ebo03's 2006 Baja Turbo - IAG built motor, Dom 1.5XTR, Cobb Flex Fuel, Brembo, Recaro

New NPS is in. Only took almost an hour to disconnect the damn connector from the stock piece. The blast plates made for an awkward angle to access the clip.

 

ECU now correctly reads ON when in neutral and OFF in gear. Hoping this clears up the low speed driveability issues.

 

I also added some heat sleeves to the AOS hoses that pass over the turbo. Probably wouldn't have been an issue considering I have a turbo blanket but no harm in adding an additional layer.

 

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Driveability improved with the new NPS. Much smoother between all shifts where before RPMs would drop like a ton of bricks no matter how quickly I shifted. It still stalled a few times but not as often as before when coasting at low speeds. I was driving it in the same manner as before to intentionally get it to stall.

 

When I parked it yesterday evening I noticed the light on the cruise control button was blinking. Then it dawned on me that an ECU reset may get rid of this. The reset worked and everything seems to be 100% now.

 

Cruise control functions 100%. I remember reading somewhere that other Baja guys got cruise control to work with an ECU swap but the light on the dash wouldn't light up to show when it was set. Maybe this was with the FXT ECU b/c it lights up as normal for me.

 

Well put together video. The Baja is definitely unique, quirky, whatever you want to call it.

 

I hope to have the body work on the hood done in the next month then it will be time to hit the dyno.

Progress on the hood. If it's done by tomorrow then it will be tuned in November. If not then tuning will happen in December. Travel and work schedule are tight over the next month.

 

 

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Hood is done!

 

Now you can see how hammered the rest of the paint is haha. Maybe that will encourage me to give it a 2 step correction.

 

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Edited November 26, 2019 by ebo03

Pics of the hood vs stock for the sake of comparison.

 

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Tuning complete!

 

It made more power than I expected. I dropped the car off with less than a half tank of 93oct and 15 gallons of flex fuel. I took a small sample of the flex and it was 73%. Not sure how much pump gas was left in the tank when they added the flex. I'll see what the AP reads for ethanol content when I pick it up in 2 days.

 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3321985584540462&id=185264628212589

 

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Puckered a little watching it walk on the rollers like that. Nice numbers!

Do you still have that stock Baja hood? Im looking for one.

 

 

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Built block #2 is now in the Baja with about 300 break-in miles on it. Tuning is scheduled for mid-October. IAG will continue the break-in process prior to tuning.

 

What happened to the first block you may be wondering?? Stalling and erratic idle still existed after the tune in December. After much back and forth and hoping to resolve the issues remotely, it was determined to be a mechanical issue so car went back to IAG in late June.

 

Compression was below 100 psi in cylinders 1 & 2. Culprit turned out to be corrosion on the main harness causing a ground issue. Engine saw lean conditions and ringlands went. Walls were scored badly enough that it was not cost effective to repair so another IAG stage 2 tuff went in. Thankfully the heads suffered no damage and only needed resurfacing.

 

Losing a motor with 1500 miles is quite a pill to swallow particularly on your beater. Especially given that I had not driven it hard at all since the issues were obvious from break-in to post tuning. I have really had zero fun on the build. Oh well such is life...or such is 2020!

 

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Do you have more specifics related to the loom issue?

 

I’ve written an faq post here:

http://forum.liberty.asn.au/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=36481

 

That’s mainly oil leak related, but when I fixed a bank 1 cam sensor oring leak, the loom for bank2 cam sensor failed causing CELs.

Testing has revealed continuity is ok but resistance on E35 #2 is a fail.

I think I’ve tracked the fault point to the last branch on the loom for that sensor... will replace that wire section and re insulate the loom xxx. But no oil in the loom at least

Edited September 21, 2020 by bigBADbenny

...

 

Losing a motor with 1500 miles is quite a pill to swallow particularly on your beater. Especially given that I had not driven it hard at all since the issues were obvious from break-in to post tuning. I have really had zero fun on the build. Oh well such is life...or such is 2020!

 

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That's brutal dood. So you had to pay 100% for motor #2?

 

Yeah, 2020 is one for the record books for sure.

That's brutal dood. So you had to pay 100% for motor #2?

 

Yeah, 2020 is one for the record books for sure.

 

Nah 2020 needs to be buried in the Marianas Trench in a bombproof container, encased in concrete, never to be seen again lol.

Do you have more specifics related to the loom issue?

 

No I was told it was corrosion on the main harness. When they said corrosion, my mind immediately went to the build up normally seen around battery terminals. They didn't mention anything about a leak or other issue so I'm thinking this is different than what you experienced.

 

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That's brutal dood. So you had to pay 100% for motor #2?

 

 

 

Yeah, 2020 is one for the record books for sure.

Not 100%. They absorbed about 1/3 of the total cost so I ended up with about 2/3 of the full bill for diag time, labor, parts and retuning.

 

The car should have been more thoroughly tested in December when it was there for the first tune. The issues went unresolved and led to this failure. On the return trip home from their shop it stalled multiple times within an hour drive and this was after it barely started in their parking lot.

 

They definitely dropped the ball when the car was there the first time. This kind of damage should have been prevented.

 

I think they were pretty reasonable in the end. I don't expect a business to fully eat parts and labor due to an issue with an OEM part with 180k on it.

 

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Nah 2020 needs to be buried in the Marianas Trench in a bombproof container, encased in concrete, never to be seen again lol.

 

Amen to that!

So it’s safe to say that a conduction problem in the main harness (due to age, corrosion, heat, whatever) caused lean conditions in cylinders 1 and 2? Wow that had to be a nightmare to figure out, especially after finding the mechanical failure. Do you know if the resulting lean condition was timing or fuel injection related?

And was the harness replaced or fixed?

And was the harness replaced or fixed?

It was just cleaned up, not replaced.

 

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So it’s safe to say that a conduction problem in the main harness (due to age, corrosion, heat, whatever) caused lean conditions in cylinders 1 and 2? Wow that had to be a nightmare to figure out, especially after finding the mechanical failure. Do you know if the resulting lean condition was timing or fuel injection related?

Yeah power was cutting out intermittently so drop in fuel caused the lean conditions.

 

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Huh. So more specifically, power was cut to injectors 1 and 2? Never heard of this before. Do you have BtSsm or an AP to log?

Huh. So more specifically, power was cut to injectors 1 and 2? Never heard of this before. Do you have BtSsm or an AP to log?

Somewhere in the fuel system was losing power. Hard to really pinpoint it. Maybe pump and bad shit happened in cylinders 1 and 2 or possibly injectors like you said.

 

I do have an AP on the car but never caught anything on logs to narrow it down.

 

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Somewhere in the fuel system was losing power. Hard to really pinpoint it. Maybe pump and bad shit happened in cylinders 1 and 2 or possibly injectors like you said.

 

I do have an AP on the car but never caught anything on logs to narrow it down.

 

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Maybe the good ole burnt pins in the pump/sender plug on the top of the pump basket assy.

There was a recall for certain Libertys locally, but I’ve witnessed the issue on all models...

 

Better check mine, again - again

yeah, but why would it affect just two cylinders? That's weird.