First start issues

[D-Dubya]

I have a BPE 347 with a Sniper and got it started for the first time yesterday but it was not wanting to run smoothly for any length of time. It would start, come to idle and get up to temp then start "loping" and eventually stall. I decided to walk away from it for a trip to Summit to get a fitting to fix a leaking power steering pump. After I fixed the power steering leak, I tried a few times to get it started with no success. It tries to fire but won't actually start completely. I am getting spark but I smell fuel and the Sniper looks to have a bit of fuel in the barrels. I have a Holley fuel regulator and have played with adjustments on it to no avail. I purchased a fuel pressure test kit but waiting on a schrader valve to be able to use it.

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

[Norm B]

The Sniper has an internal fuel pressure regulator but can be plumbed to use an external one. How are your fuel lines routed?

Norm

[Jeff Kleiner]

Di you have the sidepipes on? I had a roadster in for paint with a Sniper and with out the pipes the oxygen sensor was falsely reading it a lean and kept richening it to the point that it fouled the plugs and wouldn't run.

Jeff

[Papa]

Di you have the sidepipes on? I had a roadster in for paint with a Sniper and with out the pipes the oxygen sensor was falsely reading it a lean and kept richening it to the point that it fouled the plugs and wouldn't run.

Jeff

I know who's car that was! The Sniper will want to run hyper-rich when coolant temps are low, then will think it's lean if you are getting bogus readings on the O2 sensor and will keep adding fuel. You may be better off just disconnecting the O2 sensor or disabling Closed Loop until you have the full exhaust on and no exhaust leaks. You can see what it's doing by data logging at cold start and then when the car starts to run badly and comparing the two logs.

Dave

[D-Dubya]

The Sniper has an internal fuel pressure regulator but can be plumbed to use an external one. How are your fuel lines routed?

Norm

Norm,

I have an external holley regulator with the feed line from the fuel pump to the regulator then out of the regulator to the driver's side of the Sniper. The passenger side, which would normally be the return, is plugged. The return is out of the bottom of the fuel regulator back to the fuel tank.

Thanks,

Doug

[D-Dubya]

Dave,

I have the side pipes on the car with O2 sensor on the passenger side. How do you disable the closed loop, and should I given that side pipes are on the car?

[D-Dubya]

Dave,

I have the side pipes on the car with O2 sensor on passenger side. How do you disable the closed loop, and should I try that?

[D-Dubya]

Hi Jeff,

Yes, side pipes are on the car and O2 sensor installed on passenger side.

[D-Dubya]

I am also getting an interesting sound from the sniper that sounds like it is "cycling". I disconnected the ground and went out for a couple hours and came back, reconnected the ground and the sound came back. I tried to attached a video with the sound but was not able to figure out how.

[Papa]

It sounds like you may be chasing a different issue, but it could be causing the same symptoms of fouling the plugs. I recommend you pull the plugs and check them before doing anything with the Sniper. In my case, if I didn't let the car warm up completely before shutting it off, it would foul the plugs pretty quickly. Are you 100% sure you don't have any exhaust leaks?

Dave

[D-Dubya]

Dave,

I checked the number one plug and it did not look any different from when I put them in after priming the oil pump. I will check the others and let you know what I find.

185662

[Papa]

Dave,

I checked the number one plug and it did not look any different from when I put them in after priming the oil pump. I will check the others and let you know what I find.

185662

Mine would foul one or two cylinders. I used a laser temp reader to be sure all cylinders were firing.

[D-Dubya]

OK, so I looked at all spark plugs and none are fouled. I tried another start and all I get is a half-second up to 800-900 RPM then dies immediately. Smelling raw fuel.

I did notice the collector on the driver's side was not very tight but the O2 sensor is on the passenger side and it is very tight.

I can't imaging this is a spark issue.

What does disabling the "closed loop" accomplish? Anything? I'm stumped.

[D-Dubya]

I started reading on the holley website regarding how to adjust the fuel pressure on the Holley regulator. As I am looking at You Tube videos I come across one from Holley that says the "stock" spring that comes in the regulator is 4-15 psi and the "extra" spring is for 15-65 psi. The Sniper requires 58 psi, so I changed out the spring and it fired right up, came to idle but before it could get to operating temp, it stalled. Now, I am back to the same place I was. It will "try" to start but I only get a brief fire then nothing. I adjusted the regulator to full fuel and was depending on the internal regulator in the Sniper as the primary regulator. Still nothing and still smelling raw fuel.

