88-89 Fox Body V8 MAF oddballs: A9S / 8LD

Categories: Ford - setups

Introduction

The Fox Body Mustang switched to using a Mass Air Flow meter to measure airflow in 1988 in California.  Box codes “A9S” and “8LD” are known examples.  Uses TFI distributor, sequential injection for up to 8 injectors, MAF air metering.  This particular EEC-IV system became the blueprint for the popular A9L / GUFB used by the rest of the Fox body platform.  These early oddball ECMs are very similar to their A9L / A9P / etc. cousins but are just different enough that they require their own unique bin files and definitions.  It is trivially possible to swap a later A9L/A9P/etc. ECM into a car using a A9S/8LD or vise versa.

These ECMs are known to have the hardware ID “SFI-MA2” and it is unknown which other hardware IDs can run the GUFA strategy.

8LD labelonly

Hardware for Tuning

  • QuarterHorse – integrated device brings unique functionality to the table.  It is a “chip on steroids” that allows you to make changes while the vehicle is running and (with supporting software) log live data from the vehicle.
  • F3 – simple chip module that can store one or two tunes and switch between them while vehicle is running.  Requires Jaybird programmer or BURN2+FA.
  • BURN2 + FA + FE – generic chip programmer with Ford adapter (FA) and ECM interface (FE) that can be used to read the current program from EECIV and EECV ECMs on the bench.

Software for Tuning

Although similar to their cousins, these ECMs can only run the GUFA code which uses 32k binaries instead of 56k.  At this point, Binary Editor is the primary software which supports these ECMs.

  • Binary Editor ($100 – $171 available from Moates.net) is a Ford-specific graphically oriented tuning software that supports many EEC-IV and EEC-V processors.  There are several options for BE:
    • Free built-in definitions for BE2012 come with the software.  They’re reasonably complete and work really well.  Support GUFB (A9L, etc.) GUF1 (A9P, etc.) and GUFA (others) natively
    • Core Tuning definition (available through Coretuning.Net) – uses same standards for organization as other Core Tuning defs, very complete.
    • EEC Analyzer ($50 available from Moates.net) is an optional companion program to Binary Editor to assist with analyzing data and automating tuning tasks.

Recommended Combos

Just want to know what to buy?  All of these will be valid combos that will allow you to tune a vehicle effectively.

(Ford Dealer Kit)

(QuarterHorse AND Jaybird AND F3 AND Binary Editor WITH Dongle AND wideband)

(Jaybird AND F3 AND Binary Editor )