A substantial portion of the folks that contact us these days aren’t totally new to tuning.  The vast majority have worked with other tools before.  HP Tuners, EFI Live, Diablosport, SCT, Sniper, Cobb are some common names I hear.  I’m going to lump all of these tools together (even though they’re very different) and collectively call them “new car tools.”  I’m going to lump TunerPro, Binary Editor and EEC Editor together (even though they’re very different and Moates doesn’t actually make any of them) into another group and call them “our tools.”  This article is going to make huge, sweeping, blatant generalizations about the differences between “our tools” and “new car tools” in an attempt to help someone who has used “new car tools” better adjust to using “our tools.”

Automation: There is NONE

The first and most important difference between “new car tools” and “our tools” is the level of automation that happens.  “New car tools” are comparatively automatic: they’re designed so that you can plug in (usually to the diagnostic port), press a few buttons and have a tune in front of you to start modifying or logging.  You don’t need to know what type of ECM you’re working with.  You don’t need to know which operating system or software is installed on it.   All of these important identifying tasks happen in the background behind the scenes before a shiny list of parameters is ever presented to you. Using “new car tools,” you can be largely oblivious to what the editor you are using is doing behind the scenes.  You also have little control over how these background tasks are performed because they happen behind the scenes with little to no input from you.

This does not happen with “our tools.”  All of “our tools” are flexible applications that support multiple types of ECUs, just like “new tools.” Except there is NO AUTOMATION to speak of.  In order for you to be able to do anything useful, you need to MANUALLY configure the application to do what you want instead of having things automatically unfold in front of your eyes.  Understand that many of the same things happen in both cases but you have to be the director when using “our tools.”  To illustrate this, we’re going to dissect the process of loading a file to tune in different tools and see how they do much of the same thing in totally different ways.

Loading a Tune File with “New Tools”

“File…  Open tuning file” looks innocent enough.  Pick your file then click “Open”

EFI Live automatically configures itself after opening a file

EFI Live automatically detects the operating system, VIN, transmission type and more!  It automatically loads a template or definition to let you make changes to this file.  It automatically lists whether some of the important calibration controls such as Flex Fuel, Active Fuel Management, etc. are enabled.

From the moment it is done loading the file you point it to, you’re instantly ready to go. (fine print: assuming it is compatible with the file you have shoved at it.)

Loading a Tune File with “Our Tools”

“File… Open Bin…” looks a lot like EFI Live did.

Things start off looking pretty similar…

After opening a BIN (Tune file), TunerPro displays more or less a blank slate.

The similarities pretty much stop there.

You have to manually load an XDF

Choose which XDF

With an XDF Loaded, you can edit defined parameters

The steps of loading and selecting and XDF which must be performed manually in TunerPro in order to be able to edit parameters without using the hex editor.  Datalogging is not much different: you must manually configure TunerPro to log what you want it to log.

Acquisition… Load Definition File…

Select an ADX that matches the platform you are working with

Observe the list of defined parameters in the ADX

Even after loading the right BIN, XDF and ADX files, you’re still not done!  TunerPro can operate in several different modes depending on which type of hardware you have and how you’re trying to use it.  Don’t forget to go into the Preferences and set things to suit the hardware you’re trying to use,

You will need to suit the preferences to suit the hardware you have

Why So Different?

The first thing that should stand out to you is how incredibly ‘simple’ it was to load a tune with “new car tools” compared to the many steps involved with loading a tune in “our tools.”  There are equal numbers of steps in both cases – but many of them happen automatically behind the scenes with “new tools.”  In the examples of using “our tools,” the bin file (that ends up on the chip) along with an associated definition file (XDF, ADX, “Strategy file”) have to be loaded manually.  This gives you both more control over how the process happens and more chances to screw things up.

This is intended to provide a brief overview of the steps required to get up and running tuning an OBD1 GM vehicle.  It is deliberately vague.  Instead of providing an exhaustive guide here, there are a series of links to smaller tasks and explanations.  94-95 LT1 vehicles are going to be an exception not covered by this guide as they are tuned via reflash only.  See the 94-95 LT1 getting started page for more.  The “What do I need GM” section is going to have basic hardware and software suggestions for groups of vehicles.

Steps

1. Install chip adapter.  The particulars of this will depend on which chip adapter you have exactly
   • Install G1 adapter: G1 Product page (with install)
   • Install G2 adapter: G2 Install
2. Plug in Moates devices to your PC.  With most modern operating systems, FTDI USB drivers should install automatically via Windows Update.  In the event things don’t go smoothly, look at the USB troubleshooting guide.
3. Download and install tuning software.  TunerCat OBD1 Tuner And TunerPro RT are the usual candidates.  This guide will cover TunerPro RT
   • Install TunerPro RT: http://www.tunerpro.net
4. Download XDF, ADX as appropriate for the vehicle you are working on.
   • TunerPro.net: Definitions download
   • GearHead-efi.com: Ask google gearhead-efi and your mask ID: i.e. for 90-92 F/Y body 1227730, “gearhead-efi $8D“
   • You may need to Convert an ADS to ADX if you can only find an ADS
5. Read your stock chip using a BURN2 or APU1 to get your stock bin OR download one online that should work
   • Gearhead-efi has an extensive archive of many bins: Gearhead Files
6. Load appropriate files in TunerPro:
   • XDF first: Select XDF (this is a map of the tables and parameters to edit in a bin)
   • ADX second: Acquisition… Load Definition (this is a guide of how to communicate with the vehicle and retrieve data)
   • BIN third: File… Open (this is the actual file that goes on the chip, in the ECM, running the vehicle)
7. Configure TunerPro to log:
   • Configure for logging with ALDU1 logging guide
   • Configure for logging with an APU1 also APU1 YouTube Getting Started
8. Get the program you want in the ECM
   • Option A: Burn a chip with the BURN2 / APU1
   • Option B: Realtime tuning
     • With Ostrich2 you will need a SocketBooster for 24 pin applications!
     • 32 pin applications work best with Ostrich2
     • APU1 works for 24 and 28 pin applications with no additional adapters
     • After you have loaded a valid BIN file, disable checksum.  To do this, change the Mask ID from it’s “normal” value (i.e. $8D hex or $6E hex or $0D hex or $42 hex) to $AA (that is “AA” in hexadecimal).  This will allow you to make changes live without angering the computer.  CRITICAL.
     • After you have a checksum-disabled bin, press the blue “up arrow” to load your bin form TunerPro to hardware
     • If you want changes to happen as you make them in TunerPro, click the blue “chip” icon near the arrows to enable or disable emulation.  You should see the status in the lower left change to indicate emulation is active
9. Start logging.  Click the two arrows pointing away from each other.  If TunerPro can connect, you should see the lower status bar change to say “DA: Connected” along with how fast it is receiving data packets in Hertz.
10. Tune the vehicle.

Final Words

If you have prior tuning experience with other products, you may want to look at this article which discusses the differences between more modern tuning systems and TunerPro RT on OBD1 GM.

If you don’t have prior tuning experience, you are highly advised to do some serious reading on thirdgen.org’s DIY PROM board and gearhead-efi.com to get up to speed a bit.

We’re starting to offer classes on a more regular basis.  We’ll do our best to keep this page updated with all planned classes.

Future Events

None planned at this time!  If you want to organize a group of 10-15 students, contact us.

Past Events

Learn EEC-IV/V Ford Tuning – Baton Rouge, LA – weekend of March 28th, 2015

Learn EEC-IV Ford Tuning – Cincinnati, OH – weekend of September 26th, 2014

Learn EEC-IV Ford Tuning – Baton Rouge, LA – weekend of October 11th, 2014

Learn Nismotronic for Nissan – Carlisle, PA – May 23-25, 2014

Learn EEC-IV Ford Tuning – Baton Rouge, LA – November 2013

Learn EEC-IV Ford Tuning – Cincinnnati, OH – October 2013

Learn EEC-IV Ford Tuning – New Orleans, LA – April 2013

We are going to be offering a three-day class on tuning Fords with QuarterHorse in March 2015 – weekend of 3/28/15.  Come enjoy Baton Rouge before it gets too hot to be fun!  Classroom instruction will take place in the Moates Event Center around the corner from Moates HQ.  Street tuning and dyno instruction will take place on a Mustang dyno in the area.  The exact format of this class will be determined by the abilities and interests of the attendees.  Previously, we have spent a lot of time on general tuning theory, Ford EECIV operation and then hands on work.  This time, all bets are off.  EECV, automatic transmissions and transmission tuning, hands-on forced induction vehicle tuning are all options that will be determined by surveying attendees prior to class.

Cost

Registration for the class will be $350.   You can pay with any of the methods that we accept on the website (Paypal, Credit Card) in advance or pay cash/money order at the door.  If you’re going to pay at the door, we ask that you purchase the class item from our website and select “Check or Money order” at checkout so we can keep an accurate headcount and reserve your spot.  All of the products that are used for the class will be available for purchase at/after the event at a discount for attendees. You can register for the event here.

Class Overview

Dave Blundell, Moates tech support and former tuner at Modular Depot will be the instructor.   Craig Moates, founder and engineer of Moates products will give an in depth overview of hardware.

Registration will be limited to 12 people in order to keep the class manageable and give everyone a chance to get involved and ask questions.  There will be a mixture of classroom instruction, live in-car demonstration of logging techniques with street driving and dyno tuning and techniques.  Forced induction and naturally aspirated modifications and tuning will be covered.  We expect lots of discussion and have built time for this into the class schedule.

Traditonally, primary focus will be on 89-95 (i.e. Fox-body Mustang, 94-95 Mustang) EEC-IV MAF Fords but much of the material will carry to later models also supported by the same hardware and software.  This class is aimed at beginner-intermediate users, but those with literally no experience at all may want to look at some of the material in advance in order to be better prepared.  Likewise, if you have years of experience with Ford EFI tuning and you’re simply looking to get familiar with using our products for the EEC-IV platform, you should already be familiar with some of the material presented.  We cover everything from physical engine operation to air metering methods to Ford implementations with a goal of helping you make targeted tuning changes and not just “button mashing.”  As previously stated – we’re going to let student interest dictate the exact path class takes.

Schedule of Events

Assuming we run this class like previous classes, the following schedule will apply.  If students elect to focus on more advanced topics, we will adjust the schedule accordingly. (And there may be homework prior to class!)  One thing is for certain – we only have three days.

Day 1 (3/27) will focus on general theory of how engines work, how electronic engine management works and general approaches to calibration of engine management systems.  Chances are, if you’ve been tuning cars for five years you probably already know a lot of this stuff but it probably wouldn’t hurt you to sit through it again.  If you’re new to engine management, expect your brain to hurt.  The goal of day one is to help you understand how the many pieces of engines, electronics and sensors that you will be dealing with fit together – the big picture.  Most of this day will NOT deal with Ford specific terms and methods.  At the end of the day, you should have a strong understanding of spark ignition internal combustion engines, how and why engines make power, be able to name and explain the function of sensors likely to be found on a fuel injected engine and understand the conditions needed for achieving specific goals such as fuel economy, power or keeping and engine in one piece.  If you’ve previously worked with other systems of engine management, you might look at what you already know in a new light.

Day 2 (3/28) will focus on early Ford engine management.  If you need to get any software set up and configured, we’ll take care of it on this day.  The morning session will focus on Ford specific terms and procedures for running an engine.  The emphasis will be on the most common and important parameters necessary for adjustment.   Fuel, spark, idle and limits will be covered as well as some of the limitations and pitfalls of using factory computers.  Both forced induction and naturally aspirated setups will be discussed.  After lunch, we will demonstrate setting up Moates hardware and how TunerPro RT and Binary Editor 2012 software can be used to make adjustments necessary for tuning Ford vehicles.   At the end of day two, you will have an understanding of the terms used in Ford EFI, be able to pick out the most important items that you need to change in a calibration when tuning and see how software can be used with Moates tools to tune vehicles.  GUFB (aka 89-93 MAF Fox Body Mustangs) and CBAZA (aka 94-95 Mustangs) will be the focus of this day.

Day 3 (3/29) will focus on hands-on usage of TPRT and BE, acquiring data from street and dyno use, analyzing it, diagnosing issues and making changes to tune your vehicle.  We will be acquiring data on the street and on the dyno and using it to make targeted changes.   This will be putting the theory from previous days together with real vehicles and seeing how to apply our understanding of Ford MAF systems to achieve results.  At the end of day three, you will be able to understand enough of Ford EFI systems and the software available to work with Moates tools to be able to acquire data and make precise changes based on measurements rather than simply “mashing buttons” to get results.

Plan on 8-10 hours of being focused per day.  We’ll typically run on a 9ish-6ish kind of day depending on how things go.  (Local time is Central Standard Time – CST)

There will be lunch, snacks and drinks provided.  At previous classes, we had an optional group dinner afterwards that worked out well.  Some of the best discussion ended up coming up over dinner, so we’ll do that again.

We’ll try to have a good chunk of the curriculum up here on the support site prior to the class for you to review and prepare.  You can also expect emails from us regarding the class and materials, so please make sure we have the correct contact information for you when you register.

Travel Information

There will be a limited number of spots available at the Moates event center where we are having the class.  There is no charge to stay at the event center but space is strictly first-come-first-serve.  Contact us via phone or email to reserve your spot.

Information on regional hotels is available on request.

Other Class Opportunities

Check out the support site for other opportunities to take a class on using Moates products.

Calibrated MAFs are something you are almost guaranteed to run into sooner or later tuning EECIV Fords.  Although largely an artifact of yesteryear when tuning tools were not available, “calibrated” MAFs will work just as well as any other if you understand them.  Few of the websites out there will really give you the information you need to use them effectively in current golden age of EECIV tuning.

How They Work

The factory ECM has a table that tells the computer that it has a certain amount of air when there is a particular MAF voltage.  (i.e. “MAF Transfer Function”)  The computer also has a configuration for a set of injectors. (i.e. “high slope / low slope / breakpoint / offset”)  The factory ECM is going to deliver a certain amount of fuel based on the size of the injectors, MAF transfer and amount of air / voltage coming from the MAF.

So pretend for a moment that the ECM is off limits.  You can’t do anything with the MAF transfer function or any of the internal configuration.  But you need to be able to support a larger engine that makes more power than factory 19# injectors can support.  So you install 24# injectors that flow more fuel.  Paired with a stock MAF, 24# injectors are going to make the car run really rich!  Mass air flow (output from MAF transfer) x injector slopes get’s you pulsewidth, pulsewidth determines fuel flow.  You can’t change anything on the computer in this game, so what do you do to fix fueling?

Enter the calibrated MAF.

