nah..one of those soft boxes with the platic liner in it.

 

ill give it a shot i guess...though iv already done it in third...nothing odd from what i can tell. still could use a couple more runs to see how everything is holding up. every morning i get a chance i get into 15psi in 4th or 5th, cant help it...it feels pretty damn good...lol

 

hehehehe...wastegate spring is here. Ill throw it on sometime next week...gotta work this weekend...fail.

on another note, Paul ill get you some datalogs and give you a call when i get a chance.

 

Ok Chris.

 

well i thought i had fixed the problem with my car kicking in and out of open loop at random but i was wrong. There is more grimlins in this pnp harness than i had thought, this is one of those moments when I think to myself "shoulda gotten a new harness instead of buying a used one". I backed the fuel pressure down and unplugged the fic and so far the car isnt jumping from open to closed loop. So now im at a crossroads, do I try and fix the harness (again), Do I buy a new one, why not try out a new engine managment, and so on.
Well Im leaning towards keeping the fic and sorta fabbing my own harness by taking an AEM extension harness and wireing up the fic flying lead harness into it. The biggest reason for it is that the flying leads are all marked already, if for anyreason i need to trace something out its much easier. It will also give me all the leads instead of just what is needed to get the car running. Though i have the pins that i prefabbed with stingers (short piece of wire) that i can use if i go with new pnp harness.

I got the big blue spring in a couple of weeks ago (bumped up pressure via boost controller to 17psi) but havnt really gotten to stretch the cars legs on it (upper rpm). I was having fuel problems (along with the open/closed loop problem) at wot and full boost, duty cycles were good, fuel map was clean, however afr's went wild almost like fuel was being shut off and turned back on rapidly. Iv got many ideas on it but since I have a known issue with this harness thats where ill start. I may also rescale my maps a bit more just to make sure im not flying right off the map (shouldnt be since iv already rescaled up to 34psia). Idk when ill get to this stuff though, been working the weekends.

 

damn grimlins ran away today..lol...plugged in the fic again and of course the grimlins were there...then there gone. tried all day to get the car to act up like before so i can fully trace this problem out but nothing. bs will come back though im sure of it.

 

This sounds so familiar to my own FIC experience. One minute it worked great, the next it didn't. In PC terms I'd equate the FIC to an AMD CPU with a VIA chipset. Impressive benchmark results with no real semblance of reliability or stability.

 

thing is fred iv ran the fic for years and tuned plenty of tc's on it. I wish i had my og kits fic and harness, never ever had problems like this. The harness i have now I got used from justin (not saying its his fault at all) and its seen better days. The crank + output (i think it was the output) fell off...It fell the F*^& off...lmao. It seems at some point someone had been unplugging the fic by pulling on the wires and the last two strands of copper that held that wire inplace just gave up. Though this time it very well could be the fic has just had it as well, thats why i was thinking of something different in case my fic is done for. Anyways the grimlins popped back up this morning and after work so i went ahead and just cut the o2 lead from the fic. Ill drive it for a day or two and see if those grimlins come back. I have this feeling they wont but if they do its got to be the harness.
Iv had lots of luck and fun with the fic in the past but lately its been a real bear to deal with.
Id like to try out something new anyways but its hard to just unhand a grand for another engine managment.

 

Those little FIC plugs are weak, aren't they? I had a wire fall out of my brand new FIC harness because the tiny little retaining strips on the terminal end weren't bent just right. FWIW, I was talking to a local tuner today (Ray at MA Motorsports) and he swears by the Pro EFI units and doesn't use or tune any AEM EMU's any more due to what he described as "inconsistencies".

Anyway, good luck with the build!

 

thnx Fred...your not the only one to suggest the pro efi unit to me, a few shops around are really into them. guess its my turn to learn on it..ill just have to see how things go.

