Caldina GTT Hard To Start

[ziquester]

I have checked on here and googled but found nothing other than maybe a change of sparkplugs needed to fix my 3sgte.
It takes a while of cranking for the engine to start.I just bought the car and the problem was not there,owner said making sure the fuel cap clicks thrice might help the problem but I hardly think it would.
On cold starts it is not so bad,3 seconds of cranking gets it going while hot,it takes longer,as much as 6 seconds (happened today) to start it.
Once started,car idles fine and drives fine.
Anyone has any other ideas?
I'll pull out the plugs on the weekend to check them.
Cheers.

[RS13]

Unplug the electrical connector from your coolant temperature sensor on the coolant manifold. You'll get a CEL on the dash with it unplugged, but see if that makes a difference to the starting. If no change, plug it back in and pull ECU codes.

[ziquester]

thanks dude,I'll do that tomorrow.Had a busy day today so will get time tomorrow to check the plugs and do as you said.

[RS13]

Update?

[ziquester]

Sorry for the late reply,it was a busy weekend.However on Sunday,with the poo weather, I started the car with and without the coolant temperature sensor on.No CEL on dash with it unplugged and cold start up times were similar.Quick squirt of electrical CRC and took her for a looong drive and came back with the engine fairly hot.Turned off and started and its a bit easier to startup,well it doesn't take the crazy 6 seconds of cranking to start her up.Hopefully this Saturday,I'll look more into it.
The engine has been modified,bigger turbo etc so I am wondering if it is something else.Bought the car a month ago and it started fine the two times it was taken for a test drive.

[RS13]

Hmm, doubt its' the CTS then, if it were stuffed it would solve your issue straight away (I've found them to be the cause of many a hard-starting 3S, now they're always my first port of call!). When you say it takes a long time, does it fire up nicely or cough and splutter on a couple of cylinders until it runs? Blowing any black smoke out the back just after startup?

Start with the cheap fixes.. clean and gap the plugs, check your timing. Pull the ECU codes (you should have the CTS code at least given that you unplugged it) then reset the ECU. Make sure all accessible plugs are clean and connected. Have a look inside your throttle body to make sure it isn't choked up and check for vacuum leaks in all rubber lines around the inlet manifold.

[ziquester]

Firstly,I appreciate your help dude.
I checked on the car today,once started,the car fires up nicely does not blow any black smoke nor stutter.Just has a smooth idle like its meant to.

I'm still trying to familiarise myself with the engine,not much info/images of a caldina 3sgte on trademe.Worse still is this is modified.And I think I got the coolant temperature sensor wrong.I realised there are two plugs,a black and green one further back.Can you help identify which is it? Google or my mind fails me badly here.
However i started the car with each plug individually off and no CEL came on the dash however.
Havn't had time to do much else as the weather has been horrid (oh the joys of no garage!)I'm going to buy a feeler guage for the plugs and oil and filter tomorrow after soccer to get everything ready for the next long weekend work on the car.

[ziquester]

next pic of the engine...just wondering if its the red or green arrow thats pointing to the temperature coolant sensor.

[RS13]

Firstly,I appreciate your help dude.
I checked on the car today,once started,the car fires up nicely does not blow any black smoke nor stutter.Just has a smooth idle like its meant to.

I'm still trying to familiarise myself with the engine,not much info/images of a caldina 3sgte on trademe.Worse still is this is modified.And I think I got the coolant temperature sensor wrong.I realised there are two plugs,a black and green one further back.Can you help identify which is it? Google or my mind fails me badly here.
However i started the car with each plug individually off and no CEL came on the dash however.
Havn't had time to do much else as the weather has been horrid (oh the joys of no garage!)I'm going to buy a feeler guage for the plugs and oil and filter tomorrow after soccer to get everything ready for the next long weekend work on the car.

Red arrow is oil pressure sensor, green I'm not sure. You're looking for this, although I still think it isn't your problem.



See how you get on with the ECU codes.