Say you start with a system that uses 19# injectors and you have installed 24# injectors.  Your injectors flow roughly (24# / 19#) or 1.26 times too much fuel.  What’s the other side of the fueling equation?  Airflow.  If you can make the MAF output 1.26 times LESS air, the net amount of fuel will be about the same as when you have a factory MAF and factory injectors.  “Calibrated MAFs” diddle with the voltage->airflow output of the MAF in order to try and make a factory ECM provide the correct amount of fueling without needing any of its program being altered.  Essentially, hardware modifications to the sampling tube and electrical tweaks are used to produce a specifically reshaped output to fool the ECM into somewhat behaving.

So What Does This Mean?

There is an unintended consequence to using a “Calibrated MAF” setup.  In addition to being used for fueling, the MAF is also used to calculate timing at part throttle.  Less air means less Load.  Less Load generally means more timing at part throttle.  Fortunately, the WOT timing model of factory fox body cars removes most of the danger inherent with changing Load values without changing the rest of the tune.   It’s an imperfect system, at best.  There are generally errors here and there in the airflow curve.  Hopefully, they’re small enough to be corrected by O2 sensors.  Remember, this whole matching calibrated MAF thing dates to when there weren’t tuning options commonly available.

In the golden age of EECIV tuning ushered in by the QuarterHorse, you can make effective changes to the calibration on the ECM, removing the need for MAFs to be “Calibrated” in hardware.  Instead, the quality of MAF calibration will depend on how closely the values you have programmed in the MAF transfer function match the actual airflow values required to produce given voltages.  Being able to independently change the MAF transfer function and injector configuration using our tools removes the need for the “calibration” to be done in hardware and instead lets you do it in software by tuning the vehicle and modifying its calibration.

Bottom line: when tuning with a QuarterHorse, the flow test or flow sheet from the MAF is 100x more important than the MAF being “calibrated” for whatever injectors are being used.  The MAF and injectors can be independently calibrated in tuning software.

References

C+L on Calibrated MAFs

Need more refs…

We are going to be offering a three-day class on tuning Fords with QuarterHorse in Fall 2014 – Friday September 26 to Sunday September 28th.  This is the same format class previously offered.  Street tuning and dyno instruction will take place on a dyno in the Fairfield, OH (northwest suburb of Cincinnati).

Cost

Registration for the class will be $350.   You can pay with any of the methods that we accept on the website (Paypal, Credit Card) in advance or pay cash/money order at the door.  If you’re going to pay at the door, we ask that you purchase the class item from our website and select “Check or Money order” at checkout so we can keep an accurate headcount and reserve your spot.  All of the products that are used for the class will be available for purchase at/after the event at a discount for attendees. You can register for the event here.

Class Overview

Dave Blundell, Moates tech support and former tuner at Modular Depot will be the instructor.

Registration will be limited to 15 people in order to keep the class manageable and give everyone a chance to get involved and ask questions.  There will be a mixture of classroom instruction, live in-car demonstration of logging techniques with street driving and dyno tuning and techniques.  Forced induction and naturally aspirated modifications and tuning will be covered.  We expect lots of discussion and have built time for this into the class schedule.

Primary focus will be on 89-95 (i.e. Fox-body Mustang, 94-95 Mustang) EEC-IV MAF Fords but much of the material will carry to later models also supported by the same hardware and software. This class is aimed at beginner-intermediate users, but those with literally no experience at all may want to look at some of the material in advance in order to be better prepared.  Likewise, if you have years of experience with Ford EFI tuning and you’re simply looking to get familiar with using our products for the EEC-IV platform, you should already be familiar with some of the material presented.  We cover everything from physical engine operation to air metering methods to Ford implementations with a goal of helping you make targeted tuning changes and not just “button mashing.”

Schedule of Events

Day 1 (9/26) will focus on general theory of how engines work, how electronic engine management works and general approaches to calibration of engine management systems.  Chances are, if you’ve been tuning cars for five years you probably already know a lot of this stuff but it probably wouldn’t hurt you to sit through it again.  If you’re new to engine management, expect your brain to hurt.  The goal of day one is to help you understand how the many pieces of engines, electronics and sensors that you will be dealing with fit together – the big picture.  Most of this day will NOT deal with Ford specific terms and methods.  At the end of the day, you should have a strong understanding of spark ignition internal combustion engines, how and why engines make power, be able to name and explain the function of sensors likely to be found on a fuel injected engine and understand the conditions needed for achieving specific goals such as fuel economy, power or keeping and engine in one piece.  If you’ve previously worked with other systems of engine management, you might look at what you already know in a new light.

Day 2 (9/27) will focus on early Ford engine management.  If you need to get any software set up and configured, we’ll take care of it on this day.  The morning session will focus on Ford specific terms and procedures for running an engine.  The emphasis will be on the most common and important parameters necessary for adjustment.   Fuel, spark, idle and limits will be covered as well as some of the limitations and pitfalls of using factory computers.  Both forced induction and naturally aspirated setups will be discussed.  After lunch, we will demonstrate setting up Moates hardware and how TunerPro RT and Binary Editor 2012 software can be used to make adjustments necessary for tuning Ford vehicles.   At the end of day two, you will have an understanding of the terms used in Ford EFI, be able to pick out the most important items that you need to change in a calibration when tuning and see how software can be used with Moates tools to tune vehicles.  GUFB (aka 89-93 MAF Fox Body Mustangs) and CBAZA (aka 94-95 Mustangs) will be the focus of this day.

Day 3 (9/28) will focus on hands-on usage of TPRT and BE, acquiring data from street and dyno use, analyzing it, diagnosing issues and making changes to tune your vehicle.  We will be acquiring data on the street and on the dyno and using it to make targeted changes.   This will be putting the theory from previous days together with real vehicles and seeing how to apply our understanding of Ford MAF systems to achieve results.  At the end of day three, you will be able to understand enough of Ford EFI systems and the software available to work with Moates tools to be able to acquire data and make precise changes based on measurements rather than simply “mashing buttons” to get results.

Plan on 8-10 hours of being focused per day.  We’ll typically run on a 9ish-6ish kind of day depending on how things go.  (Local time is Eastern Standard Time – EST)

There will be lunch, snacks and drinks provided.  At previous classes, we had an optional group dinner afterwards that worked out well.  Some of the best discussion ended up coming up over dinner, so we’ll probably try to do that again.

We’ll try to have a good chunk of the curriculum up here on the support site prior to the class for you to review and prepare.

Travel Information

The dyno portion of the class will be held at Zerolift Autolab, 100 Security Dr, Fairfield, OH 45014

The classroom portion will be held at Zerolift.

There are many hotels in the area.  The cluster around I275 and S. Gilmore Rd. will probably be best.  See this link for guidance.

The location is approximately 45 minutes drive from Cincinnati/NKY airport (CVG) and approximately an hour from Dayton International Airport.

Other Class Opportunities

Check out the support site for other opportunities to take a class on using Moates products.

We probably get 20 emails a week of the form:

“Dear Moates,

My name is ________ and I have a _________ Ford.  Can I use your products to tune my car/truck/van/etc. ?”

Identifying J3 Port ECMs

Our Ford products (F3 chip module, Quarterhorse) will work on pretty much any ECM that has a J3 port.  This is 95% of 87-2004 vehicles.  Most ECMs have a black plastic protective cover over the J3 port.  The picture below shows what a J3 port looks like with the protective cover removed:

Again, our hardware products will work on any 1, 2, or 4 bank EECIV or EECV ECM that has a J3 port.

Software Support

I bet you thought that was too easy!  It is…

Our HARDWARE works on just about everything Ford ever made with a J3 port,

***BUT software support for Fords is not as guaranteed***

There are three applications that are known to work well with our hardware – TunerPro, EEC Editor and Binary Editor.  Each application supports different vehicles.  Some vehicles are supported by all three, some vehicles are supported by only one, some vehicles are supported by NONE.

We need to know some information about your ECM in order to be able to tell whether there is support for your vehicle.  This information is the “Strategy” (or “operating system”) that your ECM uses, which can usually be determined from the “Box code.”  Your “box code” can normally be found in the center of the label with the barcode where the wire harness connects to the ECM.  See picture below.

Once you have found your box code, you can take a look at the box code-strategy cross reference to determine which strategy your ECM uses.  The list of supported strategies will then tell you which (if any) software supports your ECM.  If you can’t find your ECM, please email [email protected] and remember when you contact us inquiring about vehicle support, please include the “box code” pictured above!  Without this information, we cannot provide you with accurate information about software support.

We are trying out a new class for 2014 – a 3 day class centered around Nissan vehicles using the Nismotronic product.  The class will feature two days of classroom instruction and one day of hands-on dyno instruction.  The class will be held at J-K Tuning in Carlisle, PA May 23-25, 2014.

Cost

SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY RATE for the class will be $250.   You can pay with any of the methods that we accept on the website (Paypal, Credit Card) in advance or pay cash/money order at the door.  If you’re going to pay at the door, we ask that you purchase the class item from our website and select “Check or Money order” at checkout so we can keep an accurate headcount and reserve your spot.  All of the products that are used for the class will be available for purchase at/after the event at a discount for attendees. You can register for the event here.

Class Overview

Dave Blundell (Moates tech support, NEMU hardware engineer, independent tuner) will be the instructor.   Craig Moates (founder and chief engineer at Moates),  John Kerr (lead Nismotronic developer, tuner) and Dave Dunn (TunerCode developer) will be on hand to assist.

Registration will be limited to 15 people in order to keep the class manageable and give everyone a chance to get involved and ask questions.  There will be a mixture of classroom instruction, live in-car demonstration of logging techniques with street driving and dyno tuning and techniques.  Forced induction and naturally aspirated modifications and tuning will be covered.  We expect lots of discussion and have built time for this into the class schedule.

The class will begin with a day of examining engines and engine management concepts and vocabulary in general.  It will continue with an in-depth look at specifics of the 89-93 S13 and B13 Nissan 4 cylinder vehicles which are the target of the Nismotronic product. (i.e. SR20DET and KA24 powered 240SX, SR20DE powered sentras)  The operation of a stock Nissan ECU will be explored in detail as a foundation for understanding the operation of the system.  Both MAF and speed density tuning with Nismotronic will be covered along with differences between tuning Nismotronic and tuning “pure” factory ECUs.

The class will conclude with a hands-on look at tuning of (at least) two example cars, one high-horsepower blow-through-MAF car and one speed density conversion.  Tips, techniques and approaches for using the system to achieve results will be demonstrated on the dyno.

Schedule of Events

Day 1 (TBA) will focus on general theory of how engines work, how electronic engine management works and general approaches to calibration of engine management systems.  Chances are, if you’ve been tuning cars for five years you probably already know a lot of this stuff but it probably wouldn’t hurt you to sit through it again.  If you’re new to engine management, expect your brain to hurt.  The goal of day one is to help you understand how the many pieces of engines, electronics and sensors that you will be dealing with fit together – the big picture.  Most of this day will NOT deal with Nissan specific terms and methods.  At the end of the day, you should have a strong understanding of spark ignition internal combustion engines, how and why engines make power, be able to name and explain the function of sensors likely to be found on a fuel injected engine and understand the conditions needed for achieving specific goals such as fuel economy, power or keeping and engine in one piece.  If you’ve previously worked with other systems of engine management, you might look at what you already know in a new light.  We would really like you to attend this, even if you think you don’t need to.  If you really want to skip it, contact us before hand.

Day 2 (TBA) will begin by focusing on “pure” Nissan engine management.  This is the foundation on which Nismotronic is built.  After lunch break, we will have a Nismotronic install fest to ensure everyone is up and running with the latest version of the software and drivers.  We will continue with a talk-through of the changes in Nismotronic compared to a “pure” Nissan ECU and then continue with a “walk-through” of a previous tune done with the software in order to demonstrate the use of logging and tuning.

Day 3 (TBA) will focus on hands-on usage of Nismotronic.  We will be demonstrating non-trivial tunes with Nismotronic for both MAF and speed-density vehicles.  Datalogging, tuning and incorporating dyno feedback will be a part of the day’s work.  Students will be encouraged to try their hand at making runs, observing data and making targeted changes in order to achieve a result.

Plan on 8-10 hours of being focused per day.  We’ll typically run on a 9ish-6ish kind of day depending on how things go.  (Local time is Eastern Standard Time – EST)

There will be lunch, snacks and drinks provided.  At previous classes, we had an optional group dinner afterwards that worked out well.  Some of the best discussion ended up coming up over dinner, so we’ll probably try to do that again.

We’ll try to have a good chunk of the curriculum up here on the support site prior to the class for you to review and prepare.

Travel Information

Carlisle, PA is home to many car events.  There are numerous Hotels in the area.  We will update this page with some suggestions.

Other Class Opportunities

Check out the support site for other opportunities to take a class on using Moates products.

All electronics will fail with age.  A significant chunk of the failures are due to electrolytic capacitor failure.  These components are virtually guaranteed to fail eventually, even under normal use circumstances.  There are even calculators that can help you estimate how long a given capacitor will last!

So why do manufacturers use these components if they know they will eventually fail?  There really aren’t a lot of good alternatives that have the necessary specifications AND are inexpensive.

Bottom line: all electronic devices that have power supplies generally have electrolytic capacitors that fail.  Ford ECMs are no exception.

A9L Capacitor Replacement

Note: all of these pictures are fairly high res.  If you click them to view the original, you will be able to zoom in for much more detail.

There are three capacitors that typically need replaced in an A9L / Fox Body MAF ECM.

1. First step: Take off all the A9L’s clothes.  Both upper and lower case will need to come off.  These are TORX screws!

   
   

2. Next, locate the capacitors that need to be replaced.
3. 
4. Here is one of the cans, close up:
   

   Even in this extreme close up shot of the base, it is hard to see anything OBVIOUSLY wrong.

   

5. Next step: de-solder the old capacitors.  Like always, we recommend that you use a high-quality de-soldering tool such as the Hakko 808 or a Xytronic 988.  You’ll have a hard time if you try to use a de-soldering braid.  I had to apply a lot of heat and go really slowly in order to achieve solid results.
   Bottom:
   
   Top:
   
6. Next, it’s time to solder in a replacement.
   Bottom:
   
   Top:
   
7. And sometimes when you look a little closer you will see that those caps that looked OK from a distance really had more serious issues…
   
   
8. After you get it out of there, you can see the true mess:
   
   The capacitor really isn’t much better.  It pretty much fell apart being removed.  You can see that it was leaking pretty severely:
   
9. When you have goop on the circuit board, you should clean it up nicely before replacing the cap.  A Q-tip and rubbing alcohol was used here:
   
10. Once everything is cleaned up, solder away with the replacements.  This ECU pictured took about 30-40 minutes to split, de-solder caps, re-solder caps, clean J3 port and re-assemble.

