[ltbulls39]

To start off, I have the Abarth 124 and right now its slightly over 17K miles. Bought used and warranty just ran out in January. Completely stock until this month where I added the GWR system one, and tried to flash to the EC Phase 1 tune. Ambient temps are mid 40s so I spend a decent chunk warming the engine before I get moving.

I initially fell into a similar issue as Evolved did here though ultimately I was able to flash PH1 + burbles. I have more info in this thread but I feel like this is worth its own, vs adding onto that. When I flashed PH1 successfully, I missed the throttle remap procedure. First 2 days of driving it was great. Nothing out of ordinary, warm the car up, don't get on throttle harder until after a few minutes after the car no longer says it's cold. Then in 2nd, low rpms (~2k) I begin to head up a hill near my place. Car begins to bog down hard, and I see the electronic throttle control (lightning bolt) light on the dash. Clutch in, and put it in first and head back home. Briefly had a rough idle, that was the only time it has had a rough idle.

When home, check the code and its P0106. Per this thread's advice I inspect connections and clear the code, see if it comes up again. I'm no mechanic so my visual inspection could be a crap job for all I know. Car runs fine for a while, lot of fun with burbles. Then one morning I have to run to the airport, I'm rushing so I didn't warm it up as long as I usually would, maybe 3 mins this time. Driving out of the garage in 1st it feels a bit lurchy and strange at very low rpm. I get out of the garage and shift to 2nd to go up the hill. As I go up hill the car completely bogs out and stalls, you can read that info in the above post. I got it towed back into my garage and let it sit.

It was at this point I reached back out to EC for help, and have been in contact with Toby helping me figure out what's wrong. Running ideas were either A, throttle learn process was a miss and messed things up. Or B, there may have been some sort of compression issue with the tune files. Suggestion is flash back to stock if possible and run it and see what we got. After a good few hours, the car finally started reliably, and I drove it around the parking garage to make sure it would move. Checked for codes but there were no codes or CEL there. Flashed back to stock and this time I did it the right way and did the throttle map process.

Now per Toby's suggestion I drive it stock and see if anything comes up. I let it warm up fully, cold light is gone, and wait a minute further. Feels good in 1st, just like it did before I started this whole tuning thing. Shift to 2nd and about to turn and go up hill, when I start to bog down hard again. Lightning bolt light and flashing CEL on the dash pop up. Clutch in, down shift to 1st and rev it high out of a little panic. No stall, so I take the long way back home to avoid hills and having to tow again. Had to keep the RPMs around 3k to feel comfortable it wouldn't stall on me.

I check the codes today and I see P0106 and P0300, MAP sensor and random cylinder misfire. Right now my current thought is my car is running lean due to P0106, hence the bogging out at low RPM (not sure if running lean can affect starting the car like it did that once). Since cars running lean, I think it makes sense for a random misfire for P0300 since there wasn't enough fuel to ignite. Does anyone have any ideas on next steps? I need someone else to take a look I know that, but is this something I need to go to the dealer for? Or a different mechanic would cut it.

For anyone at EC, any thoughts as to why this may be happening? Car was running great before flashing, but I would imagine flashing back to stock and doing the throttle remap would remediate something. Figure something may have been wrong with the car already and tuning it could have made it worse, but I'm having a hard time understanding how, or why it seems even worse after flashing back to stock.

Any ideas or references would help here!

 

[HaZ]

Don't get hung up on the throttle relearn procedure, it's not supposed to cause the issues you're having. I've flashed plenty of times without doing the procedure.

P0300 showing up after a flash suggests that the flash wasn't fully successful and you may have some corruption going on. If the misfire is caused by a hardware issue, say coils or plugs, the ECU should know which cylinder is the culprit and give you a code specifically for that cylinder, but P0300 is random misfire across all cylinders, highly unlikely plugs and coils fail in all 4 cylinders at once, so probably a software issue.

