For those that did not make the trip to NJMP a week ago- and there were not many of you as we had 42 cars-

The weekend was beautiful- mid to upper 70's and no rain- with a bonus double race to boot.

In hopes to save many of you what I have been going through this past year- My problems I though started at the 2011 runoffs- after Denny S and I had done such a nice job moving up to ? 13th on lap 5 I went wide out of t-5 and hit those wonderful black rumble strips and then the bump after coming up the hill- to find my engine silent and no power - took me 5 minutes and many cycles- a backward roll down the hill and suddenly it started.

I thought this was due to the fuel pump relay tripping as I thought it did not happen again till this past race w/e. (so I thought - more later).

The NJ w/e was great I was on Pole after Q1 that was for the both races, P2 after the second saturday qual (Lee Mcneish put on stickers and went very fast) followed by Mike Amy, Rob stewart and Michael H or something like that- Saturday race was great- Lee, and I got away clean and Sergio M did a flying start and came from ?8th to third into turn 1- behind that it was four wide for several rows and considerable bumping and grinding- the videos from those cars were great to watch that night-

I got around Lee on lap 4 and Mike got him shortly after and the three of us pulled away a bit but on lap 6 with about a 1/2 second lead over Mike the engine got very quiet after hitting the rumble strips- man that lack of sound is loud- so back to third I went and two laps later did the same thing- back to 5th now. It happened three other times that race- each time cycling the on off switch got her going again. Eventually I made a bit of a error and touched Michael H enough to spin him (appologized profusely after the race) so the race ended up Mike A, Lee, Rob stewart, me and Pat Stringer- an awesome finish, I think his first top five at a national this competitive.

I thought the problem was due to the relays so I switched both the ECU and Fuel pump relays sat night. Engine ran fine in the pits

Race two- sunday- was essentially the same line up- Lee on pole and me second, Mike Amy third, Rob 4th- but rob had a great start and slid into first at turn one- less craziness this race- but coming out of turn 5 Rob got sideways and I was about to try an outside move when the car went very silent without hitting a bup and would not start for 5 minutes- after this happening about 5 times the day was over. Race was not as razy- Lee slid wide, Mike won again- congrats- and Rob Sfinished second and Rob Reen had a great race to third

So - talked with Mike Davies and Shawn from MoDy after the race and they suggested several things. Now I have wiggled wires, reconnected wires, checked grounds for an entire year since this started but I made one mistake and that was I did not go out in the morning warm up to make sure this was fixed. Never Assume.

After sundays race- I found the problem- the connector on the right hand spade (looking forward) looked fine- all connections were tight but if I pushed down and to the right the entire spade would move in the Master switch almost imperceptively and immediate power loss resulted. This was great- to find the problem and hopefully an easy fix- replace the master.

In retrospect this has been happening since Mosport Pro race last year when my engine mysteriously quit on the grid.

This was also likely the problem for the failure of my video feed and data problems as these were connected to the on off switch. I think there has been an intermittent - very brief loss of power in almost every race since.

Test Day at Lime Rock this past week- no power failures! Hope it gone for good.

Hopefully this will save others the long and hard lesson I had to learn.

Another lesson... when you have issues like this, post them! If you did, Bruce, apologies - I'm not recalling it.
I would have posted and listed one of my suggestions to be "jiggle/torque master switch and consider replacing even if that doesn't replicate the problem" as I had that exact same issue take me out of a killer battle way back when with Funk and Strickler at Hallett. Fortunately I happened to wiggle the master switch after my day ended and voila, reproduced the problem.
Glad you found it! ... but sorry it took so long. I know how annoying that can be. I've been chasing a fuel delivery problem literally since 2007 and I think I just now found it (hose in the cell) likely at the cost of a motor.

Denny

So Denny, what was your issue at the Runoffs?

Digging this back up because I have a similar issue... do you think the master switch could be faulty inside? After reading this thread I checked the connections and sure enough, the ground lug nut took a turn and a half before it was tight. Took it back to the track today and was much better, but still the car will cut out after a hard bump -- sometimes it just loses all power (playing with throttle will produce intake noise, but power won't come back without cycling the toggle switch).

I'm really hoping replacing the master and/or toggle will fix this issue... I don't want to chase an intermittent connection all through the wiring harness!

Chris,
Check your electrical relays and make sure that they a tight. Also make sure that they don't bounce around as the function of one of them is to shut the engine off in the event of a crash. A good hard bounce off the curbing will do a nice job simulating one.
Bob

Chris,
Unfortunately I'll probably never know what happened to my car as it only happened once. I used up the curbs at Road America all week and then at the most opportune time I just lost fire/drive. Compounding the issue, I assumed it was a more serious problem and coasted to a stop at pit entrance. Once I got her fired again and realized I was running, I had to run the entire pit lane at pit speed down the front straight. Ugh. I ran the rest of the race bumping the car over every curb I could find trying to reproduce the issue for troubleshooting but she never missed a beat.

Do make certain that your relays (green and brown, near the EEC) are mounted so that they "float". Don't hard mount them. They can cause issues. I am assuming that's what got me (though mine are floating) since the symptoms matched.

Denny

bob gardner wrote:Chris,
Check your electrical relays and make sure that they a tight. Also make sure that they don't bounce around as the function of one of them is to shut the engine off in the event of a crash. A good hard bounce off the curbing will do a nice job simulating one.
Bob

Does the "crash" relay reset itself? I had a joyride at the end of my last race (well, it was the end of the race for me) with some impact and aerial spinning, and when the dust settled, the car was not running, and I'm not sure why. I might have just stalled it (pulled my feet in when the pedals were no longer of use), but I might have tripped that relay. I didn't try to restart (seemed futile with radiator guts nearby) and the car is with the CSR for now.

I'd be skeptical of the crash thing being by design, I think the true function is to shut the fuel pump off when the engine isn't running. The Fords of the era also had something back by the fuel tank to kill the pump if you hit something, you had to push a button to reset it. Usually the loose relay banging into something problem is momentary, but eventually the relay would probably crap out, I guess.
I think the master switch thing is pretty common, made worse by the fact that it may happen a couple times and then go away for a while...
Dave

i've run into the master switch thing on two different cars: they aren't expensive or hard to replace,hang a new one on if any doubt. Might even want to make this an every few year maintenence thing.

I've got the body off the offending car for prep/paint, and plan to replace the master and the cockpit ignition switch. The master has a sticker on it... "9/93" so seeing as it's almost 10 years old, that makes me really skeptical. I'll check those relays while everything is nice and easy to get to.

Another electrical question: are the warning lights standardized? There's a yellow light above the ignition button that flickers on this same car. But, not when its running poorly... oil and water levels/temps are fine, and looking at it the wire gets buried in the big fat harness that runs to the back, so I'm hoping I don't have to trace it manually! Any tips would be great.

Chris,
First off, that's twenty years old... 20.
Secondly, that sounds like where most of the alternator lights are on these cars. If the light is flickering, you may have an alternator (or alternator wiring) issue. Definitely something check into.
Is the light solid before you fire up the car, and then flickers?
Denny