We are going to be offering a three-day class on tuning Fords with QuarterHorse in Fall 2014 – weekend of october 11th.  This is the same format class previously offered.  Classroom instruction will take place at the  Classroom instruction will take place in the Moates Event Center around the corner from Moates HQ.  Street tuning and dyno instruction will take place on a dyno in the area.

Cost

Registration for the class will be $350.   You can pay with any of the methods that we accept on the website (Paypal, Credit Card) in advance or pay cash/money order at the door.  If you’re going to pay at the door, we ask that you purchase the class item from our website and select “Check or Money order” at checkout so we can keep an accurate headcount and reserve your spot.  All of the products that are used for the class will be available for purchase at/after the event at a discount for attendees. You can register for the event here.

Class Overview

Dave Blundell, Moates tech support and former tuner at Modular Depot will be the instructor.   Craig Moates, founder and engineer of Moates products will give an in depth overview of hardware.

Registration will be limited to 12 people in order to keep the class manageable and give everyone a chance to get involved and ask questions.  There will be a mixture of classroom instruction, live in-car demonstration of logging techniques with street driving and dyno tuning and techniques.  Forced induction and naturally aspirated modifications and tuning will be covered.  We expect lots of discussion and have built time for this into the class schedule.

Primary focus will be on 89-95 (i.e. Fox-body Mustang, 94-95 Mustang) EEC-IV MAF Fords but much of the material will carry to later models also supported by the same hardware and software. This class is aimed at beginner-intermediate users, but those with literally no experience at all may want to look at some of the material in advance in order to be better prepared.  Likewise, if you have years of experience with Ford EFI tuning and you’re simply looking to get familiar with using our products for the EEC-IV platform, you should already be familiar with some of the material presented.  We cover everything from physical engine operation to air metering methods to Ford implementations with a goal of helping you make targeted tuning changes and not just “button mashing.”

Schedule of Events

Day 1 (TBA) will focus on general theory of how engines work, how electronic engine management works and general approaches to calibration of engine management systems.  Chances are, if you’ve been tuning cars for five years you probably already know a lot of this stuff but it probably wouldn’t hurt you to sit through it again.  If you’re new to engine management, expect your brain to hurt.  The goal of day one is to help you understand how the many pieces of engines, electronics and sensors that you will be dealing with fit together – the big picture.  Most of this day will NOT deal with Ford specific terms and methods.  At the end of the day, you should have a strong understanding of spark ignition internal combustion engines, how and why engines make power, be able to name and explain the function of sensors likely to be found on a fuel injected engine and understand the conditions needed for achieving specific goals such as fuel economy, power or keeping and engine in one piece.  If you’ve previously worked with other systems of engine management, you might look at what you already know in a new light.

Day 2 (TBA) will focus on early Ford engine management.  If you need to get any software set up and configured, we’ll take care of it on this day.  The morning session will focus on Ford specific terms and procedures for running an engine.  The emphasis will be on the most common and important parameters necessary for adjustment.   Fuel, spark, idle and limits will be covered as well as some of the limitations and pitfalls of using factory computers.  Both forced induction and naturally aspirated setups will be discussed.  After lunch, we will demonstrate setting up Moates hardware and how TunerPro RT and Binary Editor 2012 software can be used to make adjustments necessary for tuning Ford vehicles.   At the end of day two, you will have an understanding of the terms used in Ford EFI, be able to pick out the most important items that you need to change in a calibration when tuning and see how software can be used with Moates tools to tune vehicles.  GUFB (aka 89-93 MAF Fox Body Mustangs) and CBAZA (aka 94-95 Mustangs) will be the focus of this day.

Day 3 (TBA) will focus on hands-on usage of TPRT and BE, acquiring data from street and dyno use, analyzing it, diagnosing issues and making changes to tune your vehicle.  We will be acquiring data on the street and on the dyno and using it to make targeted changes.   This will be putting the theory from previous days together with real vehicles and seeing how to apply our understanding of Ford MAF systems to achieve results.  At the end of day three, you will be able to understand enough of Ford EFI systems and the software available to work with Moates tools to be able to acquire data and make precise changes based on measurements rather than simply “mashing buttons” to get results.

Plan on 8-10 hours of being focused per day.  We’ll typically run on a 9ish-6ish kind of day depending on how things go.  (Local time is Central Standard Time – CST)

There will be lunch, snacks and drinks provided.  At previous classes, we had an optional group dinner afterwards that worked out well.  Some of the best discussion ended up coming up over dinner, so we’ll probably try to do that again.

We’ll try to have a good chunk of the curriculum up here on the support site prior to the class for you to review and prepare.

Travel Information

There will be a limited number of spots available at the Moates event center where we are having the class.  Information on regional hotels is available on request.

Other Class Opportunities

Check out the support site for other opportunities to take a class on using Moates products.

We are going to be offering a class on tuning Fords with QuarterHorse November 15th, 16th and 17th in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.   There will be a mixture of classroom instruction, live in-car demonstration of logging techniques with street driving and dyno tuning and techniques.  Classroom instruction will take place in the Moates Event Center around the corner from Moates HQ.  Street tuning and dyno instruction will take place on a rented dynojet in the area.  Dave Blundell, Moates tech support and former tuner at several Midwest speed shops will be the instructor.   Registration will be limited to 12 people in order to keep the class manageable.

Cost

Registration for the class will be $250.   You can pay with any of the methods that we accept on the website (Paypal, Credit Card) in advance or pay cash/money order at the door.  If you’re going to pay at the door, we ask that you purchase the class item from our website and select “Check or Money order” at checkout so we can keep an accurate headcount.  All of the products that are used for the class will be available for purchase at/after the event.

You can register for the event here.

Schedule of Events

Day 1 (Friday November 15) will focus on general theory of how engines work, how electronic engine management works and general approaches to calibration of engine management systems.  Chances are, if you’ve been tuning cars for five years you probably already know a lot of this stuff but it probably wouldn’t hurt you to sit through it again.  If you’re new to engine management, expect your brain to hurt.  The goal of day one is to help you understand how the many pieces of engines, electronics and sensors that you will be dealing with fit together – the big picture.  Most of this day will NOT deal with Ford specific terms and methods.  At the end of the day, you should have a strong understanding of spark ignition internal combustion engines, how and why engines make power, be able to name and explain the function of sensors likely to be found on a fuel injected engine and understand the conditions needed for achieving specific goals such as fuel economy, power or keeping and engine in one piece.  If you’ve previously worked with other systems of engine management, you might look at what you already know in a new light.

Day 2 (Saturday November 16) will focus on early Ford engine management.  The morning session will focus on Ford specific terms and procedures for running an engine.  The emphasis will be on the most common and important parameters necessary for adjustment.   Fuel, spark, idle and limits will be covered as well as some of the limitations and pitfalls of using factory computers.  Both forced induction and naturally aspirated setups will be discussed.  After lunch, we will demonstrate setting up Moates hardware and how TunerPro RT and Binary Editor 2012 software can be used to make adjustments necessary for tuning Ford vehicles.   At the end of day two, you will have an understanding of the terms used in Ford EFI, be able to pick out the most important items that you need to change in a calibration when tuning and see how software can be used with Moates tools to tune vehicles.  GUFB (aka 89-93 MAF Fox Body Mustangs) and CBAZA (aka 94-95 Mustangs) will be the focus of this day.

Day 3 (Sunday November 17) will focus on hands-on usage of TPRT and BE, acquiring data from street and dyno use, analyzing it, diagnosing issues and making changes to tune your vehicle.  We will be acquiring data on the street and on the dyno and using it to make targeted changes.   This will be putting the theory from previous days together with real vehicles and seeing how to apply our understanding of Ford MAF systems to achieve results.  At the end of day three, you will be able to understand enough of Ford EFI systems and the software available to work with Moates tools to be able to acquire data and make precise changes based on measurements rather than simply “mashing buttons” to get results.

Plan on 8-10 hours of being focused per day.  We’ll typically run on a 9ish-6ish kind of day depending on how things go.  (Baton Rouge is in Central Time – CST)

There will be snacks and drinks provided. Previously, we had optional group dinner afterwards that worked out well so we’ll probably try to do that again.

We’ll try to have a good chunk of the curriculum up on the support site prior to the class for you to review and prepare.

Travel Information

There are a limited number of beds in the Moates event center available for FREE.  If you’re interested in staying where we’re having the class, put a note in the ‘Comments’ field when you sign up for the class.  These spaces will go on a first-come first-serve basis.  Additional space is available at area hotels.  Send us an email if you need a recommendation on hotels.

Other Class Opportunities

Check out the support site for other opportunities to take a class on using Moates products.  This class will also be offered in October in Cincinnati, Ohio.

We are going to be offering a class on tuning Fords with QuarterHorse October 25th, 26th and 27th in Milford, Ohio (East side of Cincinnati).  There will be a mixture of classroom instruction, live in-car demonstration of logging techniques with street driving and dyno tuning and techniques.  Classroom instruction will take place in the conference room of the Homewood Suites by Hilton Hotel.  Street tuning and dyno instruction will take place on the Dynojet 224 dyno of Easy Street, which is literally across the street from the hotel.  Dave Blundell, Moates tech support and former tuner at Modular Depot and Easy Street will be the instructor.   Registration will be limited to 15 people in order to keep the class manageable.

Cost

Registration for the class will be $250.   You can pay with any of the methods that we accept on the website (Paypal, Credit Card) in advance or pay cash/money order at the door.  If you’re going to pay at the door, we ask that you purchase the class item from our website and select “Check or Money order” at checkout so we can keep an accurate headcount.  All of the products that are used for the class will be available for purchase at/after the event.

You can register for the event here.

Schedule of Events

Day 1 (Friday 10/25) will focus on general theory of how engines work, how electronic engine management works and general approaches to calibration of engine management systems.  Chances are, if you’ve been tuning cars for five years you probably already know a lot of this stuff but it probably wouldn’t hurt you to sit through it again.  If you’re new to engine management, expect your brain to hurt.  The goal of day one is to help you understand how the many pieces of engines, electronics and sensors that you will be dealing with fit together – the big picture.  Most of this day will NOT deal with Ford specific terms and methods.  At the end of the day, you should have a strong understanding of spark ignition internal combustion engines, how and why engines make power, be able to name and explain the function of sensors likely to be found on a fuel injected engine and understand the conditions needed for achieving specific goals such as fuel economy, power or keeping and engine in one piece.  If you’ve previously worked with other systems of engine management, you might look at what you already know in a new light.

Day 2 (Saturday 10/26) will focus on early Ford engine management.  The morning session will focus on Ford specific terms and procedures for running an engine.  The emphasis will be on the most common and important parameters necessary for adjustment.   Fuel, spark, idle and limits will be covered as well as some of the limitations and pitfalls of using factory computers.  Both forced induction and naturally aspirated setups will be discussed.  After lunch, we will demonstrate setting up Moates hardware and how TunerPro RT and Binary Editor 2012 software can be used to make adjustments necessary for tuning Ford vehicles.   At the end of day two, you will have an understanding of the terms used in Ford EFI, be able to pick out the most important items that you need to change in a calibration when tuning and see how software can be used with Moates tools to tune vehicles.  GUFB (aka 89-93 MAF Fox Body Mustangs) and CBAZA (aka 94-95 Mustangs) will be the focus of this day.

Day 3 (Sunday 10/27) will focus on hands-on usage of TPRT and BE, acquiring data from street and dyno use, analyzing it, diagnosing issues and making changes to tune your vehicle.  We will be acquiring data on the street and on the Dynojet 224 dyno at Easy Street and using it to make targeted changes.   This will be putting the theory from previous days together with real vehicles and seeing how to apply our understanding of Ford MAF systems to achieve results.  At the end of day three, you will be able to understand enough of Ford EFI systems and the software available to work with Moates tools to be able to acquire data and make precise changes based on measurements rather than simply “mashing buttons” to get results.

Plan on 8-10 hours of being focused per day.  We’ll typically run on a 9ish-6ish kind of day depending on how things go. (Cincinnati is on Eastern Time, EST)

There will be snacks and drinks provided.  There are also numerous restaurants within walking/short drive distance of the facilities we will be at.  At the last class, we had optional group dinner afterwards that worked out well so we’ll probably try to do that again.

We’ll try to have a good chunk of the curriculum up on the support site prior to the class for you to review and prepare.

Travel Information

There will be ten rooms reserved and a group rate ($109/night for room with one queen + pull out couch + mini kitchen) at the hotel where the presentations will be held until 9/26 (one month prior).  Mention the Moates tuning class to get the special rate.  There are lots of other places to stay in the area – if you have any trouble contact us.

Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky (CVG) airport is about 30 minute drive.  Dayton International (DAY) is right around an hour drive.  Columbus International (CMH) is about an hour forty minute drive.  There is adequate parking at the hotel and the shop across the street where we will be using the dyno.

Other Class Opportunities

Check out the support site for other opportunities to take a class on using Moates products.  This class will also be offered in Louisiana in November/December.

The rise of electronic engine management allows for the running conditions of an engine to be rapidly and precisely adjusted.  Before we talk about anything super technical, it’s worth examining some really basic stuff like, “why should we bother tuning a car in the first place?”  “What can we reasonably hope to accomplish?”

Sometimes we start with an engine that’s running acceptably but we want to slightly change how it operates to achieve our goals.  Sometimes we start with an engine that doesn’t run at all because it is so different from the original system that was running that we have to tune it for it to run acceptably.  Regardless of whether adjustments are made out of necessity or desire, the answer to this “why bother” question is simple: in a word, it is OPTIMIZATION.  Tuning allows us to make the most out of the engine that we have.

What Tuning ISN’T

Tuning cars is often very misunderstood, especially by people who do not do it.  There is no magic involved.  You cannot wave a magic wand and violate the laws of physics in the name of making horsepower.  You are dealing with a computer system that responds to sensors in a predictable way.

There is one golden rule (which I think has its origins in a completely different realm) which applies here:

Garbage In, Garbage Out.

As a tuner, you can only work with what you are given.   This may seem so obvious that it is a waste of time to even say it.  Trust me.  It isn’t.  It’s critical.  And at some point if you mess around with tuning vehicles long enough, you will get so focused on the knobs and buttons available to turn on your computer that you will forget about the mechanical system you are controlling.

• Changing a computer program can’t fix mechanical issues.
• Changing a computer program can’t fix electrical issues.
• Changing a computer program can’t make more air enter an engine than it can mechanically pump
• Changing a computer program can’t make more fuel flow through pumps/injectors than they can mechanically pump
• Bottom line: You can’t make pigs fly by pushing buttons.  The physical motor you are working with will define what you do on the computer.

Tuning Possibilities

So if we are inherently limited by the physical engine that we are dealing with, what CAN we typically accomplish with tuning?

