Please help

[cainebean]

I checked the fuel pressure when it starts acting up and it holds 12 until the motor completely dies then it gradually works down to zero. Checked all my grounds and they look good. I followed the wires to the computer and was amazed at how hot the computer was. I don't havea glovebox liner so it is sitting on top of the heater. I'm going to let it hang down under the dash after it cools and see what that does. I imagine it being so hot to the touch could make the computer act weird because I know my laptop goes crazy when it heats up. I also removed the plug to the injectors when it was making that frying sound and it stopped while unplugged the started as soon as I plugged them back in. Is that a normal sound in my video for injectors? Thanks for taking time to help! I owe you a frosty beverage of your choosing one day!

[Bill usn-1]

Checked all my grounds and they look good

???
What do you mean by this?

[cainebean]

It means that this was one of the first things I checked last year when I had a problem with tbi. I'm going to connect all of my grounds to the - battery post because I keep hearing that as a need to do as well. I sent Howell a link to this thread and a link to the video to see what they say as well. I'm going to hook it up to the computer tonight and see if I can log it while it is happening in the garage, because I'm scared to drive it because I don't want to pay to have it towed back. The guy at the parts store said it sounds like a bad computer but I don't buy that because it happens so sporadically. I know I'm so ready to find this problem though. Next week the family is going out of town and I'm going to soldier any wire to wire connection on my jeep.

[Bill usn-1]

Grounds need to be checked with an ohm meter.
That's the only way to know they are good. Any high resistance indicates a bad gnd.

You do not need to have the grounds run to the battery.
You do NEED to have all the parts of your vehicle connected together with good gnds. Batt to engine and to body.
Eng to frame, eng to body.

The little little braided bonding wires work good.
Or make up some ground wires with something like a 10-12ga wire.

car ecm's get hot. from the factory they are mounted with no air circulation at all like in the kick panels and they live a long life.
That doesn't mean you can't have a problem with it, just that in 12yrs of installing these I have only had 1 bad ecm.

An intermittent problem when warm is an indication of an electronics/electrical issue.

What ignition system are you running to feed the howell system?

[cainebean]

Ok I'll check all my grounds with a meter to see what they read. I have it hooked up to the computer right now and has been running for 15 minutes without even a hiccup, go figure!

Msd 6AL ignition control, mds distributor and a blaster coil. New plugs and wires in the last year but problem started months after the change. New distributor cap since I've been chasing this problem because one side spring was loose on tension.

[Bill usn-1]

If your 6al is plug and play then next time it messes up you may want to try bypassing it and run the ignition to the ecm.
I assume you have a tach filter built into the howell harness?
They used to all have them. But I heard that if you tell them you have the MSD then they don't provide it and you use the filtered tach output of the MSD straight to the ecm.
You may want to see if you have the tach filter or not.

[cainebean]

Sou think I might have found the problem but I'll have to ask a completely stupid question. I checked the msd ignition and it is fine based on the troubleshooting on their site. Checked the coil as well. The + connector was bad so I replaced that but still had the same problem. Started checking grounds like you suggested and the first couple checked out. The tbi has a ground that connects to a ate behind the tbi. I noticed that the fuel return gauge that I put on had dripped some gas on this connection. I consider myself lucky as hell for not burning the whole jeep up. So stupid question is wouldn't the fuel completely mess that ground connection up? I'm thinking the time it takes to warm up is t the problem, the drips finally soaking my ground is the problem. I moved it to firewall with the other grounds I have and drove it for 30 minutes without a problem. I've done this before and thought I had it fixed. So please tell me the answer to my stupid question is yes and that I'm one lucky dumba$$!

[Bill usn-1]

The fuel dripping on it wouldn't cause the problem.
It may make a bad ground worse but it won't cause a bad ground.

If it was bad then it was bad. Heat will affect electrical connections as the parts heat and expand and then contract.

Like the coil or the pickup in the distr. They tend to go bad when up to temp but may work fine when cold.
So resistance reading should be taken when up to temp.

[cainebean]

So I might end up keeping this Scrambler I finally broke down and took it to my mechanic. They ended up keeping it for close to 3 days in total. I have a switch on the fuel pump and another on the battery. The PO put this on there as a theft deterant. The switch that gives me power was a 5 amp switch. They changed it to a 10 amp switch and so far so good. I didn't believe this would be the fix because this always seemed temperature related but so far I'm running and not dying after it warms up.

[Bill usn-1]

Good to hear.

Guess they were able to get it to fail and actually troubleshoot when it did.

Good to know it wasn't the EFI causing the problem.
It normally gets blamed for every engine running bad problem simply because people don't understand it.

But you can probably read every help thread on here and the problem is never the system itself but normally an installation problem.