Car not starting. No Check Engine Light! Help me please!!!!

Hi guys,

So I have a stock supra and have been getting a problem with the car starting. Its been a recent issue so not sure what it is. So the problem is, the car wont start (as the title says). But here is the issue. The car starts whenever the check engine light illuminates on the dash. So turn the key to the on position and all the lights turn on, on the dash. When the cel turns on, the car will start and run fine. But the car won't run for a while. It will die after like 2 mins. I tried forcing the car to run, and it ran fine. Went for a drive, came back, parked it on the driveway and sat there just to see if she turned off and she did.

When the cel does not illuminate when the key is in the on position, the starter cranks but the car doesnt "turn over," as in the car does not want to start running.

I did some research and with the minimal info out there I found that it might be the EFI relay in the engine bay fuse box. I tried listening to it when the car was turned to the on position and it clicks. When it clicks on, the cel comes on. But when it doesn't, the cel is off. I took apart the fuse box and checked the wires underneath to see if its a loose connection and everything was intact.

I just wanted to ask if anyone knows of this problem, or if anyone has solved it. If I missed a thread online and this is a repeat, please forgive me. And if you do find info online about this, please post it in this thread. Much help is needed. The car was running fine before. It just started to act up recently.

Thanks for the help in advance. If you have any questions post them below!

Thanks

You can actually measure the relay ! I would do that first or just get a new one since it looks like it's faulty. But as i stated earlier you can measure out the relay. just do as stated in the workshop manual.

Could also be something wrong with the oem engine ecu if you still have it.read somewhere transistor could start leaking,cause all kind of strange problems.

Check the engine ecu to engine ground wires are tightly bolted to the plenum. Two wires with 6m ID eyelet tags. DavidP posted a photo of where they are, they can be VERY hard to see with the engine in the car. With one or both missing the ground connection you will have major issues and no check engine light.

Hi! Do you address the issue on your car? I have the same situation on my mkiv GTE (single turbo - 6spd)

Sorry to come back a old post.

Hi! Do you address the issue on your car? I have the same situation on my mkiv GTE (single turbo - 6spd)

Sorry to come back a old post.

Stock ecu or after market????

i had the same issue when i swapped my Supra vvti from auto to manual. i put a Mine's manual ECU for VVTI, and the car was running fine for some miles, but then the engine light came on and the car finally shut off.

When i tried to restart it, i didn't have all the lights (incl. engine light) coming on, and it won't start. i putted back the auto ECU and everything was fine.

Made several tests and get always the same result.

I think it's a ECU issue itself, i spotted some brown liquid inside it. I finally went to standalone with a new wiring loom, so i didn't really resolve the original issue ^^ I'm interested in the answer for that !

Having exact the same problem car stalled and never started again , it cranks but not firing . Today out of the blue it started fine and then died 5 minutes after . I noticed that when it started the engine light came on on key position two , then fired up like new .

When it died again , the check engine light doesn’t come on any more and it doesn’t fire up . Has anyone gone on the bottoms

Of it ?

Thanks in advance

Have you checked the ecu to engine grounds as I mentioned above???

Hello Chris thank you for your answer , will do that ASAP , do by any chance have any photos or diagram of where the grounds located ?

Thank you .

I will keep this thread updated .

Hello Chris thank you for your answer , will do that ASAP , do by any chance have any photos or diagram of where the grounds located ?

Thank you .

I will keep this thread updated .

On the lugs on the intake casting, hard to see!

On the lugs on the intake casting, hard to see!

Thanks Chris, Grounds seem ok, I changed the ECU and the car seems to work fine for now, still not confident that the core of the initial problem was ecu related, as the ecu i took off seems to be ok, and completely dry inside with no leaks whatsoever, so cannot get why it might have failed .

The ecu's are starting to suffer from leaking or changing value electrolytic capacitors, if you send me a REALLY good set of macro images of the board I MAY be able to spot some trouble, and even repair it as I have surface mount component tackle here.

did you not check for a error code ?

did you not check for a error code ?

the engine light didnt even come on at all with the old ecu, so it was impossible to check, this is when I started suspecting that something might was wrong with the ecu