Typically, we can:

• Increase power / torque output of the engine
• Increase efficiency / decrease fuel consumption
• Decrease noxious emissions (Carbon Dioxide/CO2, hydrocarbons/HC, Carbon Monoxide/CO, Nitrous oxide/N2O, Nitrogen Oxides/NOx)
• Control NVH (Noise – Vibration – Harshness)
• Decrease stress on mechanical components / prevent damage to mechanical components
• Many of these goals require different operating conditions making it impossible to do all of them at once! 

Conclusion

Tuning isn’t magic.  Modifying electronic engine control systems lets you get the most out of the physical system that you’re working with.  Through tuning, you can choose how to operate an engine in order to achieve the goals that are most important to you, making the compromises you want to make.  The goal of this course is going to be to teach you to use a calculator/simple math and data logging combined with an understanding of underlying processes to make targeted and appropriate changes in order to achieve the operating conditions you desire for your engine.

The material in this course represents *hours* (think: whole day+) worth of classroom lecture and discussion. Be prepared to spend an extended period of time reading through it and processing it. When you’re done, you’ll arguably be better prepared to tackle tuning than half the shops that practice on your car.

Enjoy!

(More will be coming soon as time permits.)

The quality of the facility, students, participants, and support staff all worked together to yield a ‘class act’ of a weekend!

We all had a great time, and everyone learned something. Group discussions, generous facilities, and a rich diversity of participants all contributed to the weekend’s success.

We will update this page with additional presentation material, video content, feedback, and review as it is prepared, but for now, here are some photos of the group going through the paces of teaching and learning.

Dave getting ready to do some ‘airport departure’ tuning.

Group trying to decide who messed with the lap timer and who ‘actually’ won.

Mark & Michael in the back row.

Steve using the coffee makers as props while explaining LWFM methods.

Dave bending the J3 port to his will.

You asked, we deliver!  This tutorial is going to picture the BURN2 but it applies equally to the BURN1 and APU1/AutoPROM as well.

Step by step:

1. Get out your burner and a chip.
   
   Our burners will work with the AT29C256, SST27SF512, AM29F040 and F3/F3v2 chips we sell.
   Our burners will NOT program 27C32, 27C128, 27C256, 27C512 chips but it will read them.
2. Plug the burner in to your laptop’s USB port.
3. Install the chip per directions printed on the burner – the unused pins should be closest to the metal handle.  The divet on the chip used to mark pin 1 should also face the metal handle.
   
4. Fire up our Flash n Burn software.  (If you do not have Flash n Burn, see here to download it)
5. Assuming that your drivers are loaded and your hardware is working, you should see this screen after the software loads:
   
   If instead you see something like this:
   
   “No Hardware Found” means that you should see the BURN2 troubleshooting guide,
6. Next, select the chip type from the list in the upper left hand corner. ( 28 pin = SST27SF512 *OR* Jaybird/BURN2+FA with F3 chip = J3 Ford Adapter)
   
7. Chips need to be be blank before you program them.  Click “Erase Chip” and then “Blank Check”  This will erase the chip and then perform a check to see if it is blank.  If it succeeds, you should see this:
   
   
   If you see this instead:
   
   Try another chip.  If your burner fails to erase several different chips, you probably have fake chips.  If you are sure your chips are not fake, contact us for further assistance.
8. At this point, you have a blank chip correctly inserted in your burner with the correct chip type selected.  The next step is to load the file you want to program to the chip.  To do this, click “Load File to buffer” and then point it at the file on your PC that you want to program.
   
9. Double check addressing settings.  (This can be tricky – there is a whole article on it to help you.)  In most cases, the software will automatically set these for you.  These settings are important because most of the chips used in ECUs are a smaller capacity than the chip you are programming.  You need to make sure the program you put in the chip ends up in the top (end) of the chip, so these settings matter.  A short list of chip addressing settings:
   • 64k bin: 000000 start 00FFFF end ( SST27SF512 chip )
   • 32k bin: 008000 start 00FFFF end ( SST27SF512 chip )
   • 16k bin: 00C000 start 00FFFF end ( SST27SF512 chip )
   • 4k bin: 00F000 start 00FFFF end ( SST27SF512 chip )
   • 56k Ford EECIV bin: 032000 start 03FFFF end ( Ford F3 chip )
   • 256k Ford EECV bin: 000000 start 03FFFF end ( Ford F3 chip )
   • 112k Ford EECV bin: SPECIAL need other software ( Ford F3 chip )
   • 216k Ford EECV bin: SPECIAL need other software ( Ford F3 chip )
   • BEB files CANNOT be programmed with FnB / TP.  Must program using Binary Editor
   • eBIN file CANNOT be programmed with FnB / TP.  Must program using EEC Editor.

   
   

10. Click “Program Chip”  You should see a progress bar march across and then the software report “PROM I/O succeeded.”
    
11. Now click “Verify Chip w/ Buffer”  This will read the contents of the chip back and check them against the program you have loaded in the buffer.  If this test passes, you can be confident that the chip was programmed correctly.
    
    You should see: “SUCCESS:Verification Succeeded” as the message reported back.  If you see this, you are DONE and the chip is programmed correctly!

    If instead you see “FAILURE: Verification Failed (not matched)” you will need to do some troubleshooting:
    

• Check and make sure the chip is inserted firmly in the socket. Remove it and re-insert it to be safe.
• Re-erase and blank check it. If it passes a blank check, try programming it again.
• If it fails the blank check, try another chip.  Failing blank checks is a common sign of fake chips.
• Try another chip purchased from us, xenocron.com, poweraddersolutions.com or another known legitimate source.
• If you’re still having trouble, contact us.

The hardware portion of the NEMU tuning package requires installation in an ECU to be functional.  This install is NOT for beginners, although it is not extremely difficult with the correct tools.  This article will walk you through the install from start to finish with lots of pictures along the way.  If you still have any questions about the install after reading this, please contact us via email.

Tools

We are going to use the following tools:

• Cordless screw gun / drill (recommended) or Phillips screwdriver (required)
• De-soldering tool with vacuum source (required)
• Hot-air pencil (recommended)
• Soldering iron with relatively fine point (required)
• Extremely fine tipped tweezers (recommended)
• Pick or extremely small flat head screwdriver (recommended)
• Wire cutters (recommended)
• Wire strippers (recommended)
• Heavy duty snips/cutters, small hacksaw, dremel (recommended)

Procedure

1. Remove both the top and bottom case from the ECU.   You will want to have the ECU on a flat surface so you can apply a LOT of downward pressure before you start to turn the screw.  Nissan ECU screws have some kind of threadlocker on them from the factory and it is VERY easy to strip and/or break them.  We highly recommend the use of a screw gun like the one pictured here.
2. Find the 20×2 connector where NEMU will attach.  Use your De-soldering Iron to cleanly remove the solder from all 20 holes.  Be careful to not overheat the circuit board and burn up a trace.  ( Click herefor a video of a professional using high quality tools to effectively de-solder components.)
   

   Cleanly desolder all contacts of 20x2 header

3. Remove the 20×2 pin header connector and provided solder from the bag included in your NEMU kit.  Push the pin header through the 20×2 holes in the PCB you just de-soldered.  Make sure the alignment keyway faces INWARDS.
   

   Keyway faces inwards!

4. Use your soldering iron and the included length of solder to solder all pin connections.
   

   20x2 header, soldered

   Be careful not to use too much heat, too little heat, too much solder or too little solder.   Click Here for a video of a professional using high quality tools to effectively solder.  Davy Jones’ EEVblog also has a great series of video tutuorials on soldering.  (Part1Part2Part3)

5. Look at the bottom of the ECU.  Find the surface mount jumper labelled CJ1.  Use your hot air pencil and tweezers to remove and grab it.
   

   Remove J1

   If you don’t have hot air, you can CAREFULLY use a soldering iron placed parallel to the jumper to melt its solder connections while applying GENTLE pressure to free it from the PCB.

6. Use your tweezers and soldering iron to re-solder the jumper in CJ2 position instead of CJ1 where it was originally installed.  This enables the 20×2 port instead of stock ECU operation.  If you lose or damage the jumper removing it, you can use a small piece of wire or even a solder bridge.
   

   Solder CJ2 into place

7. Take your NEMU circuit board out of its protective anti-static bag and gently install it in the shrouded 20×2 pin header that you have just installed.  This is just a temporary install for fitment purposes – you do not need to fully seat the NEMU at this time.  Treat it carefully.
8. Now find the 4 pin connector with 4- 6″ wires hanging out of it.
   

   4 pin connector with wires

9. For the sake of tidiness, trim off the black wire as it is not used. (This is not REQUIRED but recommended)
   

   Datalogging header, ready to install with 3 wires

   Note: the position NOT the color of the wire is important.  If your pigtail has a different color wires, pay attention and pick the wire in the same spot in the connector.

10. Each of the three remaining wires needs to be soldered to a pin on the blue ECU connector.  The wires provided are much longer than they need to be.  We are going to trim the wires so they are closer to the length necessary.  Plug the 4 pin connector into the NEMU board and then move the three wires to the center of the blue connector for sizing purposes.
    

    Measure...

11. Make a cut right by the blue ECU connector to get started.  You’ll find that having wires that are almost the right size makes them a lot easier to handle.
    

    and cut!

12. The red wire is going to get soldered to the ‘top’ pin closest to the center divider on the left side.  Cut it closer to size.  Remember, it’s a lot easier to cut it shorter again than it is to have to solder two wires together to lengthen it!  If in doubt, leave it longer.  Repeat the sizing procedure for the yellow and orange wires.  They will go to the top and bottom pins closest to the center divider on the right side.  See the following picture of how things will look when they’re done: (The colors look a little funny because of lighting – red on left, orange center lower, brown center upper)
13. After you have sized all 3 wires, gently squeeze the black locking tab on the connector to remove the 4 pin datalogging connector from the NEMU board.  You’ll find the rest of this procedure is a lot easier with the freedom to move around.
14. Strip about 1/4″ to 1/2″ of insulation off the end of each wire with a pair of wire strippers.
15. Using the soldering iron, warm up the strands of each exposed metal wire for a few seconds.  After you’ve warmed them up, gently touch some solder to the wire itself NOT the soldering iron.  When it is hot enough, the wire will wick up the solder.  (this is called tinning the wire.  You can see a pro demonstrate here or here )  You just need a little bit of solder – don’t goop it.  Having the wires tinned will make it much easier to attach them to ECU pins.
16. I prefer to start with the most difficult wire to solder so there aren’t other wires in the way – I personally think this is the lower connection on the right side, with the orange wire.  Before trying to solder this connection, we are going to bend the tinned end into a ‘U’ shape so that it will “hook” on the pin.
17. Trim the wire so it is quite short.  You don’t need much of a hook for this technique to work effectively.
18. Hook the orange wire on the lower pin on the right side.  You may find it is helpful to squeeze or even wrap the tinned end of the wire around the pin so that it will stay on the pin without you actually holding it.  Apply heat to BOTH the ECU pin and wire with your soldering iron for at least 3-5 seconds and then apply solder to the area where the pin and wire are touching, NOT the soldering iron tip itself.  This is a little tricky, but hopefully you should get something that looks like this:
    

    orange (rightmost) wire soldered

19. If you like the hook-and-wrap method, you can use it for the remaining two wires.  I’m going to demonstrate a different method that works equally well, especially because we can reach the pins easier.  Let’s grab the red wire next.  Keep the tinned end straight but trim it so it is a similar size to the pin you are going to be soldering it to.
20. Bring the trimmed red wire to the pin.  Lay it on top of the pin so that they’re on top of each other.  Apply heat to BOTH the wire and the pin for at least 3-5 seconds, usually by placing the tip of the iron on one side of the pair where it makes equal contact with both the wire and the pin.  Then apply solder where the two are touching, NOT to the soldering iron itself – this is usually done to the opposite side that the iron is touching.  This is a little tricky, but hopefully you’ll end up with something that looks like this:
    

    solid solder connection on red (2nd from right) wire

21. Repeat the previous two steps for the brown wire, which attaches to the pin above the orange wire to the right of the center divider.  After this, you should have all three wires attached like so: (The colors look a little funny because of lighting – red on left, orange center lower, brown center upper)
22. Next, we need to modify the case to give the USB cable room to exit.  I used the oval area near where you normally look at the LED to check codes.  I cut the metal case with a large pair of diagonal cutters.
23. Now would be a good time to firmly install your NEMU board in the 20×2 header and connect the 4 pin black datalogging connector with wires soldered to ECU pins.
24. Connect the miniUSB->bulkhead cable in your kit to your NEMU board.  For extra safety (i.e. leaving your laptop plugged in and walking off) I generally tie a pretzel knot in the cable immediately before it exits the ECU case so that the knot will absorb any yank or pull.  Use the supplied zip tie to securely attach the USB cable to the case of the ECU.  Once you’ve done this, trim the zip tie for tidiness.
25. If you’re going to be using the extra analog inputs offered by NEMU, repeat the last step with the AuxBox cable.  This cable has a ethernet/phone jack looking RJ45 connector on one end and a small black plastic box on the other.
26. Re-install the case on the ECU.
27. Go to www.nismotronic.com for the lastest software download.
28. Enjoy your product!

One of the most common modifications that require recalibration of the ECM are changing injectors and changing Mass Air Flow (MAF) sensors.

For the rest of this article, we’re going to assume that you’ve already read the articles explaining basic MAF operation and a model for injectors.  We’re going to discuss how to properly change the tune to compensate for new fuel injectors.

You should also take a look at the article on MAF Calibration as they often go hand in hand.

About Injectors on Ford ECMs

Ford uses the concept of injector slopes, breakpoints and battery voltage latency adjustment to cover the behavior of injectors.   Slopes represent the flow of the injector at high and low pulsewidths.  Breakpoints determine the pulsewidth required to switch from the low slop to the high slope.  Returnless fuel system cars add additional compensation tables related to fuel rail pressure.  When changing injectors, it is best to have a complete set of test data.  If you have good data, the amount of tuning required after inputting full injector data can be extremely minimal – think minutes versus hours with unknown injectors.

