HELP! Car shuts off as soon as I hit 2nd gear since SCT chip install (LONG)

Killercanary

The car that set the bar.
Founding Member
Nov 29, 1999
5,676
1
76
Altoona, PA
Hey guys, my dad is having problems. Over winter we upped the compression on his car a little and then had it re-dyno tuned. The tuner went from using autologic chips to SCT, so my dad had to switch chips. My dad had 3 tunes burned, one with stock timing, the next is a pump gas tune with more timing, and the last one is a race gas tune with even more timing. The ONLY thing else that was done to the car was an entirely new rear suspension and that's it. Well, on its first track outing in april the race gas tune wouldn't work. My dad could fire the car up, drive through the staging lanes, do a burnout, launch the car, but the second he hits second gear the car damn near shuts off. It will idle, but the second the throttle is touched it noses over. It acts just like an old carb'd car does when its cold out and you floor it before it warms up... it will nose over and act as though its flooding out. If he'd turn the car off it'd fire right back up and run normally until he nails second gear hard. This ONLY occured on the race tune. He switched to the pump gas tune and it ran PERFECT! He was pulling the wheels on the launches and hitting second gear hard without any problems. A few weeks went by and all was well, then one night at our local track on one and only one run it did the same thing on the pump gas tune. At this point we suspected something was up with the tune. I have a buddy that experienced something similar in his 10 second '91, on a hard run when he'd hit 2nd and sometimes third the car would do the same thing. He uses an eec tuner/tweecer and determined his problem was he had the PIP set too low and it was sending an invalid signal to the eec and the eec went into shut down mode. With this info we went back to the dyno to have the chip re-burnt and to alter the PIP if need be. I wasn't at the dyno so I don't know what he set it at or if he changed anything else. So dad went back to the track and low and behold it does it on ALL the chip settings now, pump gas, race gas, etc. It always happens the same way. We have checked the grounds in the engine bay and they are all secure, we unplugged his MSD to see if that was somehow at fault and it still did it, we checked to ensure the EEC and chip were secure and not moving around on the hard "hit" on going into 2nd, etc. We are at a TOTAL loss here now. ANY, and I mean ANY help with this would be greatly appreciated. The car ran EXCELLENT last year and have never even hinted at this problem before. Some are saying that the fault is in the eec itself since it can't keep up with what is going on... dad shifts the car at ~6500 though and always has for the most part. :shrug:

PLEASE HELP!
 
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Damn that blows man! Hey call up Dave @ Kaufmanns and tell him what the deal is. He does awesome SCT tuning there and it's not to far from you guys if you need a new tuner to burn your Dad's program. I'll be at Mason Dixon on Saturday if you and your Dad want to run I can get you in still for $30 and unlimited runs from 10-2. :nice:
 
Dave is who tunes the car... I have full confidence in his ability, but something is amiss here and no one seems to know what it is.

We'll be at Carlisle on saturday. I take it you won't be there? Thanks for the invite though, if I wasn't going I'd DEFINITELY be there as I'm only about 1-1/2hrs away from mason now.
 
Paul,

My first two thoughts were what has already been said. Actually, I have heard a bit of bad about SCT chips. I can't remember what site it was on though - I'll see if I can track it down (not that it would help too much).

When they tuned the car on the dyno with race gas in the tank, I'm assuming it ran fine then? I want to point the finger at the oxygen sensors, but that's almost impossible. Even if the gas was leaded (which I don't think it is?), it would booger up the oxygen sensors and they would be useless no matter what kind of gas you were using.

The first thing I would do is go back and correct what was done on the dyno during the second dyno session that really messed things up. The thing is this - the car ran fine on 2 of the 3 tunes, then, when something was changed in all 3 tunes (the PIP setting), it wacked everything out. I'm not calling anyone wrong (hell, I could be wrong myself), but I just can't see anything else that would make the car run so terribly other than the changes that were made, especially under these circumstances.

After the changes were made, and if it's possible, try to compare the two tunes (pump gas vs. race gas). Nothing should be dramatically different except for the spark tables/spark advance.

I hope I'm steering you in the right direction....

Joe
 
Man thats a wierd one. Maybe something is wacked in the tip_in_retard and its taking it way back between shifts. The A9L is different from our comps so its hard to think of something right away but ill see if i can come up with anything, i think Grady knows more about A9L comps maybe he can chime in.
 
Paul

I don't know what it could be but I do wonder about a couple of things.

It is very strange that the prob was just with one chip and then it started on a chip that was working ok.

I guess you have tried to make sure the contacts are good and clean and stuff like that.

Later
Grady
 
Paul, I would check the Maf and all the Maf wiring over very good, and maybe even try a different Maf. If the problem dosent lie there then i'd check the 02's out and all the wiring harness' that go to the 02's. I cant remember, does your dad have longtubes?? IMO, it would almost have to be one of these 2 things. Good luck
 
Paul - It could be a couple of things. The first that jumps out at me is a bad connection between the chip and the J3 port - the Autologic chips sometimes seem to grip better than some of the newer SCT chips. Could be someone sanded too hard on the J3 contacts and there is too little left to make and keep good contact. The fix is to either go in and slightly pry on each connector to tighten it or to microsolder a tiny bit of solder back onto each contact.

It could also be damage to the EEC itself - to get an SCT switch ship to fit on an A9L you actually have to bend over a small electronic component (resistor or capacitor?) on the board, because if you don't, the chip won't fit - it'll hit it. Maybe the component was bent way too much and it's connection gets disrupted. When we do this on A9Ls we bend the chip connector itself so we can minimize the amount of bending we have to do to the electronic component.

Be sure the tuner is using the latest SCT version of Advatnage - ask him if it is burning to all four memory banks on the chip. The A9l usues only a single memory bank, but it is very important that the chip be burnt on all four banks - and I'm not talking about the switch chip positions - but the memory bank for each individual position. He should have been able to watch the graphic and tell if it's happening. If it is only burning one bank - that could also be a problem - have him upgrade the SW.

Lastly, I'd be very happy to look at the file if he'd email it to me at [email protected]. You might explain that I won't look at it to criticize him or steal his customers - I actually work part-time for SCT training other dealers and giving dealer support. I could suggest changes if I see something amiss - and no, I wouldn't post anything if I saw something. Everyone is human and makes mistakes.

Hope some of this help - feel free to call me if you like - my number is on our website.

Good Luck!!

Don