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Help! CSVT w/full 3L swap not starting in cold weather

A

AGrayson84

CEG'er
Joined
Aug 20, 2013
Messages
329
Location
Annapolis, MD
Hi everyone. So I picked up this Contour back in August and today marks the 2nd blistering cold morning we've had here in Maryland/Virginia and it marks the second time my CSVT hasn't wanted to fire up.

Last time this happened, I ended up assuming it was because of the cold weather. I pushed the car into the heated garage, and after a few hours it still wouldn't start. The next day, it still wouldn't start. I finally tried starting the car with the throttle to the floor and after 15 seconds of cranking it started to come to life. I got it fired up again and haven't had the problem since then (over a month ago) until today. This morning it was 7 degree in Annapolis, MD and the car wouldn't fire up. It turned noticeably slower than usual, but should have been plenty enough for it to fire up. Then my bendix got stock half-way out and was only enough to grind the flywheel slightly. I got home from work around 5:30 PM today and the bendix freed up and is working again now that it was slightly warmer, but the car still turns and won't fire up. This time holding the pedal to the floor and then letting off it after 15 seconds got it running for a split second, and no matter what position I put the pedal in I can't get the car to fire back up and run.

The fuel pump is priming, there's fuel pressure at the fuel rail, and there's a fresh fuel filter in the system. Last time this happened, the car had fuel pressure and the pump was priming, and I put a spark tester between all 3 front spark plugs and coils and it was getting spark just fine. I'm not able to check for spark this time, but I'm thinking that hasn't changed.

The car has a chip in it with a tune to turn off the CEL for the EGR codes (EGR was removed on this car) and for DPFE codes. I've removed the chip on this most recent incident as well as the first incident and the chip/tune seems to have no effect on this issue.

Here is a video of what the engine was sounding like the first time this happened, before I pulled the car into the garage:



Here is a video of me cranking the car over for the 20th time the following day, in a heated garage, after re-wrapping the wiring that runs from the positive terminal on the battery to the underside of the fuse box that sits beside the battery. During this video, the car happened to finally start and I hadn't had the problem again until today:



And lastly, here is a video from the inside of the car from tonight, doing the same thing it was doing in the first two videos:



Any ideas what might be preventing the car from firing up???? Thanks!!!

-Andrew
 
By the way, this car spent a lot of time in Upstate NY. I know they see these kind of temperatures up there frequently. I can't imagine this car not having had this problem in the past. This one has been a tough one to troubleshoot. :help:
 
Help! CSVT w/full 3L swap not starting in cold weather

If your still running that same tune or no tune, that will contribute significantly...

Also are you cranking while holding down the throttle all the way? That will prevent the car from starting as well.

How is your fuel system setup? Npg adapter? Custom rail? Or is youe car returnless?
 
Thanks Beans! A lot of people "claim" that this engine runs just fine with no tune. I've ran it without the tune for many days with no problems... it just lacks power under 4k RPM since this intake manifold doesn't have the IMRC setup.

Most of the time I am cranking with 0% throttle. When that doesn't work after 15+ seconds, I switch back and forth between 100% throttle, 0% throttle, and anywhere in between. If the engine is flooded, apparently holding the throttle at 100% while trying to crank it cuts fuel to injectors all-together, specifically for a condition where the cylinders are flooded with fuel. I can't eliminate flood from my equation yet, and it is what seemed to get the engine fired up in the second video I posted above last time this was happening. I had tried countless times with no throttle. SVTTOUR told me to try holding the throttle down. I did, and VOILA! It fired up.

I have a return style fuel system, with I don't know what for the conversion. It doesn't look like anything listed on NPG's website. I'll try to take a picture here tonight before the tow truck comes to scoop it up and take it to a shop. Thanks!!!

Beans said:
If your still running that same tune or no tune, that will contribute significantly...

Also are you cranking while holding down the throttle all the way? That will prevent the car from starting as well.

How is your fuel system setup? Npg adapter? Custom rail? Or is youe car returnless?
Click to expand...
 
So here are some pictures I just snapped of my fuel setup. I'm not sure what exactly I'm looking at here. The same mechanic friend that is looking at my car tomorrow had me replace some fuel line seen here with fuel injection line so he could pass the car through state inspection. What was originally used was just regular fuel line. I've had my hands on it, but not sure where the parts came from or anything. In some of the pictures I removed the adapter block from where I tucked it so you guys can get a better view of it. And the schrader valve I've been checking for fuel pressure at is the one seen in the first picture, mounted directly to the fuel rail (I had accidently told someone it was the other schrader valve, just before the adapter block). Any ideas???













 
Tune will still affect starting. Timing is changed quite a bit with no secondaries.

I can't really follow what is going on with your fuel system. :crazy:
 
First you need to find out if it is fuel or spark. Buy some starting fluid and spray a very small amount into the throttle body with the blade open. Try to start it, if it fires up then we can tell if there is an injection problem. We need to rule out one thing at a time.
 
Beans said:
Tune will still affect starting. Timing is changed quite a bit with no secondaries.

I can't really follow what is going on with your fuel system. :crazy:
Click to expand...