• In many cases, injectors purchased from Ford Racing will include all of this information.
• If you’re using a larger OEM injector (Cobra, Lightning, etc.) you can generally obtain valid data from the OEM calibration in which the injectors were used.  Some Ford vehicles which use desirable injectors:
  • 2014 GT500 52# Bosch EV14 (sold by Ford Racing who publish data)
  • 08 GT500 SXH1 48# Bosch EV14 (sold by Ford Racing who publish data)
  • 03 Harley Truck data i.e. EKO2 processor code is recommended by Decipha for 42# “green tops” (formerly sold by Ford racing.  warning: currently heavily counterfeited)
  • 03 Cobra AMZ2 for 39# “blue body” (warning: unusual spray pattern may cause issues with 2V / pushrod cylinder heads)
  • 05-10 Mustang GT CDC3 24# (sold by Ford Racing who publish data)
  • 97/98 Cobra AOL1 or AOL3 24#
  • 94-95 Cobra 24# injector data is NOT recommended.  Look at it sometime and see if you can figure out why.
• If you don’t have complete test data, you can make do.  You will need a wideband.  Recommended procedure:
  1. The rest of this procedure assumes you have a SOMEWHAT sane MAF transfer function.  If your MAF transfer is jacked, you may need to adjust, retune MAF then readjust a few times to get things properly aligned.
  2. Start with the data of the injector closest in size and design to the one you are using (slopes, inj latency, etc.).  If you can’t get any good data on other injectors, then your stock ones will do.  We will call this the “old” injector.
  3. Figure out what the injectors you are installing are rated for (i.e. 24#).  Remember the size of you old injectors (i.e. 19#).  Divide your NEW rated flow by your OLD rated flow.  Make sure your injectors are rated at the same pressure.  24/19 = 1.26 in this case
  4. Multiply both the LOW SLOPE and HIGH SLOPE by the value from above, in this case 1.26.
  5. Set your target AFRs / Open loop targets to a a UNIFORM value.  (i.e. 12.5 for a NA car)
  6. Do a WOT pass on the car.  Observe AFR.  Adjust BOTH high and low slope until actual AFRs resemble the target AFRs you have set up in your tune.
  7. Repeat #6 until the car is as close as possible to what you are commanding.
  8. Let the car idle.  Turn off closed loop if necessary.  Observe AFRs.   Adjust latency (battery voltage table) so that observed AFR is close to commanded AFR.
  9. Drive the car at low – light throttle.  Hopefully, Observed AFRs will be close to commanded AFRs.  If so, skip ahead to #11
  10. If observed AFRs differ significantly from targeted at part throttle, determine how badly they are off.  If they’re really far off, re-adjust in order to get things as close as you can.  After this, make SELECTIVE adjustments to the MAF transfer function at idle in order to achieve targets at idle while maintaining proper operation at light throttle.
  11. Once you have a preliminary set of slopes, latency values it is time to tune battery voltage tables.  First, observe battery voltage and AFR while IDLING.  At idle, the injectors are open the smallest amount of time so changes from battery voltage have the largest effect.
  12. Next turn on headlights, blower motors, brake lights, EVERYTHING you possibly can to put an electrical load on the motor.  Observe changes in battery voltage and AFR.  Make adjustments to the injector battery table in order to compensate for fluctuations.  I.e. if the car goes lean when you turn on the headlights, INCREASE the latency value at the voltage that the ECM reports with the lights on.
  13. Once you have the engine operating in a more consistent AFR range under electrical loan, rev the motor up and make sure that you don’t go too rich when battery voltage increases as a sanity check.
  14. At this point, you’ve probably done a more thorough injector calibration than most tuners will.

This article is being written to answer the most basic questions about what to shoot for when tuning an engine.  This is not intended to be absolutely what you must do – it’s intended to be a starting point for those who don’t know any better.

Prerequisitites

This article will assume you have read pretty much all of the Education section, particularly the article on Modes of Operation.  This article will assume you have a spark-ignition reciprocating piston 4-cycle (stroke) throttle-body fuel injected or multi-port fuel injected engine.  (If you aren’t familiar with these terms, click them!)

Basic Setup Guidelines

• Make sure the ignition system is in good shape before trying to tune a vehicle.  Coil(s), wires, and spark plugs themselves must be in good condition.  Fouled plugs will ruin your day.  Improper heat range or gap will cause ignition issues that will ruin your day.  A rule of thumb is to go one step colder on plugs for every point of compression (i.e. 9.0 -> 10.0) OR half atmosphere of boost (7.75 psi)  and decrease the gap by one third (i.e. 0.045″ stock to 0.030″) for every step colder plug.
• Make sure timing is correct.  “Timing” here means BOTH the mechanical connection between your crank and camshaft AND any adjustment of distribtor, CAS, etc. used to mechanically adjust ignition timing.
• As dumb/obvious as this may sound, you cannot make adjustments on an ECU to fix a mechanical problem. Things like bent valves, damaged pistons, dead coils, defective injectors,  bad sensors, incorrect mechanical timing, etc. are not things that you can fix with a computer.
• If the engine is operating in closed loop operation, it’s fueling behavior will be determined by the operation of the O2 sensor.  DO NOT TRY TO FIGHT THE O2 SENSOR.  Use the O2 sensor to guide your tuning activity i.e. try to get the ECM to make zero changes based on O2 sensor feedback
• Do not try to tune WOT using a narrowband (lambda) style O2 sensor, which is the most common type.
• O2 sensors can “lie” about the mixture.  LARGE camshafts and misfires are the most common culprits for this behavior because Oxygen sensors measure the Oxygen content of the mixture in order to infer lambda.   Large camshafts and misfires both cause “extra” oxygen to be present in the exhaust, which will cause a false lean reading.  If the ECM is operating in closed loop when this occurs, it will generally add fuel when no such trim is required.
• If closed loop O2 feedback is working against you, turn it off.  If you have closed loop feedback turned off, you should monitor conditions with a wideband.

• If you are dealing with a volumetric efficiency type system (i.e. TBI/TPI GM and others) it is a good idea to have your VE values resemble reality.  I.e. if you have 180% volumetric efficiency at idle to achieve stoich, this is bad.  Most “hot” naturally aspirated engines will achieve 85-95% VE, *in a narrow RPM range at WOT*  Some older engines with poor cylinder heads and manifolds will struggle to achieve a 80% VE.  Extremely modern engines will often see a peak VE close to 100% in places.  Motors almost always lose VE at low throttle angles/low MAP sensor readings due to pumping losses created by the restriction at the throttle body.  See the Speed Density article for more.
• If you are dealing with a Ford that uses Load, it is a good idea to make sure your injector size resembles reality so your MAF transfer function and calibrated load values will resemble reality.  The MAF and LWFM articles cover this as well.
• Looking at  a graphical representation of your tune should be a “pretty picture” not a bunch of noise.  Things aren’t going to be straight or perfectly smooth most of the time or you wouldn’t be tuning it but you should see trends.  It does not matter whether you are talking about a MAF or speed density or Alpha-N setup.  You should see clear trends.  The absence of trends or unexpected reversal of trends can often indicate a mechanical issue such as a fuel pump that has reached its maximum flow capacity, misfires, reversion, etc.
• For measuring power, your butt dyno is wrong.  Use a repeatable performance measure, i.e. dyno, accelerometer, 1/4 mile track, etc.
• Use all your senses particularly SOUND when tuning.

Basic Fueling Guidelines

• Best emissions are generally achieved close or at stoichiometric.  This is generally around 14.7 AFR gasoline, or 1.0 lambda.
• Best fuel economy is generally achieved between 15.5:1 AFR gasoline (1.05 lambda) and 16.2:1 (1.1 lambda) for port injected engines.  Newer cylinder heads with fast burn characteristics generally do better with leaner mixtues.  TBI setups generally need to run at least stoichiometric or richer.
• Best power is usually achieved around 0.85 lambda (12.5:1 AFR gasoline) on modern cylinder heads.  Older heads generally require richer mixtures.
• Forced induction engines run richer, mostly to combat knock.  How much richer will depend on the engine and conditions.  Except in rare cases, there is no benefit to ever running richer than 0.75 lambda (11:1 AFR gasoline)
• Oxygenated fuels (Q16, E85, E98/Ethanol, Methanol, Nitromethane) require substantially larger volumes of fuel than “regular” gasoline.  If you have an option for stoichiometric ratio, use it.  If not, it is generally preferable to use injector constants / base pulse width modifiers instead of MAF transfer/VE to tune this out.
• Almost all widebands on the market read in lambda but convert this to an AFR value for gasoline (where 14.7 AFR = 1.0 lambda) to display it.  If you are burning hexane, this is fine.   If you are running any other fuel, think of the desired lambda you wish to achieve and convert this lambda value to AFR gasoline.  I.e. target an AFR of “11.2 :1” to achieve a lambda of 0.77 with E85 at ~7.4 :1 AFR.
• Most pump gasoline as of 2012 in the US is at least 10% ethanol, which means that a true stoichiometric mixture is closer to 14.1 than 14.7.
• Summer and Winter gasoline blends can have dramatically different ethanol contents, especially in colder climates.  Different octanes and brands of gasoline can have a large variation.  Although somewhat outdated, see the gasoline faq for a more in depth discussion of fuel composition and why it matters.
• If you are tuning the vehicle with closed loop O2 feedback disabled, make sure you tune such that the ECM will not have to make big changes to achieve its targets when closed loop is turned on.  This boils down to shooting for around 14.7 AFR (1.0 lambda) in areas where closed loop will operate.
• Get AFRs around idle as smooth as possible in open loop without any feedback or idle troubles will happen.  Do not rely on closed loop to maintain fueling at idle.

Basic Ignition Guidelines

• Your ECU expects the distributor/CAS/other-adjustable-timing-thing to be in a certain spot.  ALWAYS SYNCHRONIZE YOUR TIMING WITH A TIMING LIGHT BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE!@#!#!!!

• Mechanical factors (mostly combustion chamber volume, shape and design) are the primary factors determining optimal timing requirements.  Optimal timing is often referred to as “MBT” or Mean Best Timing.
• Most naturally aspirated engines like to run between 24 and 36 degrees of advance @ WOT at RPM-of-peak-HP
• It is often not possible to achieve MBT due to the engine knocking first.  Knock will destroy even the strongest engine.
• Higher compression motors need less timing than lower compression motors.  Higher compression motors are more likely to be knock limited.
• Forced induction motors need less timing as boost increases.  Forced induction motors are more likely to be knock limited.
• Aggressive camshafts generally let you run closer-to-optimal timing than smaller camshafts.
• Race gas and higher octane fuels generally allow closer-to-optimal timing.
• At a fixed RPM, the engine will generally require less timing at higher load.  I.e. more throttle less timing
• At a fixed RPM and load, the engine will generally require more timing with a leaner mixture.  (One reason to run a slightly richer mix is that you don’t need as much timing to effectively burn it.  There are plenty of exceptions to this and too rich can be a big problem too.)
• At a fixed load, the engine will generally need more ignition advance as RPM increases until around maximum horsepower where timing requirements generally flatten.

• Spark at idle is critcally important for maintaining a stable idle and not having stalling issues.  Too much spark will generally result in hunting/surging.  Too little will generally result in stalling or lumpy idle.  Spark control at/near idle is extremely manufacturer (and sometimes even ECM) specific.
• You can tune ignition timing to some degree by reading plugs but instantaneous acceleration data and/or a dyno while monitoring knock is the best way.
• The trap speed of a 1/4 mile run will tell you about power output but it will not tell you about specific RPMs, just overall performance.
• Your “butt dyno” is totally inaccurate.

Add C49 & C50 and C91 & C92 on back

C49 & C50 –> .004UF (Digikey part number 399-1230-1-nd )

C91 & C92 –> .00001UF ( digikey Part Number 399-1192-1-nd )

Add the 74hc373 SMD chip. (MFG part# SN74HC373NSR, Digi-Key Part Number 296-8310-1-ND)

Add a 29C256 eprom with bin written to it.

For RTP/Datalogging w/ Crome remove J4 on front.

Solder in a 4 pin header (snappable header pins 1×40 work GREAT for this and are VERY cheap)

All info is from the following threads:

http://forum.pgmfi.org/viewtopic.php?t=3112&highlight=chipping+jdm+computers

Special thanks to all the contributors of the above thread and katman for doing the pics in the first place… We love you katman

http://forum.pgmfi.org/viewtopic.php?t=4005&highlight=chipping+jdm+computers

Thanks to infotechplus for pics and info on C49,C50,C91,C92

Questions you may have coming in:

• How do I determine what is needed? Keep reading!
• What vehicles are compatible? Hardware will work with all 2004 and older Ford vehicles with a J3 port, depending on software support.
• What are the capabilities of Moates hardware? Realtime tuning, logging live data, burning chips, switching between multiple programs
• What hardware and software options are available, and at what cost? Keep reading!
• How do I learn to tune EEC? What learning resources are available? Keep reading!  We’ll provide references.

Vehicle Compatibility

• Hardware is compatible with all year/model Ford vehicles that have a J3 port.  This generally covers 86-2004 model years.
• If you already have a binary file (bin) or hex file (hex) that is tuned for your vehicle. you can use one of our chips.
• If you need to make changes (tune) to get your vehicle where you want it, you are limited by software support.
• Some ECMs are simply not supported in software that works with our hardware because of lack of definition information.
• It’s important to check for software support before purchase. If you have an uncommon vehicle (for example, a 1995 Festiva) you may be out of luck with our products.
• We need certain information to tell if your vehicle is supported. (click)  Email us to check before purchase!

Overview of Tuning Process

• Determine your target vehicle boxcode and strategy.
  • The Boxcode is typically a 3 or 4-digit letter/number code on the EEC computer. ( ‘A9L’  or ‘T4M0’ for example)  This represents a calibration for a particular engine/transmission using a particular strategy.
  • A Strategy is the set of procedures that the ECM follows to run an engine.  Combined with a calbration, this determines how the engine will operate.
    • The strategy will determine things like whether a MAF or MAP sensor is used, how spark and fuel are calculated, how idle is controlled, etc.
    • Each strategy needs a definition (or ‘def’) to work.  The definition tells the software how to interpret the binary and display it in a format you can understand with tables and real-world values.
    • For instance, the A9L boxcode, belongs to the GUFB strategy.  The A3M boxcode also belongs to the GUFB strategy.  You can change a bunch of parameters on a A3M computer and have it run 100% identical to a A9L computer.
• Review your software options in terms of availability.
  • First: figure out which software supports your box code.  Support varies from package to package.  Check with each software vendor for the most up-to-date supported options.
  • Next: download software and install it.  You can check out the interface and features at this time without paying for anything.
  • Finally: After you have found a software package with an interface that you like which supports your strategy, go to our web store to purchase.  You will need to have already installed software prior to purchasing in order to provide us with information to license it.

• Determine your tuning needs to guide your purchases.
  • Do you just need to burn chips?
  • Do you want to be able to make changes while the vehicle is running? (emulation)
  • Do you want to be able to log vehicle parameters while the engine is running? (datalogging)
  • Do you want a more accurate measure of the air/fuel mixture? (buy a wideband)
  • Decide what capabilities you need and then purchase hardware as appropriate.