[Papa]

OK, so I looked at all spark plugs and none are fouled. I tried another start and all I get is a half-second up to 800-900 RPM then dies immediately. Smelling raw fuel.

I did notice the collector on the driver's side was not very tight but the O2 sensor is on the passenger side and it is very tight.

I can't imaging this is a spark issue.

What does disabling the "closed loop" accomplish? Anything? I'm stumped.

Open loop takes the EFI out of the mix, so it's not trying to make corrections. Closed loop is when the EFI uses the sensor data to optimize the AFR (Air Fuel Ratio).

[Papa]

A couple more questions for you.

1. Are you controlling the timing with the Sniper or using a standard distributor to manually set the timing?
2. Did you run through the Sniper wizard to set the initial tuning?
3. Have you configured the idle circuit per the Sniper quick setup?
4. What are your readings on the Sniper handheld before you start the engine cold? TPS, coolant temp, voltage, etc.

Dave

[Papa]

I started reading on the holley website regarding how to adjust the fuel pressure on the Holley regulator. As I am looking at You Tube videos I come across one from Holley that says the "stock" spring that comes in the regulator is 4-15 psi and the "extra" spring is for 15-65 psi. The Sniper requires 58 psi, so I changed out the spring and it fired right up, came to idle but before it could get to operating temp, it stalled. Now, I am back to the same place I was. It will "try" to start but I only get a brief fire then nothing. I adjusted the regulator to full fuel and was depending on the internal regulator in the Sniper as the primary regulator. Still nothing and still smelling raw fuel.

You should only be using one fuel pressure regulator. If you are running an external regulator, you should cap the outlet of the internal regulator. Have you measured the pressure at the inlet to the Sniper? It should be 58 psi.

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=185676&d=1686522444

[D-Dubya]

Dave, I am waiting for a schrader valve to check the pressure. Should get that tomorrow and I will advise. I have adjusted the pressure all the way from full open to almost closed and nothing changes. Still no start.

[Mbufford]

Dave, I am waiting for a schrader valve to check the pressure. Should get that tomorrow and I will advise. I have adjusted the pressure all the way from full open to almost closed and nothing changes. Still no start.

It may be worth trying to bypass the Holley regulator and run direct to the sniper. Papa commented above that running two regs in-line is a no go. I wish we’d thought of that when we were all there!

[Its Bruce]

What was your IAC % while it was trying to idle? Is it changing/increasing so as to attempt to manage the idle?

[JJK]

It may be worth trying to bypass the Holley regulator and run direct to the sniper. Papa commented above that running two regs in-line is a no go. I wish we’d thought of that when we were all there!

Running an external regulator is perfectly fine, some would argue preferred as the sniper internal regulator is prone to failing open. As long as the sniper outlet port is plugged, it will run fine as a "returnless" system. This is actually how FFR supplies their EFI completion kit, and Breeze offers this option which is quite popular. But, the pressure going into the Sniper needs to be set and verified, which sounds like should be accomplished soon.

[Mike.Bray]

It's critical on EFI systems to have a constant and known fuel pressure. The injectors are calibrated to flow a given amount of fuel based on a known fuel pressure and the time in ms the injector is open. If the fuel pressure varies the system is not injecting the fuel it thinks it is and everything is off. The fuel pressure to the injectors must be correct.

[D-Dubya]

Bruce, I did not get an opportunity to see that reading before it went into "no start status". My hunch is this is a fuel pressure issue as I did not verify the fuel PSI before first start. I have a Holley fuel regulator as recommended by FFR and others. I changed the spring from the 5-15 psi spring to the heavier 16-65 psi spring and tried to restart and it fired up but then stalled before getting up to operating temp then went back into no start mode. I am waiting for a schrader valve to arrive from Amazon and will get a pressure gauge on it this afternoon and get that set and try again. Stay tuned.

[RJD]

It might be worth going through the Sniper set up wizard one more time. During one of my early runs using the wizard, the Sniper touch screen was jumpy and I inadvertently selected the wrong number of cylinders. The car started but similar to yours loped, ran rough, then died, with a strong oder of unburnt fuel. I suspected what happened and after going through the set-up wizard again, it ran like it was supposed to. Good luck.