car will not start after 5 speed swap *update* 9/19/09

[TxBmbleBee]

ok first off WOW guys. thanks for all the helpful responses and advice so far. to be honest i thought people would see it and just move on haha.

ok now for some of the questions you had.

1)i have the manual ecu from the donor car from the junkyard, however i have an auto wiring harness in the engine bay

2) i have not tried to connect the auto ecu yet, i just got home. i will do that first and relay what happens. this will be my first step.

3) i will quickly check the maf sensor. i do not see how it could be hooked up wrong. its just 2 10 mm bolts into the intake??? i will double check for you guys tho to see if i see anything wierd.

4) im not sure what you mean by the ecu being grounded? is the bracket that holds it supposed to be the ground to the firewall?

oh yea and its cranking fast like it really wants to start. it just simply will not turn over, cept for a second one time. i stopped after about 4 times for fear of flooding the engine.

ok guys i will try the auto ecu and then we will go from there. thanks again for all the help!

[gnegroni]

HaHa...

While at it, is there a particular document you are looking for that I could (maybe) gather from Toyota?

[TxBmbleBee]

well guys....good news and bad news

for the good news!

ive located the problem on why my car wont start. after bolting on my y pipe, what can i say i was lazy and didnt want to do it last night. i quickly swapped out the manual ecu from the junkyard to my old ecu. and the car fired right up, WITHOUT even hesitating. SHABAM!

now for the bad news...

2 reasons i can think of why my manual ecu will not work. 1) the ecu is faulty and got damaged when my donor car wrecked 2) a manual ecu simply will not work with my car.

but if a manual ecu will not work with my car...then why???? the engine harness? what would cause it not to, i find this hard to believe. therefor i will buy another manual ecu and test out.

now for more bad news. when i started up my car, it makes a hidious sound. one of which i doubt would be the throwout bearing "squealing" as jon says on his swap site. talking with gibson, we think we have it narrowed down to my starter. i made the stupid mistake of unbolting the two long screws that run parallel to the starter (on accident) and the starter all fell apart and came open. we think i did not put together the starter the right way, and it is somehow messed up now and causing this hideous noise i hear... any ideas and comments are appreciated

[99BlackSandv6]

My only comment....GOOD LUCK

[SpeedySolara]

IM SO GLAD YOU GOT THIS STARTED, and wish you the best of luck on getting it drivable.

[Eye8Pussies]

putting the starter back together is pretty straight forward, so I don't see how it can go wrong...

as for your squealing...is it metal on metal squealing? or more like a belt squealing?


and what flywheel/clutch combo did you go with?

[Gibson99]

I wasn't there to witness the starter incident, so i can't comment. it's possible they got some dirt back in it, or when they took it apart, it possibly damaged a gear or bearing in there if one was dropped and hit the floor hard enough. i couldn't tell over the phone - just sounded like static. only noise i heard for sure was that little "ding ding" that says your keys are in the ignition.

the fact that the noise doesn't change when you press or release the clutch tells me the clutch parts are probably fine.

i think he said fidanza/exedy.

[LEE337]

Glad to hear you got some things worked out and your Lara started.

So, when you get another manual ECU and its doesnt work are you gona get a diff wireing harness???

Do you plan on repairing your starter before you install the manual ECU??? That way if it doesnt start you can assume its the manual ECU or the auto wireing harness???

Good luck to ya!!! Hope you get this figured out, you have a Texas meet to attend. We will push or tow you to the meet if we have to.

[Gibson99]

After our discussion it sounds like he just needs to fix the starter. he's coming over to my place tomorrow and we'll dissect the starter to make sure there's nothing funky going on in there. Maybe he'll help me put my camry back together too - i don't want to attend the meet in the miata... then again, the miata IS a lot of fun on those kind of roads out there!

[Gibson99]

i haven't read other folks' trans swap threads though... what's the issue with him simply splicing wires at the automatic ecu and making it think it's in neutral 100% of the time? that's what ratko did, right? (and yes, i know ratko has/had a gen3 camry 1mz which never had a m/t option)

[KILLA CAM]

^With the auto ECU you should be able to try to start the car without the clutch pedal fully engaged? Correct? Also, the cruise control will not shut off when you engage the clutch. I think the maybe the reverse lights will not turn on? Those are off the top of my head possibly more?

[ozone]

Can't believe no one has mentioned this. But how about you get a wiring diagram and see what the problem might be from that. All you need to see is the difference at the ECU between the auto and the manual transmission since that is all you are changing when you swap them out. Then you trace the questionable connections and fix whatever problem you find there.

You can get the wiring diagrams on this web site:

http://www.alldata.com/

You have to pay for them. It is $30.00 for access for one year, but you can print them out. I've done this and while the site is a little hard to navigate, it had pretty much all the diagrams I needed for a friend's Miata. I think $30.00 is a lot less than you would spend for a new ECU.

You can try my website at www.ozone1000.com. The diagrams there will be free, but I don't recall if I put any on my site for the Solara. If I did, it will be in the Corolla section under V6.

Good luck.

[ozone]

Actually, I just noticed you never said if you have a V6 or an I4. I assumed V6, but the 4 cylinders came with manuals too, didn't they? S54?

[TxBmbleBee]

well i took the starter to autozone to have it tested. the guy tested it three times and all three times it passed. it didnt sound funky at all. so im really not sure what the noise is that im hearing when the car ran. its not pleasant thats for damn sure. my gut tells me its not good. if i were to describe it i would say its a metal on metal sound. and i have a v6 btw.

as far as rewiring the manual ecu, sounds like a plan but what if its faulty to begin with?

killa you did the swap?? what ecu are you using?? did you get the manual to work? i know king is the only other member on solaraguy i believe that is still active that has done the swap and his only choice was to use an auto.

and i will be at that damn tx meet, i dont care if i have to throw a toyota badge on my bicycle, and pedal my ass up there!

[Eye8Pussies]

you can just use the auto ecu, and the reverse lights will work just fine if you splice in the right connector to the wiring harness, the cruise control will not work at all, and yes, you can start the car without putting the clutch down- this last bit I really like since I was able to keep my remote starter with no modifications when I did my swap

as for the starter issue, I only ask because with my fidanza/spec stage III setup, I had a rubbing issue due to the flywheel being slightly too thick. this caused my pressure plate to rub on the inside of my tranny bellhousing, making a crazy metal grinding on metal sound during startups, and at the beginning, even when driving- until the pressure plate had made its required groove lol

as for this starter problem, have you tried push starting the car? that's what I did after my swap made that crazy noise, just so that I knew everything else worked. push starting the car did not cause the scraping noise though, strangely enough. I think it has to do with the added vibrations or something from the fast spinning of the flywheel when the starter hits it

with my second motor and same tranny, clutch, flywheel set up, the noise is pretty much gone, even on start up. But then again, the groove in my bellhousing is pretty much what it will be (fairly light) so the pressure plate doesn't have anymore metal to shave lol