• Install hardware.
  • Clean that J3 port PROPERLY!
  • To clean the J3 port, you generally must remove the case from the ECM, gently rub the J3 port with Scotchbrite or a mildly abrasive kitchen scrubber.  (‘mildly’ is important – you do NOT want to rub hard enough to remove the copper traces from the circuit board!)  A final clean with brake clean, starting fluid  or another mild solvent doesn’t hurt.  A properly cleaned J3 port will have a very, very slight crosshatch visible on the ‘fingers’ of the connector.
  • Golden rule: ALWAYS TAKE THE KEYS OUT OF THE IGNITION (CAR OFF!!!)  WHEN INSERTING OR REMOVING THINGS ON THE J3 PORT. Failure to do so can result in a fried ECM, fried chip/QuarterHorse or both.
• Install USB drivers
  • The same USB drivers are used for all Ford products
  • USB driver is a free download from the webstore, it comes with config instructions. (download)
  • If you need more visual directions, there is an install guide available on the Moates support site.
  • If you have trouble with the install, there is troubleshooting guide available on the Moates support site.

• Setup software and perform initial configuration
  • Establish communications, check settings – this procedure will vary depending on software package you are using.
  • Select the appropriate strategy for your box code and load any appropriate definition files.
  • Program hardware with a calibration to serve as a starting point.  A stock tune with a few key parameters modified to suit the vehicle at hand is great.  You’re just looking for something good enough to get the car to fire and (hopefully) idle.
  • If you are datalogging, select and configure datalogging payload matrix (PIDs) – i.e. what you’re interested in monitoring.

• Gather performance data, analyze it, and make changes toward an optimized result.
  • Parameters are gradually adjusted to achieve desired targets.
  • This is an iterative process, where adjustments are made and the results are evaluated followed by further adjustments.
  • Please see our subsequent chapters on Ford Tuning (available separately).
    • Basic Tuning Techniques and Common Examples
    • Advanced Tuning and Tricky Combinations

Chapter 2: Hardware Selection and Installation

Several types of hardware are available and needed depending on desired functionality.

Laptop PC

• Windows XP/Vista/7 are all compatible with the Ford tuning software.
• Something 5 years old or newer is recommended (no old 486 machines!).
• Internet access is recommended to facilitate licensing and software installations.
• USB ports (at least 1) are required. All needed cables are included with the hardware.
• If logging wideband, a serial-to-USB converter may be needed. ($37 on our webstore – link)

F3 Chip modules

• These modules install onto the J3 port of the EEC box.
• One per vehicle, $60 per unit – link.
• J3 port MUST be thoroughly cleaned, both sides, before installation!
  • Disassemble case, scrape off coating with non-metallic scraper or fingernail.
  • Clean both sides with Scotchbrite, not sandpaper.
  • Don’t be too rough, just polish it to a nice crosshatch, not down to the copper.
  • Clean with paper towel and alcohol or toluene.
• Two-position switch capable with user-added toggle.  Directions for switching are on support site.  (link)
• Reprogrammable many times using Jaybird.

Jaybird mini-USB chip reader/writer

• Small size, low cost, $75 – link.
• Allows reading and writing of the F3 modules.
• No datalogging or emulation with the Jaybird. No EEC box reading.  Most basic chip programmer available.

Quarterhorse Realtime Emulator and Datalogger

• Hardware unit is $249 – link.  All cabling is included, along with ferrite shields and USB bulkhead connections.
• Optional rotary switch ($30 – link) can be used to select from several different programs on the device, switching on-the-fly.  Works for EECIV ONLY.
• Fits onto J3 port like a chip module –  port MUST be clean as with F3 modules.
• On some early EEC boxes, several components will need to be gently bent out of the way for clearance during installation.

• The Quarterhorse is an integrated unit that can do several things:
  • Realtime Emulation
    • Changes in the calibration take effect immediately while engine is running.
    • No disturbance in engine operation or communications.
    • Changes in software are synchronized on the Quarterhorse.
  • Datalogging
    • Requires special definition file with ‘patch code’ written for the QuarterHorse, allowing RAM on the EEC to be shadowed onto the Quarterhorse.
    • Unprecedented access to variables and sensor values through the QuarterHorse without additional datalogging hardware.
    • Logging rates in excess of 5 kHz possible.  Most software logs around 20 Hz, which is great for tuning.
  • EEC Reading
    • EEC must be installed and powered in-vehicle with QH installed.
    • You can read the tune from the EEC box and save it to file.
    • This can be done with a stock EEC to acquire the base calibration.
    • You will be able to harvest the active calibration that has been programmed with a flash programmer this way.

Burn2 with F2A and F2E adapters

• The Burn2 ($85 – link) is a general purpose chip programmer that can be used for many different devices.
• When used with the F2A adapter ($10 – link), it can be used to read/write F3 modules.
• If the F2E adapter is added (another $10 – link), you will be able to read EEC boxes.
• No emulation or datalogging – this is a simple chip programmer only.
• This hardware combination is best suited for people that plan to tune vehicles from many different manufacturers.  If you plan on tuning exclusively Fords, consider the Jaybird as a less expensive alternative.

F8 chip module with Destiny programmer

• No emulation or datalogging – this is a simple chip with switchable tunes.
• Available exclusively through our distributor DP Tuner
• The $165 F8 module holds 8 switchable tunes and can be reprogrammed in-vehicle without removing the chip from the EEC!
• The $150 Destiny programmer is used with a 4-pin switch cable while F8 module stays installed on EEC.
• Once programmed, the $30 rotary switch can optionally be connected as a calibration selector.

Wideband O2 Sensor and Controller

• Used to sense your engine’s Air-Fuel ratio through exhaust gas analysis.
• Units such as the Innovate DB-Red LC1 Gauge Kit /w/ O2 ($209 – link) are very affordable.
• Software (discussed separately here) supports direct logging of the Innovate device data using a serial interface.  This is the preferred method of logging wideband data because it avoids all the pitfalls of using analog signals.
• Analog outputs from the wideband (such as the LC1) can be connected directly to the EEC in some cases (unused EGR pin on A9L for example).
• Wideband O2 readings critical for tuning fueling parameters.

Chapter 3: Software Selection, Installation, and Licensing

Several different software packages currently work with our hardware.  Cost varies considerably considerably from package to package along with capabilities.  Each software package also has its own unique flavor of interface – you will probably like one better than another.  Luckily, you can download and check them out prior to purchase.  Also remember that support for various box codes / strategies varies considerably from package to package.  It is important to investigate not just whether there is ANY support for a particular strategy but whether the items you require to tune your vehicle are supported – definition files vary considerably from software to software.  Fortunately, the availability of ‘trial’ versions makes it possible to ensure you to find a software package that fits your needs without having to purchase each one.

Binary Editor ( http://www.eecanalyzer.net )

• Written by Clint Garrity.
• Currently has the largest user base.
• Cost is $80 for the base application which is registered to a specific PC.
• Includes many of the most common and popular definitions (GUFB, etc) with no additional cost.  ( this list has almost all the “free” definitions along with some pay defs )
• Other ‘premium’ encoded definitions available at extra cost ($50-150+) from the definition author.
• Tends to benefit from a faster/newer laptop. Code is a bit heavy, so older PCs are taxed.  Think 2Ghz P4 / 512Mb ram realistic minimum.
• Includes EEC reading, chip reading and burning, datalogging, and emulation capabilities when used with the appropriate hardware.
• Also includes logging for wideband (Innovate, PLX, etc).
• Also includes optional support for standalone dataloggers, J2534 interfaces.
• Companion software EEC Analyzer is available for an additional $50. Not necessary, but it helps with data interpretation.
• Licensing occurs after you install the software from the available downloads, through a menu item within the BE and EA software programs.
• Both BE and EA licenses can be purchased from the webstore with information from the program.  See webstore product page for further instructions.

EEC Editor ( http://www.moates.net )

• Written by Paul Booth.
• Fairly lightweight software – does not require a very fast PC to work well.
• Cost ranges from $20-65 for each strategy depending on options.
  • EEC-IV is $20 for editing DEF (emulation and chip burning) plus $25 for datalogging (DLM) .
  • EEC-V is $10 more ($30+$35).
  • In order to have a comprehensive tuning solution for a typical fox body Mustang, you would need to order the GUFB def ($20) and the GUFB DLM ($25) along with a QuarterHorse.  This would allow you to tune any number of vehicles using the A9L, A3M, etc. processor codes.  You can also burn chips with the Jaybird/BURN2+F2A for any strategies you have purchased.
• Includes logging for Innovate Wideband (LC1, LM1, etc) at no additional charge.
• List of available supported strategies is listed on the webstore.

TunerPro RT v5 ( http://www.tunerpro.net )

• Written by Mark Mansur.
• Software license is optional (nag screen) but encouraged for $30.
• Editing portion of software *extremely* lightweight – can run well on older PCs.  Parts of logging engine considerably more demanding.
• Many definitions are available for editing only, see Tunerpro.net and our website for details.
• Editing, chip burning and emulation are supported by TPRT V4 and TPRT V5.
• Datalogging using the QuarterHorse is supported by TunerPro RT V5 via new the ADX format.  See here for updated definitions.
• QuarterHorse vehicle support is very limited compared to other software, but some of the most popular ones (GUFB CBAZA etc) are well-developed and available at time of writing (December 2010)

Flash & Burn Interface ( Moates/TunerPro )

• This is a low-level utility for reading and writing F3 chip modules using Jaybird or  BURN1/BURN2 + F2A
• Capable of reading EEC boxes using BURN2+F2A+F2E.  Does not work with QuarterHorse
• If you have a raw binary file ( bin ) you can use Flash n Burn to program a F3 chip module
• No cost, can be downloaded from the webstore.

F8 Destiny Utility ( http://www.moates.net )

• For use with a Destiny and F8 multi-position in-situ chip module.
• Allows easy management of stacks of tunes on the module with PC-based selection.
• No cost, can be downloaded from the webstore.

USB Driver ( Moates.net / FTDI )

• Needed to allow PC to communicate with the USB hardware (Quarterhorse, Jaybird, BURN2, etc).
• In many cases, working drivers will be detected by Windows via plug n play.
• If you need more visual directions, there is an install guide available on the Moates support site.
• If you have trouble with the install, there is troubleshooting guide available on the Moates support site.

Chapter 4: Suggested Techniques for Effective Calibration of EEC Systems

Vehicle Inspection and Preparation

• CRITICAL part of the tuning process. Start here, really.  If you fail here, you will never succeed.
• Several areas of the vehicle should always be analyzed before you begin the effort.
  • Smoking – learn to identify fuel (black) vs. oil (grey-blue) vs. coolant (white/sweet smelling).  You cannot fix oil smoke or coolant smoke with a tune.
  • Compression – you should have all cylinders within 10% compression of each other.  If smoking, damage to old spark plugs or general appearances make you suspicious of the motor’s health, check it before you start.  It’s a lot easier to deal with a motor with poor compression BEFORE you beat the snot out of it in the course of tuning it.  Many people skip this but it is something to think about because a motor that is already hurt is very likely to blow up or experience a catastrophic failure during tuning.
  • Check base timing, adjust as needed. (all vehicles with a distributor)
  • Evaluate TPS voltage.  Minimum/maximum values should be within acceptable limits.  Check for reversed wires – voltage should increase as throttle opens.
  • Look at MAF intake routing, make sure there are no obvious vacuum / intake leaks between the MAF and the intake valves.  Think cracked/split/loose hoses, bad gaskets, open ports, dry rotted couplers, hoses connected both before and after the MAF, …
  • O2 sensors should be operational without any exhaust leaks before the sensors.  For some reason, cut and soldered “extensions” for long tube headers often cause problems.  Plug and play extenders are *highly* recommended.  If you know that you do not have proper stock O2 sensors, REMEMBER TO TURN OFF O2 FEEDBACK!!!
  • If you are using a wideband sensor, you need to make sure there are no exhaust leaks before the wideband.  Flex tubing, poor joints between headers- midpipes and cracks in tubing can all create havoc.
  • If applicable, pay attention to which bank the wideband is installed in – bank-bank differences can be a powerful diagnostic tool.  Pay attention to how far the wideband is from the engine’s exhaust ports – there is always some lag between combustion events and measurement.  When things are changing quickly, this is critical.
  • Widebands need calibrated periodically, generally in free air.  Wideband sensors need replaced periodically.  Leaded fuel kills them very quickly.  Proper care and feeding of widebands is crucial to their effectiveness.
  • Be aware of catalytic converters.  Always tap them (GENTLY) and listen for suspicious noises that would indicate a catalytic converter that is degrading.  Clogged cats can rob literally hundreds of horsepower.  It is possible to place a wideband sensor AFTER a catalytic converter but remember that the cat will very slightly skew readings.
  • Make sure you have enough fuel pump and injectors for the power level you are looking for.  For a V8, “Injector size in #/hr * 14 = max hp” is a crude rule of thumb.  There are tons of injector calculators to be found if you want a better idea.
  • Ensure that fuel pressure is sane.  40psi with no vacuum reference is generally about where most OEM regulators are set.  You should be able to see a difference in fuel pressure between key-on-engine-off, idle and blipping the throttle.  Fuel pressure should be lowest when vacuum is highest.  Fuel pressure should increase when you blip the throttle as manifold pressure increases.
  • You need a MAF capable of metering enough air for your power goals.   There are ways to increase the metering capacity of a given meter, but tuning that properly is an advanced topic.  Keeping it simple: get a meter that can handle your airflow needs.
  • You need a functioning alternator and battery.  Battery voltage plays a role in crucial things like injector opening time and coil charge duration.  If your charging system is not functioning correctly, your tune may drastically change if/when you fix it.  Rule of thumb: if your battery voltage ever drops below 13 volts with the motor running, you will run into trouble.
  • On a similar note, underdrive and overdrive pulleys can cause real issues.  Pay attention if you see them.
  • Check for emissions hardware ( purge, smog pump, EGR, etc. ) that is missing.  In many cases these items can be disabled but you need to pay attention to what is present compared to what the ECM expects.
  • Basic maintenance should not be overlooked.  If it is important for a “normal” car it is twice as important in a performance application.
    • Spark plugs: correct heat range, appropriate gap, not fouled.  Consider power level, fuel and ignition system.  AVOID PLATINUM PLUGS FOR PERFORMANCE APPLICATIONS!!!  Copper or iridium will serve you much better.
    • Plug wires: no cracks/arcing, properly crimped ends, appropriate length so there isn’t too much tension
    • Firing order: firing order is determined by the camshaft (mostly) not the block or computer.
    • Spark boxes: great for distributor engines, unneeded/problematic for mod motors
    • Coil packs: Coil-per-cylinder (99-04 generally) applications like ***OEM*** coils best. (according to Dave B.)  MSD, Accel, Granatelli, … are all cause for concern especially with boost.
    • Oil and coolant: always check fluids before starting.  Quick check, potentially horrible consequences if low/out.
    • Fans / overheating: it is always a good idea to check that radiator fans work.  A car that overheats cannot be tuned.
    • Belts and Idlers: All serpentine belts must be in good shape.  Cracks, missing ribs, etc. will all cause problems.  Any idler pulleys must spin freely.
    • Tension:  Belt Tensioner should not be extended fully with the engine off.  Adjust belt length so that tensioner is in the lower third of its adjustment range with the motor off.  (i.e. it can move 2/3 through its range to increase belt tension – it should be mostly compressed when motor idle)  This is particularly important for supercharged applications.
    • Fuel filter: Fords are *horrible* about clogging fuel filters.  Especially if the car has been sitting for any significant period of time, change the fuel filter.  Motorcraft/OEM filters seem to hold up better than many cheap aftermarket ones.
    • Fuel age and type: Gasoline degrades with time.  Do not expect fuel that is more than a month or two old to be of the same quality as fresh gas.  Be particularly careful with heavily oxygenated fuels (i.e. VP Q16) and alcohols (ethanol, methanol, E85, etc.) in contact with fuel system components for large periods of time.
    • Clean air filter and MAF.  Oiled filters generally cause MAFs to get dirty.  Clean MAFs only after they have had a long time to cool – hot MAF+liquid=death.  Clean *GENTLY* with brake clean, starting fluid, or other organic solvents.
• Remember, you can’t fix mechanical or electrical issues by reprogramming the ECM!!! The results you achieve with tuning will only be as good as the material you start working with.  Garbage in, garbage out.

