Hi and welcome to the first of a series of blog entries talking about all areas of EFI, from the very basics, to more advanced installations and features.

These posts will be uploaded once or twice a week, in bite sized pieces.  Most of the posts will only be a few hundred words in length, meaning you can read them in a minute or two.  This post may be the longest one, partly due to this introduction, but also because the subject is quite broad and is more specific than most of the posts to follow in the future.

I’m sure you will find value in these lessons, even if you are a seasoned EFI professional, but please keep in mind, we are writing to a wide variety of readers, so some of the information may appear a little rudimentary for some of you.

So…  Let’s get to the first post.

This posts subject line is “General Fault Finding Mindset”, and that may sound a little dry to some of you, but what I’m trying to get across is that when you are installing and EFI system (or any automotive electronics for that matter), there are a few simple things you can do to speed up the diagnosis when there appears to be a problem.

I’m just going to quickly go through a couple of things now to illustrate what I mean.

Swap Things Out Or Around: If you have one cylinder down and you are trying to determine why it is down, try swapping another driver of the same type to that cylinder.  For example, you might swap the plugs on two injectors and see if the problem follows the plug you have just moved, or if the problem is still at the same cylinder.

Look For Pairs: This is a simple way to narrow down the problem.  For example, if the engine is missing on 2 cylinders, you can look and see if there are any systems on the engine where those 2 cylinders have common wiring, or drivers from the ECU or 12V supply.  Any time there are pairs of items like, dual outlet coils (wasted spark), or injectors wired in sets of 2 (banked injection), it makes finding the problem so much easier.  If the engine is missing on 1 cylinder, it is unlikely that the problem is caused by something that is 1/2 of a pair with something else, like a dual output coil for example.

Go Back To Basics: Check for good quality power and ground connections.  Wiring is the most common reason for EFI faults, so this is a great place to look for problems.

We will be going into more detail as we go through these posts, but the first thing to understand is that you can get yourself into a way of thinking that immensely increases your ability to solve the problem in front of you.

So,until next time.

Steve.