Haha, alright, going to ghetto respond to this one, sentence by sentence.

>BH>Alright, I never lock my car door at home, it sits unlocked for weeks at a time right on top of my road, so someone could easily have popped the gas cover and dumped something in, this is my paranoid side speaking, my cars and house have already been physically violated so when the SERVICE ADVISOR mentioned this, I admit I started wondering<<

>BH>We'll he said he was going to test them, I thought that meant pulling them out, my exact words to them were let me know if I need new injectors, I'm hoping they know how to test them<<

>BH>Unlikely, plugs/wires were changed, exact same problem before as after<<

>BH>Hasn't been done, the mechanic insists it's a fuel problem and that the car is running lean, I was told that if they are wrong I will be refunded all my money minus parts.<<

>BH>I had the timing re-checked, the original mechanic said it was off 5 teeth which you said was impossible, the 2nd mechanic said it was dead-on. I will have Chad check it also for another opinion<<

>BH>Definately has not been done, Chad said tonight that this is pretty easy to get to though and that he can check it when the dealership is done dicking around<<

>BH>Never even heard of this diagnosis, nor do I know what any of that shit does, the car doesn't over-heat at all, does the heat shield have anything to do with that? Haha, computer geek talking obviously<<

>BH>A datalogger was put on twice, at both dealerships, no codes reported at all, clean bill of health as far as that goes<<

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San Marino Red - Honda 3KGT VR4 For the win!

Thanks, I'm looking forward to it. Actually, I seem to remember a former post rumoring that G-ELL was going to be in da-house sometime late october or so? Is there a gathering you are planning on gracing your presence with? Let me know, may just motivate me to jet out and visit again also. You never know, we may even upgrade you from the 'trike.

Bret

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San Marino Red - Honda 3KGT VR4 For the win!

You know... my car when I first bought it gave me goofy issues, and so did daves... and verfers... ended up being fuel related...

there is a relay under the mass airflow sensor/fuse box that just gets old stops working properly...

You can get it from the mitsu dealership for 40 or so bucks, or a toyota dealership for about 10 bucks. but then you have to cut tabs off it. for ten bucks, and an easy swap that chad could do in 15 minutes, I'd almost do it anyways... relays just crap out over time. especially when they see dirt and heat.

my 2 cents...

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Is that the MFI relay or a different one?

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San Marino Red - Honda 3KGT VR4 For the win!

No, that's the fuel pump relay. Thought it was cheaper, maybe I am mistaken.

SJ

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Good call Adam. I forgot about the feul pump relay.

http://www.stealth316.com/2-fuelpumprelaybypass.htm

Here's a good write-up about it. You could just remove it and do the bypass instead of replacing it too. At least by-passing it for the sake of testing to see if it's bad.

Brett, I plan on comming to the Madison area the weekend of the 27th (october). Haven't gotten the tickets yet, but once that is all setup, I'll probably make a thread about it and see who's intrested in meeting up.

The heatshield mearly keeps the heat from the exhaust inside the exhaust and helps lower the temps underneith the hood. You got to remove it because it covers up the manifold (which may have a crack).

It's very common for the front manifold to crack and the car will run exactly like you descibe. I see this all the time. It's an easy 10min check. Same with the feul pump relay by-pass.

If you decide not to "bypass" it, the trick to changing it out is remove it from the rubber boot rather than try to get at the bolt that holds it one. Simply slide the old one out, peel off teh new one and voila.

SJ

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two points for our fearless leader.

the fuel pump relay is under the hood. (you may need chad to point that out to you. :p )

the MFI relay is inside the cabin of the car, behind the kneeguard/kickpanel on the passenger side. if you check the ECU, the MFI relay is bolted to the tunnel after you take the kick panel off to get to the ECU.

the fuel pump relay is about 40 from mitsu, 10 from toyota... it's a standard heater core relay or something in every toyota made since the eighties... (EDIT: If your gonna go get one, pull the old relay out, as it should still have the DENSO-SARD number on top it, and you can just bring it with you for them to cross-reference. OR you can google the number. that's how I found out it was a toyota heater core relay. Like I said, you have to nip the tabs off it, but otherwise it's identical.)

the MFI relay is about 200 bucks from mitsu. (maybe a bit more, or a bit less.) I also does not come with any lubricant, so your pooper will be sore after buying one.

have fun.

