Car Won't Start, Don't Know What to Look at Next

velkrophoto

Greenie N00B Member
1.
Alright guys, I need help and am at a loss of what to do. If you want to get straight to the issue that I'm seeing, go to paragraph 3. Let me preface this with a little bit of info about me and the car and then I'll go into what the issue is and what I've tried.

2.
I had a 2012 mazdaspeed3 two and a half years ago and went fully bolted with e85 tuned by Purple Drank tuning. I have had some experience and never really had any issues with it because I was very methodical and took great care of it. So, fast forward to today, I have convinced my brother and two friends to all get Mazdaspeed3's. One of them, my friend Brandyn, has had non stop issues with his. It is a 2010 (non tech) Mazdaspeed3 mica red. He has had nothing but issues with it because of the way he and the last owner drove it. We know it has had a motor swap in the past few thousand miles by a shop when the last owner had it. It was supposedly swapped with a 60k shortblock. First thing is first, he did not get it tuned and we found out he had a full catless turboback, cpe TIH, cold air intake, hpfp internals, and some motor mounts. As much as my brother and I tried to convince him, he did not tune it and drove it like he stole it. He was on a Cobb stage 2 map. Turbo seals blew, so we replaced with a used ko4. Next the clutch and slave cylinder went out and he took it into a shop and spent an obscene amount of money getting that fixed. Next, after a lot of convincing and three months later, we convinced him to get a protune so he got a protune and was on the base map from Purple drank when something happened.

3.
After a week on the protune, he was driving to mcdonalds and as he pulled up to the drivethrough, there was a loud BANG (sounded like it came out the exhaust), and then the car stalled. After trying to start the car again, it turned over and cranked fine without any strange sounds but it would not start. Next, we brought it to my garage and inspected. We found there was fresh looking oil around the valve cover and we pulled the spark plugs. The plugs in there were completely burnt and one had some oil on it. None of the plugs were showing spark so we replaced all four spark plugs. Then we tried to start it, and it started for a few seconds then died. So next we got and installed all new coilpacks and then after checking his accessport we saw code U0100 so we uninstalled and reinstalled the accessport with the protune on it. We cranked it and it started right up! One problem, however, is MISFIRE CITY. We could hear it and feel it misfiring like crazy so we turned it off but never saw any codes for misfire. I have no clue what to do now because it does not start unless it sits for a few hours and when it does start it misfires like crazy until it just dies. Spark plugs are gapped correctly 0.028-0.030. Anyone have any ideas? Maybe do upstream o2 sensor next?
 
Alright, we'll do that next. I'm kind of surprised tho, wouldn't it not turn over okay if it jumped timing? I would have expected to hear valves clicking or seen some dented up spark plugs if it jumped timing.
 
Needs to be at top dead center to really do the chain pull.
 
Okay, understood. But if I am seeing that scoring on the chain that should be an immediate indicator that it is too loose, no?
 
Could have definitely jumped and slapped if scoring yes. However that compression test will tell you if something else has also gone wrong that perhaps is worse than just needing vvt service. I'd check that as next step then see about TDC for chain pull.
 
Alright just did the compression test. Obviously couldn’t warm up the car before doing so because it doesn’t run but these are my numbers:
1: 130
2: 135
3: 140
4: 135

TDC is where cylinder 1 is all the way down or up?
 
I did my clutch last year. After staying up all night to get it ready to drive to work the next day it wouldn't start. The following weekend I had buddy over to hook his fancy OBD 2 scanner. Found multiple codes relating to no ignition and fuel. In the end, I found that that somewhere in my clutch swap the crankshaft position sensor wires broke off. The heat in AZ can be brutal to electrical equipment. After fixing that the fucker started.

In closing, CHECK THAT SHIT OUT.
 
I'll have to check that out! At this point we've dumped so much money into it we're going to have a shop give us a quote on VVT cause none of us have the time to work on it right now and then either get it fixed, part out, or sell aftermarket stuff and sell as is.
 
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