[fivebob]

This migfht help http://www.caldina.org/Documents/CaldinaElectrical.pdf

[fivebob]

Firstly,I appreciate your help dude.
I checked on the car today,once started,the car fires up nicely does not blow any black smoke nor stutter.Just has a smooth idle like its meant to.

I'm still trying to familiarise myself with the engine,not much info/images of a caldina 3sgte on trademe.Worse still is this is modified.And I think I got the coolant temperature sensor wrong.I realised there are two plugs,a black and green one further back.Can you help identify which is it? Google or my mind fails me badly here.
However i started the car with each plug individually off and no CEL came on the dash however.
Havn't had time to do much else as the weather has been horrid (oh the joys of no garage!)I'm going to buy a feeler guage for the plugs and oil and filter tomorrow after soccer to get everything ready for the next long weekend work on the car.

Red arrow is oil pressure sensor, green I'm not sure. You're looking for this, although I still think it isn't your problem.



See how you get on with the ECU codes.

Been a long time since I looked at one but II think the Green arrow a VSV for the fuel rail. The coolant sensor should have one white and one brown wire.

Given the location of the air filter and the position of the intake temp sensor, my money would be on heat soak.

[ziquester]

Thanks guys,I'll have a check on the ECU codes with my brother.

Fivebob,thanks for that link.I downloaded it but nothing on it mentions my problem but the first.
Concerning heatsoak,I have never know heatsoak to cause this before on any of my cars.Have had a lot of turboed cars and NA ones as well and never had this problem before.
However would the heatsoak from the engine be affecting the intake temperature sensor?I presume its the plug connected to the underside of the airfilter?

Cheers.

[fivebob]

There are two Intake Temp sensors, one in the air filter, the other in the manifold. AFAIK the one in the manifold is what is used by the ECU to determine fueling, never figured out what the one in the air filter is for, but I suspect it has something to do with start up.

Strictly speaking I guess it's not heat soak, but rather hot under bonnet temps that might be causing the issue. The hot air may be causing the ECU to either under fuel (less oxygen in hot air) or to dump fuel (common 3S-GTE detonation control strategy when intake temp is too hot).

Other than that I can only think is that maybe the cam position sensor is not registering and taking a while to sync, until it's synced the ECU won't provide fuel or spark. This would show up in the engine codes. Causes for that could be slow cranking speed, low battery voltage or a faulty sensor.

[ziquester]

Hmm that's very interesting what you wrote.I had a big think about the heat soak issue or rather the intake temperature being too hot.Is this problem common with 3s-gtes?Especially stock motors..

I'll be checking on the engine codes on the weekend and I actually thought the battery was undersized for the car,as my neighbor with a celica 3s-gte also pointed out.I'll get my brother to check the voltage on it as he has the gear and also try out my other bigger battery (that's used on police cars),just to eliminate a possible problem.
I gather the cam position sensor corrects itself to sync,right?

Learning a whole lot more on this engine than the other ones I have had.

[ziquester]

btw is there a fix for this "heat soak" issue?I am guessing the ECU takes its reading from the intake temp sensors which would affect startup,etc,so the sensors would be the go to part to sort?
I can't think of much else to cool down the under-bonnet heat after the engine is stopped unless the bonnet is raised,which is not something I would wana do everywhere.

[Anth_555]

you really need to check the codes first. these can point you in the right direction.
if they are a bust then you need to check the starting system the steps for this are
test the battery : you need to voltage and load test the battery which is best done after the battery is fully charged. if thats ok you need to
voltage drop test : there is two voltage drop test . power Circuit and earth circuit here is a link to a site that gives you a run down of the tests http://easyautodiagnostics.com/misc-ind ... ar-tests-3
note this site says 0.9 of a volt drop is ok . i was taught .5 of a volt on the power side and .25 of a volt on the earth side and thats what i would go with

if this is ok you could have resistance in the starter motor which will likely mean it could need new brushes
if this is all ok then you need to start looking into sensors and sensor readings.
just because you dont have a fault code does not mean that sensor are not faulty.