Haha I hear ya, looks like a mess. But basically the adapter block with the FPR mounted to it has one 3 fittings. One for returning fuel to the tank, one for fuel coming from the pump/tank, and then a separate one going to the 3L fuel rail. Best I can tell from my pictures :)

So why would the tune allow the vehicle to start every other time except for when it gets extremely cold outside? I would think that if the tune was that far off it would have problems no just during starting, during cold weather. Not challenging you, just trying to figure out what could really be going on here before I spend $700 on a tune that doesn't fix my problem.


crewchiefpro said:
First you need to find out if it is fuel or spark. Buy some starting fluid and spray a very small amount into the throttle body with the blade open. Try to start it, if it fires up then we can tell if there is an injection problem. We need to rule out one thing at a time.
Click to expand...

Yeah I told my mechanic buddy to do that this morning if the problem continued. Instead, he kept cranking it over until it fired up so he could bring it inside the shop to change the starter. Guess what, he didn't have the problem again since that today. Totally defeated the purpose of what I needed him to do. lol. Now we still don't know what is causing the problem and have no way of diagnosing it until the car leaves me stranded again. Ugh.... I hate when people don't listen. :|

I'm picking up a can of starting fluid tonight, leaving it in my car at his shop and I'm going to cross my fingers that it won't fire up in the morning so I can have him do some actual troubleshooting on it. Wish me luck haha.
 
check the ECT (engine coolant temperature) sensor with a scanner if the sensor is reading wrong u will have some problems starting the car ( engine needs more fuel in colder temps )
 
I am a little surprised no one suggested the Idle Air Control valve getting stuck. I have had that stick before on the 2.5 when it was cold. My suggestion is crack the throttle open not 100% and it will probably start. after about 1 minute with the throttle cracked open I have had the IACV start working again.
 
Hmmm... that's something I'll have to look into to! The IAC doesn't look that old. The motor has roughly 80k on it, I'd have to imagine based on some past information I've dug up on the car. The IAC looks no older than the rest of the engine. It's pretty clean on the outside, and I removed it from the car once some months back to see if it was the cause of a slightly rough idle I was experiencing for a few days. The inside of it look extremely clean-- no gunk, build-up, etc. Is the IAC supposed to open, or shut when you try to start the engine? What should I look for to tell if it's functioning properly or not?

My car is parked at BWI airport while I'm in Florida until tomorrow evening. I've been down here for over a week and missed the cold weather up that way, and I hear it's supposed to be 10 degrees tomorrow night. Probably going to be too cold to for it to want to fire up again and the airport is 35 mins from home. Man, tomorrow might suck when I get back lol.
 
It should be openeing that is why if you just crack the throttle it should start with out dumping a pile of extra fuel in. At 100% open you were dumping to much air and fuel in to start. You could also maybe smack it to make sure it is loosened up.
 
You need to start with the basics on this thing. It's either not getting air (IAC), not getting spark or not getting fuel. I think we can safely assume that you have compression considering it runs fine when warmer out. :)

Have you checked fuel pressure with a gauge to see where it is while cranking? Have you checked for spark? Try pulling one of the front plugs when it won't start. See if it's covered in fuel.

Fuel pressure becomes very important especially when it is very cold out. Gasoline doesn't atomize well when it's cold out let alone if you don't have good fuel pressure to get it out of the injector.

What injectors are in that thing? I can't remember what ones Brad put in it. They're either 19# green SVT injectors, 24# taurus from a split port engine or the ones that came with it. I don't remember what he had. If you have 24# injectors and run no tune it's going to run wicked rich.

EDIT: BTW, that fuel rail setup is essentially the same as the NPG adapter but was homemade. I've used the NPG adapter and IMO it's complete garbage, I have yet to see one that doesn't need to be modified to work. I think the rail is off a 2000 taurus, whatever the first year of returnless was for them.
 
Thanks again for your help, as always Andy!

So we finally figured out the problem! My mechanic friend who last looked at the car told me that he did a smoke test on the intake system and found that the purge canister was leaking. He didn't think it was the reason for the cold start issue but I ordered a new Motorcraft one anyway. Before the part got in, I had the problem once again and was able to eventually get the car to fire up. When the new purge canister arrived I found that the hose on the top port of my original purge canister had a 1" long slit at the end of the hose, and didn't have a clamp on it. It was the hose itself that was leaking, and the other end of the hose ran directly to the upper intake manifold. So I basically had a big vacuum leak. I snipped off the end of the hose on the purge solenoid side and put a clamp on it, and now the car would fire up in the extreme cold but would only run for a few seconds.

I had the car taken back to my buddy's shop because it was just too damn cold outside for me to keep trying to figure out the problem. Turns out my spark plugs were shot, and the MAF was too. Put in some new Auto-Lite plugs and a re-manufactured MAF and it runs great now. Starts up with absolute ease in the cold weather now, and the engine runs like new. I didn't even realize how rough the engine felt until now.

So for anyone else have cold start problems like this.... double-check and triple-check your hoses and all vacuum-related components! Too bad the purge canister is almost hidden on the firewall... I never would have gone through the trouble of removing it to check the hoses if I wasn't told that I needed to replace it.
 
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