Datalogging: What’s important and what does it mean? What should we be interested in? What to select?

• There are certain sensors that you will almost always want to keep an eye on because they are critical to engine operation:
  • RPM – how fast the motor is spinning
  • MAFV / MAF counts – a “raw” value representing the reading from the MAF sensor
  • Airflow – a value calculated  by the ECM from the raw sensor MAF voltage that represents how much air is being ingested by the engine.  This is often represented in some form of “real world” value, like Kg/hr or Lbs/min
  • Load – from 94-2004 “Load” is the main factor involved in determining spark advance.
  • Spark Advance – when the ECM is commanding sparks to be fired.
  • TPS – Throttle Position Sensor.  How far open the throttle is, i.e. how hard you’re pressing the gas pedal
  • ECT – Engine Coolant Temperature(how hot or cold coolant flowing through the engine is)
  • IAT – Intake Air Temperature (how hot or cold air entering the engine is)
• Depending on what you are trying to do, there are other items you may want to pay attention to as well.
  • Injector Pulsewidth – How long the injectors open.  This can be useful both for “sanity checking” and to ensure you do not run out of injector – there is only a fixed time available at a given RPM to fire injectors.
  • HEGO1/2 – Heated Exhaust Gas Oxygen sensor.  Measures the presence or absence of oxygen in the exhaust in order to try to determine whether the motor is running rich or lean.   Watching the raw HEGO voltages can give you some kind of very basic indication of fueling.  These sensors experience a large change in voltage in a very small area centered around a stoichiometric mixture ( 1.0 lambda or about 14.7:1 Air-Fuel Ratio or AFR)
  • STFTs – Short Term Fuel Trims.  These are IMMEDIATE changes the ECM makes in response to HEGO readings in order to steer the air-fuel mixture towards desired targets.   If your EEC uses STFTs effectively (i.e. all modular motors) then these are generally more effective as a tuning tool than looking at raw O2 voltages.
  • LTFTs – Long Term Fuel Trims.  These are the long term difference between programmed values and target values.  Think of them as the average of STFTs over a long time.  If your EEC uses LTFTs effectively (i.e. all modular motors) then these are one of the most effective pieces of data provided by the stock computer for tuning fueling.
  • WBO2 – Wideband Oxygen meters can measure a much wider range of rich-lean conditions than standard HEGOs.  Having wideband data is often preferable to HEGO/STFT/LTFT.  In many cases (i.e. 86-95 in my opinion) it is often easier to disable closed loop operation/the O2 sensors completely and tune the car exclusively using a wideband.
  • ISC Integrator (‘integrator’) – this represents the difference between how much air the EEC is using to hold and idle versus how much it is commanded to hold in the tune.  Critical for proper tuning of larger camshafts and larger displacement engines.
  • Boost/MAP/Pressure – Although MAF systems do not differentiate between boost and vacuum, it is often very handy for sanity and safety to have an idea of how much pressure there is in the intake manifold.  For positive displacement blowers (roots, TVS, twin-screw) make sure you take pressure readings AFTER the blower on the lower plenum.
  • Pressure drop across injectors / FPDM duty cycle – most 99-04 cars control fuel pressure electronically.  These values are critical to a properly operating fuel system on these vehicles.

Recalibration: Modifying Parameters and Values to Achieve a Target

• First step: decide on target operating parameters for the engine
  • This may seem obvious, but something as simple as “make the most power” or “improve fuel economy” isn’t going to be be enough.
  • Second step: take a general goal like “make the most power” and decide on appropriate engine conditions to achieve that goal.
  • If you read these rules of thumb and say “this isn’t right for my engine” – GREAT.  You already know more than the audience these rules are aimed at.
    • If in doubt, “0.8 is great” – blatant simplicity.  Quoted me to once by someone who did OEM calibrations for Honda for a living.  It is very difficult to break anything due to fueling from running a vehicle at 0.8 lambda (about 11.6:1 AFR Gasoline)
    • 1.0 Lambda represents a stoichiometric mixture – exactly enough oxygen is present in the air to burn all the fuel supplied.  This is normally the best mixture for minimizing emissions.
    • Most vehicles make best power around 0.85 to 0.88 lambda (12.3 – 12.7 AFR Gasoline) – slightly richer than stoich
    • Most vehicles achieve best fuel economy at around 1.05 to 1.1 lambda ( 15.2 to 16.0 AFR gasoline)
    • Most vehicles need more ignition advance as RPM increases
    • Most vehicles need more ignition advance under cruising/low-throttle conditions than WOT
    • Knock is most likely close to peak torque, at high loads/low RPMs or at peak horsepower
• Next step: Get familiar with the strategy your vehicle uses.  Fueling, timing, idle, open-closed loop and just about everything else vary considerably from one strategy to another.  Being familiar with the strategy your ECM uses will help you figure out which tables to modify to acheive the results you seek.
  • eectuning.org is a good place to learn more.
  • the ‘Education’ section of moates.net is another good place to get information
• After you figure out where to look: set up what you can based on what you already know
  • Setup Engine Displacement / displacement of one cylinder
  • Setup injector size
  • Setup a reasonable rev limiter based on what you know of bottom end and valvetrain
  • Setup a reasonable (perhaps a little high to start) value for target idle
  • Setup a reasonable base calibration for MAF sensor.  If sensor came with a calibration sheet, this would be great time to use it.
  • Setup a reasonable target air fuel while in open loop
  • Setup a reasonable timing map.  A stock timing map adjusted for mods is always a good place to start.
  • Setup a reasonable pattern from switching from closed loop to open loop.
  • Enable or disable hardware such as O2 sensors, EGR, Purge/Evap, automatic trans
  • If you take your time to create a sane starting point before you turn the key on you will save yourself countless hours of time!
• Finally: Start your engines (and your datalogger) and make final adjustments
  • Are air fuels not matching what you command in open loop?
    • Three pieces of the fueling puzzle:  MAF transfer, Injector slopes(size), Injector offset (battery compensation – latency)
    • How do you tell what is going on?  STFTs, LTFTs (if O2s are enabled) combined with a wideband.  STFTs/LTFTs are great while O2s are active – i.e. part throttle
    • Leanest at idle, small pulsewidths but perfect at WOT/higher throttle -> increase battery offset
    • Lean – rich – lean patches as you gradually increase throttle -> wrong shape of MAF curve.  systematically tune it
    • Entire range of engine operation uniformly off from commanded values -> either injector slopes (size) or entire MAF transfer function is off.  Let load determine which one to multiply/divide in order to fix things
  • Idle issues?
    • Make sure your MAF transfer table, injector slopes and injector offset are sane before trying to fine tune idle!
    • Follow the integrator – a good place to start is to add the integrator (or subtract if it is negative) from the Neutral Idle Air table (in neutral) or Drive Idle Air table (if in Drive for automatic cars)
  • Performance
    • ALWAYS TUNE FUELING FIRST BEFORE TACKLING TIMING!  You are *much* more likely to break your engine if your mixture is wrong.  As long as your timing is good enough to light the mix, you can tune fueling adequately.
    • Tuning timing without a dyno is hard.  Accelerometers and a dragstrip can provide crude but repeatable feedback.

Data Analysis and Evaluation

• Once captured, the operational data can be analyzed and used to guide calibration effort.

(More to come!)

(below this line is draft / coming soon as of 2010-11-30)

Chapter 4:  Software/Hardware Initial Configuration with Tuning Session Start-Up Examples

• Physical installation of hardware is shown in more detail from Chapter 1 overview.
  • F3
  • Jaybird
  • Quarterhorse
  • F8/destiny and switch
  • Wideband

• Installation, licensing, initial configuration, and detailed hardware synchronization procedures for each software are explained and examples detailed. Initial basic calibration load-up for different hardware, as well as basic payload creation for datalogging, are explained and illustrated for each.
  • USB Driver
  • BE/EA
  • EEC Editor
  • TunerPro RTv5
  • Flash & Burn
  • F8/Destiny Utility

1. Data Analysis and Evaluation
   1. Once captured, the operational data can be analyzed and used to guide calibration effort.
   2. Several examples of logged data values and how they relate to calibration parameters are provided.

Chapter 6:

Case Studies: Example Modifications, Vehicle Combinations, and Rules of Thumb

1. Key Issues and Vehicle-Specific Examples
   1. How do many of the popular modifications on these vehicles affect the tuning approach?

i.      Bigger MAF

ii.      Bigger injectors

iii.      Cold plugs

iv.      Nitrous

v.      Gears and converter

vi.      Auto vs Manual

vii.      Emissions delete / racing modifications

viii.      Cam, heads

ix.      Headers/exhaust

x.      Cold air intake

1. 1. We look at a walk-through of important considerations and the thought process of tuning several different example combinations, with real-world dyno results.

i.      A9L/GUFB Fox Body, 1993 N/A 331 stroker, 24# injectors, cam, headers, 5spd.

ii.      CBAZA, same as above.

iii.      03/04 Mustang

iv.      SC A9L

v.      SC 03/04 Cobra

vi.      F150 Truck

1. 1. Achieving an Optimized Result: When is it good enough?

i.      What are your goals?

ii.      Do you plan for future modifications?

iii.      Rules of thumb for AFR and timing, NA vs boost.

iv.      What is safe vs aggressive?

>

>

>

> Vehicle Compatibility

>

> All year/model Ford 2004 and earlier with J3 port are compatible

***with our hardware*** but there may not be software support for particular models.

> Some vehicle year/model applications are simply not supported in the

> software because of lack of definition information. It’s important to

> evaluate the availability of your desired application as ir relates to

> the software selection process. You may be out of luck (for example,

> 1995 Festiva or such uncommon target).

http://support.moates.net/ford-strategies-supported/

http://support.moates.net/ford-box-code-strategy-cross-reference/

>

>

>

> Overview of Tuning Process

>

> Determine your target vehicle boxcode and strategy

>

>                                                                i.

> Boxcode is typically a 4-digit letter/number code on the EEC computer.

> This is the calibration code.

http://support.moates.net/ford-information-we-need-to-help-you/

>

>                                                               ii.

> Strategy is the ‘parent’ definition structure to which a boxcode belongs.

Each strategy is the set of procedures that are executed on your ECM to run an engine.  Sometimes more than one strategy can successfully run on a given ECM.  Normally we do not make many changes to the procedure part of strategies while tuning vehicles.  Instead, we change tables, functions and constants so that the engine receives what it needs to run well.  Each “box code” represents a configuration of a particular strategy for a particular engine.

>

>                                                             iii.

> For

instance, the A9L boxcode  belongs to the GUFB strategy.  The A3M boxcode also belongs to the GUFB strategy.  If you compare A9L.bin and A3M.bin the files will be almost identical because they use the same strategy but are configured for different vehicles by Ford.  If you get a definition (also called def) for the GUFB strategy, you will be able to edit both A9L and A3M binaries because they use the same strategy.

……….

>                                                             iii.

> J3 port MUST be thoroughly cleaned, both sides, before installation!

***IMPORTANT***

……………….

> Chapter 5:

>

> Suggested Techniques for Effective Calibration of EEC Systems

>

>

>

>

>

> Vehicle Inspection and Preparation

>

> CRITICAL part of the tuning process. Start here, really.

> Several areas of the vehicle should always be analyzed before you

> begin the effort.

>

>                                                                i.

> Check base timing, adjust as needed.  On older Fords, pull “spout” timing connector either by distributor (86-93) or on passenger fender side (94-95).  Adjust distributor to achieve 10 degrees base timing with spout removed.  Reinstall spout before tuning.

>

>                                                               ii.

> Evaluate TPS voltage, make sure it is in range through motion.

Vehicles are very sensitive to improper TPS voltage.  TPS being too low or too high can cause the ECM to not enter the correct idle mode.

TPS should be between 0.95 and 1volt with throttle plate closed.  This can be checked using QH quite nicely.

>

>                                                             iii.

> Look at MAF intake routing, make sure there are no gross vacuum / intake leaks.

http://support.moates.net/tuning-maf-systems-and-air-leaks/

See how much or little of that you want to put here.

>

>                                                             iv.

> O2 sensors should be operational, exhaust should be leak-tight at

> least that far back.

OEM Ford O2 sensors work a million times better than cheap aftermarket ones.

Ideally, a wideband sensor is to be installed in addition to the factory O2s rather than instead of one.

If this is not possible, it is greatly preferable to remove a secondary (Post-catalytic converter) O2 sensor.

If a primary O2 sensor has the be removed in order to install a wideband, make sure closed loop operation is disabled.

>

>                                                              v.

> Basic maintenance should not be overlooked.

>

> 1.       Plugs and wires

1a. PLUG GAP IS REALLY IMPORTANT

1b. Appropriate plug type is really important (Copper, Silver (Brisk for 3v)).  Iridium plugs are ok for applications with extremely strong spark boxes or CDI systems.  Avoid platinum plugs like the plague.

>

> 2.       Oil and coolant

>

> 3.       Fuel filter and fuel age/quality/octane

>

> 4.       Clean air filter and MAF

>

>                                                             vi.

> Ensure that fuel pressure is as expected through operating range.

>

> Remember, you can’t fix mechanical or electrical issues with reprogramming.