One thing you can try is, flash back to P1, then back to stock again, making sure that the battery is connected to a 12V charger so the handheld won't lose signal due to voltage dips. Sometimes the handheld misses a data packet for no reason and the whole flash is botched. Redoing a flash successfully might just save the ECU. Hopefully the handheld managed to store your complete stock tune without any data loss when you read it the first time.

 

[mtnghost]

I could be wrong but it seems like the map sensor is either faulty or you have a boost leak. Both will cause your car to bog, have multiple cyl misfires and require you to keep rpm high to get any drive ability. I would look into map sensor or boost leaks first. My car threw some map sensor codes out of nowhere after I disconnected the battery once. Then I cleared the code and it never came back. Let us know what you find. The more info you find out and share the more we can help. Good luck.

 

[ltbulls39]

I'm a little weary to try flashing again just because running stock gave me those issues (also worry about the data loss on the original read for stock). Also don't think the P0300 is because of plugs or coils, since I think it might be directly related to P0106

 

[ltbulls39]

I could be wrong but it seems like the map sensor is either faulty or you have a boost leak. Both will cause your car to bog, have multiple cyl misfires and require you to keep rpm high to get any drive ability. I would look into map sensor or boost leaks first. My car threw some map sensor codes out of nowhere after I disconnected the battery once. Then I cleared the code and it never came back. Let us know what you find. The more info you find out and share the more we can help. Good luck.

Do you think disconnecting the battery overnight here and clearing the codes is a good step to try? I already cleared the code once just for it to come back again. Also is it strange that the map sensor would fail now? Seems like its a problem with high mileage cars, and this cars barely at 17k which leads me to think something's causing it to trip causing the misfire.

Also I never thought of boost leak related to this, how is boost leak related to the map sensor?

 

[mtnghost]

Well disconnecting the battery should effectively do the same thing as clearing the code, although I have seen codes persist after a batter disconnect. From when I installed my maxpower ecu it called the boost sensors map sensors and they are essentially the same thing. Not sure if the ECM calls them different things but they are the same type sensors. The map sensor has to know when the engine is out of boost so vacuum, and when it is in boost pressure. Also I suggested this because boost leaks and faulty sensors seem to be common with this vehicle at any mileage. Mine had 20k and the code came up. Do you have a scanner? The info from it could be very useful to get a better idea of what is going on also you can be sure the code actually cleared. I have never flashed this car but with all reflashes we do at the dealer it performs a complete clearing of all codes after. Where are you located? If your in the Bay Area I would be happy to scan your vehicle and se if we can figure this out. Good luck.

 

[HaZ]

Disconnecting the battery does a bit more than clearing the code, it resets the ECU’s learned parameters, so I think it’s worth a try. Also use an OBD reader to read the Barometric Pressure data, that data comes directly from the MAP sensor, see if the pressure is what it’s supposed to be.

 

[ltbulls39]

Well disconnecting the battery should effectively do the same thing as clearing the code, although I have seen codes persist after a batter disconnect. From when I installed my maxpower ecu it called the boost sensors map sensors and they are essentially the same thing. Not sure if the ECM calls them different things but they are the same type sensors. The map sensor has to know when the engine is out of boost so vacuum, and when it is in boost pressure. Also I suggested this because boost leaks and faulty sensors seem to be common with this vehicle at any mileage. Mine had 20k and the code came up. Do you have a scanner? The info from it could be very useful to get a better idea of what is going on also you can be sure the code actually cleared. I have never flashed this car but with all reflashes we do at the dealer it performs a complete clearing of all codes after. Where are you located? If your in the Bay Area I would be happy to scan your vehicle and se if we can figure this out. Good luck.

Got it that makes more sense now. I'll be sure to pick up an actual reader to get more details. I did unplug the battery this morning so I'll leave it sitting a while before getting it back on. As for boost leaks I have seen a few posts like that on the sub so if it goes hand in hand with the map sensor I guess that alleviates some worry.

I'm in Seattle so a bit far, it's out of warranty so I don't really want to go to the dealer about it, I'd much rather go with a mechanic here. May just have to do that since even if I scan it and find something up, I'd still have no way to fix myself.