crank, no start.

[thejallenator]

Indeed:

Electronics controlled cars can get are picky about the voltages.

while i wish it was as simple as just a dead battery, i do not suspect that is the case here. the battery at the time of the screen show was surely "dead" as far as a voltage standpoint, it was not dead. the car hasnt ran in close to 6 weeks or better now. i had forgotten to hook up the battery charger.

ive tried 2 different batteries in the car with the same results. i know both should be good as they will both crank and start my other car. no difference using the start car funtion on the battery charger or jump starting the car. would figure one of these methods would start it if it was just simply a bad battery. bbut i could be wrong, been wrong before.
would this explain why the car thinks the turbo is operating at almost 200% pressure and the engine is at 100% at a mere 200 rpm? this has me puzzled. had another for a low batt voltage that stated the brakes were nearly 200*C when the car hasnt moved in weeks. im almost stumped with this car. im open to any and all suggestions or ideas.

[thejallenator]

well for the hell of it i took the brand new battery out of our subaru just to see if truly it was a battery issue. same results. cranks and cranks and cranks. however i did happen to notice something really odd when i was messing around with vida. i remembered i could see certain components output info via the vehicle communications tab. i was looking at different things while i was cranking and noticed that when looking at the turbo control valve duty cycle it would spike up to nearly 100% at the same time and rate at my tach would jump to nearly 4000 rpm. surely this could be a good starting point to investigate whats wrong. where should i look from this? broken loose wire somewhere? seems as if the coils are not firing for some reason.

also id notice the battery voltage would drop from ~12v to ~10v for the most part. when the car would act as if the battery was removed it would spike down to almost 8v

[abscate]

How are diagnosing lack of spark?

Transient readings during cranking aren't meaningful....let's pull a spark plug coil, ground it, put a plug in it and look for spark.

Or, put a 3 second shot of ether into the air horn and see if it breathes fire

[RickHaleParker]

High resistance somewhere in the starting circuit or the starter is drawing excessive current. Clean connections. Check cables for excessive voltage drop across cables and connections when cranking.

Start by placing a voltmeter across the battery terminals, ... terminals not the battery clamps, and watch the voltage when cranking.

[thejallenator]

How are diagnosing lack of spark?

Transient readings during cranking aren't meaningful....let's pull a spark plug coil, ground it, put a plug in it and look for spark.

Or, put a 3 second shot of ether into the air horn and see if it breathes fire

well i assumed it was not getting spark because there was a vevry strong smell of gas from the exhaust and in the intake when i took the over engine pipe off. i took a spare coil and plug and unplugged each oil and tested. got a spark about every 4 to 5 seconds while cranking. what i assuming now is something is causing the car to think its under heavy load while starting and just dumping in fuel. i only assume this because of the odd data i get from vida in the pics. it says the engine is at 100% load at only 200rpm.

High resistance somewhere in the starting circuit or the starter is drawing excessive current. Clean connections. Check cables for excessive voltage drop across cables and connections when cranking.

Start by placing a voltmeter across the battery terminals, ... terminals not the battery clamps, and watch the voltage when cranking.

so i did this. battery was 12.6 v before i connected it. after turning the ignition on it went to 11.75 v and dropped to 10.2 when i cranked. returning to 11.75 after i was done. i noticed there is a .1 v difference between the battery and the positive post at the fuse box. seemed all somewhat normal. nothing too odd.

i had to get a new multimeter and i got one with a clamp style ammeter (which i realized i didnt exactly know how to use). i tested the pos and negative cables at the batter and also the cable going to the starter from the fuse panel. now even though i tested them wrong i guess i did it consistently. enough to give me some ideas.

so on the 40 ~A setting (as it shows on the dial) i got the following numbers.
positive with ign on 2- .05
pos while cranking .54
neg while cranking .84
starter cable while cranking 1.24
and the odd one. when the car would act as it was disconnected from the battery the pos cable read 22+

now i dont know what these numbers mean exactly, im thinking its showing 54 amps on the pos cable while cranking. starter showed it was pulling 40 amps at the parts store when they tested it.
is there no larger ground cable between the engine and chassis? all i could seem to find was small braided cable on the back passenger side of engine. i will note the motor mounts appear to been replaced fairly recent, i can see they are really clean and have parts tags on them.

[abscate]

11.75 volts is a dead battery

[RickHaleParker]

You need to take all your batteries to Autozone for a free bench test.

[abscate]

now i dont know what these numbers mean exactly, im thinking its showing 54 amps on the pos cable while cranking. starter showed it was pulling 40 amps at the parts store when they tested it.

In the store it was just spinning air. In your car it was spinning an engine.

50 amps at 10 Volts - about 500 Watts power draw - sounds about right.

You need to get a battery with 12.5volts in there, after charging, then leaving the headlights on for 30 seconds. (you get a false high voltage reading after you charge a battery that you remove with a short period of load.)

[thejallenator]

weather has not been the nicest so i havent wanted to be outside. broke down and bought a new battery today. still no start. messed around with vida and was watching the engine speed on it rather than the tach. I noticed that it was jumping to consistently while cranking to 7500+ rpms. once it read 10000! yes thats 10 thousand rpm. clearly not possibly especially since the motor wasnt even running. now what im thinking is happening is while cranking for some reason the ecm thinks the engine is running at a high speed and just dumping gas. after just a couple attempts to crank it over there is a strong odor of unburned fuel.

where does the signal to the tach come from? is it somewhat in line with the turbo control valve? theres definitely a connection between the tach bouncing, the TCV and the engine not starting, but i dont know where to look!

[abscate]

You have to focus on the basics of spark and fuel and not transient readings

What is the fuel pressure at the rail?

Are you still getting spark every5 seconds?

Test the 12V supply at the coils