EDIT AGAIN: I have never found a Dodge dealership that could get me that relay. I have brought it in, and had them look it up in there computer parts listing, and it "DOES NOT EXSIST" on the twin turbos per dodge's understanding. just an FYI incase your just gonna tell the dodge mechanic to change it. he'll give you static.

_________________
Bad decisions make good stories.
Look at it! LOOK AT MY @SS AND TELL ME IT'S PRETTY!

The plot thickens. We'll Greg, you win the stuffed tazmanian devil, you know the one that you see at the carnies that you have to play the cheezy-ass games for like 8 hours to win.

The timing was off a notch and they originally didn't pull the lower cover and just eyeballed it from the top.

Also needs the MAF. They originally pulled the MAF, but the timing was off so was mis-diagnosed.

So I am picking up a MAF from a MI3SI guy for 100 bones (none on ebay) and it should be in the car by the end of this week and I'll let you know if that was it.

Thanks again,

Bret

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San Marino Red - Honda 3KGT VR4 For the win!

wait wait wait.

the timing was off a notch? in one spot...

and it's fixed now? - how?

this isn't one of those things you just move back into place, slap the plastic covers on, and call it a good day.

You need at least a new tensioner... prolly a belt...

because why else would it jump a notch. (if it really jumped a notch... hesitant to believe that...)

maybe I'm just missing some of the story...

Plus, we've all looked at these cars, and though they were off. Remember Jon's car at the national? We left him sitting there when it was actually just a wire rubbed through...

EDIT: also can you even see the mark from the bottom with the plastic cover on...!??!

_________________
Bad decisions make good stories.
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Smells like fish here bro. Timing and the MAF? Cause?

SJ

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"off a notch" probably refers to being off a tooth but that might be a good question to ask the mechanic. So who did the timing belt the first time again?

As for an off MAF... uh... I don't know what that would be refering too. Sounds like an excuse for more $$. It doesn't need to be plugged in to check the cam timing... I'm confused. Why does it need to be replaced?

The only ways a MAF "goes bad" in our cars is when someone messes with, it gets wet, or someone drives around without an air filter.

Ouchies, once again let me prevail upon you with my ignorance of vehicles and my translation of the words of the service advisor.

The timing was off a tooth. They originally eyed the timing without taking the lower covers off and thought it looked ok, I suppose without a thorough enough inspection. So the timing was part of the problem the entire time.

My understanding with the MAS is you unplug it to test it??? But with the timing off a tooth and pulling the MAS the engine still ran rough so was easy to think it wasn't the MAS in the first place. Unless they overlooked the MAS right off the bat which wouldn't surprise me.

The timing belt was originally done when I purchased the vehicle at 55k or 65k miles by the dealer. I just rolled 100k miles this summer. Consider though that that was eight years ago. I have only put 50k miles on the car in that time.

Now don't start laughing just yet. . . the reason it was off a tooth was because something got caught in the belt from the road, I believe he said a piece of rubber.

Now they really don't have a ton of money to make from this, I'm 300 into it now but that was for the fuel filter and cleaning the injectors. They have another hour into it now for diagnosing and fixing the timing and I am providing the MAS which won't take 10 minutes to put on so???

Also, all of this is from the service advisor, I could probably have Chad talk to the mechanic directly and get a more precise picture from a mechanics perspective in technical terms.

Thats all I got though at this time. Gotta wait for the MAS to get here and we shall see, any other thoughts?

Thanks,

Bret

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Say what?

SJ

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