Thought I'd share the struggles i've had with Zella at the end of the season in October through today, and my *hopeful* triumph.
I've got a 2010 with the Stillen SC Kit, currently running an Ecutek tune. Everything is essentially out of the box from the kit. I got re-tuned to Ecutek in spring 2016, and then was fine all summer long and put on about 2k miles.
Fast-forward to October. I got a fresh tank of gas and drove to a wedding for the weekend, using about 1/2 the tank to get there. (Indication that the gas was probably good at that point). Last night of the weekend I was driving home after a few drinks in a small town in Indiana near where I am from, and started getting the flashing SES light on my drive. Figured out that means engine knock, which really freaked me out. I limped it home and then got some octane booster the next day, which allowed me to get it the 2/5 hrs back to my actual house.
After getting home, I started to see the knock again and just shut her down for the winter. With some recent warm weather this past week, I thought I'd take another shot at figuring it out. After thinking about it more, I figured that it was either bad gas, or someone had put something in my tank (which i new realize doesn't lock like it is supposed to). I tried a few different methods to drain the tank, but ended up having to pull the fuel pump and siphoning from there.
I got everything back together, and got a small batch of gas from an oil company nearby that I figured would help rule out mechanical issues. (2.5 gallons of 90rec and 2.5 gallons of a special chemical blend 101.5 fuel). I put that in and now the fuel pump wasn't priming at all. A few more days of checking every relay and fuse known to man, and I'm stumped.
SillyRabbit from the forums came by today to help me look at it. We tried clearing codes, running fuel pump check and a few other things. Finally, I thought to pull the fuel pump again and see if I could identify a wire that was misplaced. SURE ENOUGH, the ground from the pump had come disconnected. Plugged her in and she fired right up. Took her for a 25 mile drive and no knock issues or anything, and the exhaust from that high octane blend smelled GREAT!
tldr; I had either a bad batch of gas or someone put something in my tank that caused engine knock issues. After a series of struggles, I was finally able to test with a good gas batch and i'm ready for the 2017 season!