 

btw AEM isnt the only guys that use the Molex micro-fit 3.0 connectors, PLX devices uses them aswell (4 terminal connector). what really sucks about those is the fact you have to crimp your own. Make things worse is the fact that there is no removal tool for them besides pulling the crap out of the wire hopeing that the pin lets go before the wire does...lol

 

I had to crimp a couple of those micro-fit connectors and they were a PITA. Kind of like tying flies or building a micro ship in a bottle... magnifying glass required. I did have some success removing them from the plug using a tiny jeweler's screwdriver to free the retaining clips while pulling on the wire. It's hard to explain but you insert the flat head screwdriver into the plug end and rotate it to disengage the retainer and then move to the opposite side. Same as you'd do with a full size molex connector only on a much smaller scale.

I wish I knew more about the Pro EFI EMUs but Ray was saying that they can be wired in piggyback style to retain oem ECU control over A/C, etc. while retaining OBD2 compliance to pass emissions. I'm very interested but unless I take the $4000 plunge and have my auto trans built up I just don't see the cost effectiveness of spending $2000 on new injs and and engine management to gain only ~25whp over my current setup. The stock trans can't handle more than that, if that.

Actually the main reason I called MA was because they have a dyno dynamics dyno and I'd love to see what numbers I'd put down. My previous dynapack results showed only 216whp but every hp to et/trap speed calculator I'v tried suggests that I must have 250-260whp to run the ET and trap speeds I'm running.

 

Fred,
I will tell you from experience this is not true or was misunderstood by you or the tuner. When a standalone is run in parallel to DBW like AEM, Haltech, Motec, Pro Efi etc...You are effectively removing signals from the stock ECU which will trigger irreversible codes that can only be rectified by adding these items back to the stock ECU and not having standalone control over them. I have tinkered with this on the IS300 and have been able to get some success, but not complete because it has an IGF signal that can not be replicated by the AEM EMS.

 

Thanks for correcting that Paul. I must have misunderstood what he said.

 

No prob Fred. Just trying to keep people from thinking the wrong things. Almost all of the engine management systems that are out for the Scion are about the same. Some have a better tune base than others. Some have more options than others. Some have more control than others, but NONE offer OBD2 support and can pass emissions nor control DBW.

Not yet at least....

 

are you trying to tell us something???

 

found today that it is the harness...the car didnt act quit as bad but very similar to before I cut out the o2 lead. Im 100% sure a new (or self made) harness will correct a big portion of issues.

to try and explain a bit better on whats going on (and throw an idea out there) I could have good fuel trims (-5) then all of a sudden I have no o2 feed back (btw while stuck in open loop my afr's were fantastic...lol). At times i would have decent fuel trims (-7) then in a split second -43stft at idle (or at any given time really). I think whats going on here is another lead is shorting against the o2 lead very close to the main connector (larger ecu connector) where the wire is soldered to the pins. I can see roughly a couple of mils of bare pin exposed (that doesnt have heat shrink on it) on all the wires. I think between sitting my lunch bag on the fic (lmao) and the years of abuse this poor thing (opening and shuting the glove box and having it push on the harness) has bent the pins enough to touch. This is just an idea and id like to go through the harness again to find the exact cause (morbid curiousity poping its ugly head back up again) . I still want to go ahead with making my own psudo pnp harness though.

Im going to try and be very careful with the harness i have now and ohm out each and every wire (just to be thorough) and see what i can come up with. Though im sure just by changing the harness postion what possible short was there may not be there after uninstall, so i may end up just chasing my tail on this one.

 

well i kicked the grimlins ace all over the place and got a few other things done on the car that i had been meaning to do after work. Now I can finally bump it up a bit more. Also noticed today I am in need of some new meats, coopers are wearing kinda thin these days...lmao. There not really that bad but its not going to be long before its got to be done. Hope to hit up the dyno some time next week for final tuning (atleast for now..lol..) and maybe just maybe a spend a day at the track (i dont think im that lucky though).

 

Did you say dyno and track? I want in!

 

...Ill keep you posted brethren.