And if under minimal or no loading your turbo is glowing then you got issues.

 

I put a hks cam gear on the exhaust side and a fluidyne crank pully on. It's gotta be the problem. I also was just checking continuity between the coilpacks and the ecu today and noticed that the body ground from the battery was not the same one that was there. It's like a 12 gauge wire. If not smaller. I'm changing it to a 4 gauge wire ASAP. I also pulled the ecu and opened it up to check the capacitors and there is something that doesn't look right. I posted up a pic on another colum about ecu caps and am waiting for a response on what and how to clean the board. As far as the timing goes its gotta be screwed. D ou think I can get away with pulling the valve covers dropping a extension down the spark plug hole for cyl 1 setting e crank to tdc and the checking the marks on the cams themselves to make sure they are in the right spot. If they are not which is most likely I guess I'll need to do my first timing belt. How do you set the vvti cam? I'm trying to remember what he did. I know I bought cam seals and he wouldn't put them in. The one things that's not making sense is when the car is cold. Meaning first started. It runs good. There is power in the low rpm ect. As soon as it comes to temp it gets sluggish and runs like crap. Does anyone know if the timing belt changing instructions on alldata are basically the same for the vvti ge motor and the gte. I'm in over my head! I don't want to bring the car back to the person who did it originally cause I don't trust anything he tells me! I don't know who to bring the car to so I'm gonna try to tackle it myself. Any suggestions to make my life easier would be nice. And also if I need any special tools besides the normal DIYer tools a heads up would be appreciated. Thanks and merry Christmas.