Ok, this is going to be a long post.

It's a very unique problem I have that I havent seen anybody else experience. The car is a 97 2G with a 6bolt swap, running the early green-top CAS (no plug) with a 95EPROM ecu and DSMLINK. Rest of the mods are in my signature.

The motor takes about 3-4 cranks to start. My fuel pressure is at 43psi with no leaks, cas has been double checked to make sure it's not off 180 degrees. Now on to the actual problem, during cranking, the motor will sometimes hesitate, as if it hit a snag during one of the crank rotations, as if it gets resistance, then you feel starter fighting it, you can see the huge draw on the battery when this event occurs, it feels exactly as if I had knock during startup. As if the fuel is igniting during the compression stroke on one of the cylinders.

What makes me think that? Well, from time to time, I`ll get a nice intake explosion when this happens. But other times this doesnt happen at all. My timing has been backed off quite a bit and the car feels slow enough to really tell the timing is backed off but it doesnt always fix the problem.

I`m leaning towards a few things here.. here's my ignition wiring (coil)-(plug):
4123
||||
2341

Remember I have DSMLink so 1&2 are swapped and so are 3&4. I have already tried swapping 4&1 on the coil, but there was no difference, I can try also 2&3 but I doubt it would change anything..

I have done alot of searching and have yet to find the proper injector firing sequence for a DSM. But the one I did come up with is 2-1-3-4.

The next thing would be a broken cas, maybe wrongly sending the position of the crank/cam to the ECU causing ignition and/or fueling at the wrong time.

Another thing is based off of the previous theory... since you have to swap plug wires for DSMLink and invert the CAS signal, I have to also swap the injectors since they fire in different order now. Would this cause such a problem?

p.s.: This problem doesn't show up if I swap the CAS 180 degrees off, but the car is slow as a sack of bricks, and the timing isnt advanced past 12degrees, so I know its on the wrong way.

Check your plugs. See if there's any discoloration.

You can use my CAS To test

What will checking my plugs prove to me... The engine is either knocking or it's not.. If it's knocking, I have to figure out why, if it's not knocking, then the plugs are not an issue here.

Mike: Thanks, I might take u up on that, I`m waiting on SBR for the manifold just as much as you are for mine, sorry for the wait.

The condition of the plugs will tell you what is happening during ignition. Preignition, too hot, etc.

The other thing I thought about today is possibly a vacuum leak?

Just for the archives:

For the past 3 days it looks as if the problem went away. The only thing I've done was invert the CAS signal to the ECU (using DSMLink). I don't see how this could have helped the problem because I figured since the both the ECU and the CAS are pre 97-99 the signal would *not* have to be inverted. But it looks as if it helped, for whatever reason.