> Tuning is about more than just flipping chips, so make sure your

> vehicle is in good shape!

This really can’t be stressed enough.  Tuning a car that isn’t running right is like putting a bandaid over a gangrenous wound!  The first step to tuning a car properly is to make sure it is mechanically sound!

>

>

>

************I’m not sure I would get into datalogging just yet because we haven’t talked about recalibration yet.****************

> Datalogging: What’s important and what does it mean? What should we be

> interested in? What to select?

>

> RPM

> MAFV

> Kg/Hr

> Spark

> HEGO1/2

> TPS

> ECT,IAT

> Load

> WBO2

>

***********************************Snip*********************************************************************************************************

>

>

> Recalibration: Modifying Parameters and Values

>

The purpose of recalibrating an ECM is to produce the behavior you desire, and by doing so hopefully improve performance, emissions or other operating characteristics.  Normally, there are two stages to this process.

First, parameters within the strategy are altered to match physical parameters of the engine.  Engine displacement, injector size are the primary values here.  Also, the MAF transfer function should be altered to match the MAF that is installed on the vehicle.  You can often “rob” a MAF transfer function from another vehicle’s strategy when using the MAF from another vehicle.

Next, operating parameters are changed in order to achieve the actual running conditions desired for the particular engine.  In many cases, simply adjusting the “configuration” items for the strategy in the first step will make then engine run great but there are almost always small changes that can be made to optimize performance.

>

> What are the most common values we will need to modify?

>

i.     Displacement – how large the engine is

ii.      Injector slopes – define how much fuel flows through

injectors, aka injector size

iii.      MAF calibration – defines how much air enters the engine as

a function of MAF voltage.  aka MAF transfer function iv.      Rev limiters – protect the engine from being damaged by over-revving

v.      Speed limiters – protect the driver from his/her own stupidity

vi.      EGR delete, PATS delete, secondary O2 delete – turn off items that are not present or not desired.

>

> How do we know which values to change, and by how much?

>

(repeat / correlate with above)

First step: calibration data should match actual equipment specification

example: If you have a 347 stroker with 30# injectors your strategy should be configured to match these physical parameters

Next step: start your engines, identify problems and goals.  There are hundreds (if not thousands in some cases) of parameters you can change.  Before starting on tuning, it’s good to have an idea of what’s not right, what you’d like to improve and what you can leave alone.  This may sound basic, but maintaining some kind of focus is really important to working effectively.  Examples of things you might want to work on are improving idle, improving wide open throttle performance, decreasing fuel consumption.

After figuring out what aspects of running the engine you want to work on, it is time to get the data you need to achieve your goals.  By selecting appropriate items for datalogging, the QuarterHorse allows you to view, log and replay the same data that your ECM uses to run your engine.  Instead of blindly guessing which values you need to change in order to get the engine behavior you seek, you can use this process of logging, analyzing logged data and a little math to make appropriate changes.

Now specific tasks in the tuning process will be examined in detail.

This will be presented as a mixture of theory and practice.  The next chapter will serve as a guide for how to adapt the programming of your ECM to suit specific modifications (cold air kits, injectors, motor transplants, etc) and will be attempt to be primarily hands-on.

Routine tuning processes: (these are going to need more explanation, I’m just running out of steam tonight)

Basic setup – Slopes, injectors, MAFs, sane spark tables

WOT / Open loop fueling – MAF transfer, inj slopes, stabilized fuel table

Closed loop fueling – O2 trims, MAF transfer

Power tuning – Dyno, spark tables

Idle tuning – idle RPM drive, neutral, Drive idle air, neutral idle air, integrator, gains, etc

Dashpot – role, tuning, scalars, preposition

>

>

>

> Chapter 6:

>

CASE STUDIES AND HANDS ON PRIMARILY.  Theory / processes in previous chapter

>

>

>

>

>

> Key Issues and Vehicle-Specific Examples

*MAKE MORE SPECIFIC*  General procedures covered above

>

> How do many of the popular modifications on these vehicles affect the

> tuning approach?

>

>                                                                i.

> Bigger MAF

>

>                                                               ii.

> Bigger injectors

>

>                                                             iii.

> Cold plugs

>

>                                                             iv.

> Nitrous

>

>                                                              v.

> Gears and converter

>

>                                                             vi.

> Auto vs Manual

>

>                                                           vii.

> Emissions delete / racing modifications

>

>                                                          viii.

> Cam, heads

>

>                                                             ix.

> Headers/exhaust

>

>                                                              x.

> Cold air intake

>

> We look at a walk-through of important considerations and the thought

> process of tuning several different example combinations, with

> real-world dyno results.

>

>                                                                i.

> A9L/GUFB Fox Body, 1993 N/A 331 stroker, 24# injectors, cam, headers, 5spd.

>

>                                                               ii.

> CBAZA, same as above.

>

>                                                             iii.

> 03/04 Mustang

>

>                                                             iv.

> SC A9L

>

>                                                              v.

> SC

> 03/04 Cobra

>

>                                                             vi.

> F150 Truck

>

> Achieving an Optimized Result: When is it good enough?

>

>                                                                i.

> What are your goals?

>

>                                                               ii.

> Do you plan for future modifications?

>

>                                                             iii.

> Rules of thumb for AFR and timing, NA vs boost.

>

>                                                             iv.

> What is safe vs aggressive?

>

>

Before you read this, make sure you have read Theory: Alpha-N, Theory: Mass Air Flow and the FordOverview.  Although not essential, it wouldn’t hurt to have at least read about Speed-Density operation as well.  This page will assume you have read and understood these pages.  This is a somewhat complicated topic and will require you to put several pieces together so don’t feel bad if you have to read this a couple times.

About the table and why it is critical

The “Load with failed MAF” (“LWFM” from here forward) table(s) are found in almost all MAF Ford Strategies.  Most strategies that make use of IMRCs (Intake Manifold Runner Control – valves that restrict air entering the engine in order to increase tumble and velocity) have two LWFM tables instead of one and  switch from one LWFM table to the other as the IMRCs open and close.  The main purpose of the LWFM table is to estimate the amount of air going into the engine without using the MAF sensor or a MAP sensor (if present) to provide the ECM with an “emergency” fallback method of running the engine in the event the MAF sensor fails.

The LWFM table is also important for normal operation of the motor because Load from the MAF (this is “Load” – the Ford-specific calculated cylinder filling value calculated from the MAF sensor, RPM and engine displacement) is “sanity checked” against the LWFM table to determine if the MAF is providing reliable information.  If there is too large of a difference between calculated Load and the LWFM table, the ECM may ignore the MAF even if it is providing valid information! This happens most commonly in forced induction situations (where load is greatly increased compared to a naturally aspirated car) but can also occur in cars with aggressive camshafts.  If you are making changes to a MAF transfer function and you are not seeing any changes in engine operation, double check your LWFM table!  Further, most strategies use “Anticipation logic” to predict airflow.  This prediction logic is based off…  Surprise… The LWFM table!  Having a sane LWFM table is neccesary for the aircharge anticipation logic to work.  You can disable this but it’s generally not necessary if you tune the LWFM table properly.

LWFM table is a classic example of an Alpha-N control strategy – it’s purpose is to provide a very crude estimation of airflow entering the engine when the MAF signal is absent or the ECM thinks it is unreliable.   The LWFM table uses only two inputs – throttle position (aka “TP”) and RPM to determine Load.  Here is a picture of a typical LWFM table: (screenshot from Binary Editor / GUFB strategy)

Here you can see the X axis is RPM and the Y axis is RELATIVE Throttle Position volts.  Each cell represents the Load that will be used to calculate fueling and timing when the ECM thinks the MAF is bad.  For example, idling with the throttle closed (0 volts relative)  around 700 RPM the ECM will assume a Load of .1602 and make appropriate fueling and timing changes.

The importance of the LWFM table varies considerably from strategy to strategy.  A rule of thumb is that the newer of an ECM you are using the more picky it will be able the LWFM table.  Fox Body and most early EECV (pre-99) are fairly tolerant of inappropriate LWFM tables where 99+ ECMs are generally much, much, much more picky.

Tuning the LWFM Table

Tuning the LWFM table is pretty simple:

First, set the Aircharge WOT multiplier, Anticipation logic scalars, etc. to make the ECM as tolerant of a bad failed MAF table as possible

Second, GUESS!   Yes, guess.  Enter values that you think are sane for the setup, starting with the stock LWFM table as a guideline.  A few examples:

• If you put in aggressive cams, decrease the LWFM table at low RPMs and throttle angles while increasing it at higher RPMs and throttle angles.
• If adding a positive displacement supercharger (roots, twin screw) multiply the whole LWFM table by approximately the highest pressure ratio you will see.
• If you add a centrifugal blower, multiply a column of the LWFM table by the pressure ratio you achieve at a given RPM

Third, drive around and log throttle position (TP Relative), RPM, Load.  Compare the Load values you log with the LWFM table.  Start changing entries in the table so they get closer to the load you really see at given TP and RPM conditions.

Note: Turbo cars present a very big challenge to this strategy due to the amount load can vary with throttle position due to spool time.  This is a very tricky case and often the only solution is to try and maximize allowed error before the LWFM table becomes active and also disable Aircharge Anticipation and other functions dependent on the LWFM table.

As stated in our overview of MAF systems, one of their main weaknesses are air leaks.  Whenever air can enter the engine without going through the MAF, weird things happen.

There are two principal kinds of leaks that wreak havoc on MAF systems – constant leaks (like a unplugged vacuum port) and mechanically induced leaks (such as a Blow Off Valve or Bypass Valve that vents to atmosphere.)  Each leak has a tendency to affect the system differently.  In this article, we will try to take a look at what “should” be happening, what changes with a leak and what kind of odd things you can look for while tuning to identify a leak.

Reversion presents an additional problem for MAF systems.  Reversion is the technical name for when air changes direction and reverses flow.  MAFs are not one way systems – they will measure air flowing into the engine and then meter the same air flowing out of the engine when there is severe reversion, causing unreliable MAF readings.

Constant leaks

This kind of constant leak in a MAF system is the classic “vacuum leak” where a gasket, coupler or piece of tubing in between the MAF and the engine does not seal properly.  In this case, air can enter the engine without passing through the MAF.  Because air has entered the engine without passing through the MAF sensor, the MAF sensor reads artificially low.  An engine operating in open-loop mode will tend to run very lean.  A motor operating in closed loop will see very large positive trims as the computer uses the O2 sensors to add fuel to compensate for the lean condition.

The air leak provides more air for the engine at idle which will make the idle rise or sometimes “hunt” or bounce around unstably.  Generally, the idle system will also try to compensate.  On Fords you will see the ISC Integrator (“Integrator”) swing negative, indicating the ECM is allowing less flow through the idle valve than is commanded in the tune.  It is very common for the Integrator to get stuck at the minimum allowed value and have the car still idle higher than commanded.

Most MAF systems use the MAF for calculating appropriate timing values as well as fueling.  With a vacuum leak throwing off the system, the ECU thinks there is less air entering the engine than their really is.  This will mean that “load” values will be artificially low, which generally leads to timing being artificially high.  In severe situations, this combination of issues (less fuel, more timing) is a recipe for melting engine components if it goes unchecked.

Mechanically induced leaks

Bypass valves are the most common source of mechanically induced leaks although idle, purge and other vacuum operated solenoids can all be a problem.  MAF systems require these valves to be re-circulated so that air leaving the valve re-enters the intake AFTER the MAF so it does not get measured twice.

Blow off valves on turbocharged vehicles are often vented to atmosphere.  This unfortunately will severely confuse a MAF system.  When the valve opens, air that has already passed through the MAF and been “counted” is released into the atmosphere instead of entering the engine.  The ECU will supply enough fuel for all the air that has passed through the MAF while only a small portion of this air actually entered the engine.   This causes the engine to run very rich and can cause stalling or other problems when letting off the gas and the BOV opens.  Once the valve closes again and the car burns off the excess fuel delivered, things slowly return to normal operation.

Supercharger bypass valves can present the same kind of issues when they are allowed to vent to atmosphere. (or when there is a leak in the piping allowing air to recirculate.)  Failing to catch an air leak with a supercharger bypass will result in the MAF curve having a sudden change when the valve closes.  This will require complete re-tuning of the MAF transfer function once fixed so it is best to catch it early.

Reversion

Reversion is most common in engines with very large camshafts operating at low speeds such as close to idle.  Situations where MAFs read unreliably due to reversion can generally be greatly improved by moving the MAF further from the throttle body.  Increasing the volume of the intake between the MAF and the throttle body is also effective at smoothing out the pulses of air coming from an engine with a radical camshaft.  It is normally possible to get a reliable enough MAF signal in most circumstances.  Even extremely wild cams that draw 3-4″ of vacuum at idle can be tamed with an appropriately designed intake system.

Another form of reversion that is troublesome to MAF systems happens with poorly designed supercharger bypass valve systems.  In most of these systems, the pipe connecting the outlet of the bypass valve connects with the inlet of the supercharger at an angle where recirculated air flows backwards through the intake.  This causes any reverse-flowing air to be metered multiple times by the MAF, leading to unreliable operation.  This can almost always be remedied by adjusting the angle of the pipe from the bypass so it points at the inlet of the supercharger directing the flow of recirculated air away from the MAF.

Reversion is very obvious if you are logging the MAF signal. Looking at a graph of a “normal” MAF signal versus time, it will look like a line that could have been drawn without reversing the direction of travel.  The same graph of a MAF impacted by reversion will look very “shaky” and jagged, changing direction many times in a short period of time.

ECU Chipping

You need to add a few additional components to the original Honda ECU. It requires some soldering skills and should not be attempted unless you have soldered before. (Chances are you know someone with soldering skills that could help you). Here is a picture of the P28 ECU that I chipped, before any of the parts were put in:

Before you can solder the parts in, you will need to de-solder the holes in the circuit board since they come filled with solder from the factory. You can buy a “solder sucker” to do the job, however unless you get a nice one (expensive) they don’t really work well in my opinion. The cheap and easy solution is to buy some solder braid. It’s just braided copper. Simply place it over the hole to be de-soldered, and place the soldering iron on top of the braid. It will then wick up the solder into the braid. It’s available at radioshack:

You’ll want to use a decent quality soldering iron to get the job done nicely. The important thing is to not use too much heat, and also make sure the iron has a fine tip on it. I’m using a standard Weller iron:

Here is what it should look like after the board has been de-soldered:

The parts that need to be added are boxed in with a dashed white line. The parts consist of (2) .1uF ceramic capacitors, (1) 1k resistor, (1) wire jumper (simply a piece of wire…I used a lead of the resistor), (1) 74HC373 chip, and (1) 29C256 chip (thats the EPROM). The resistor and capacitors have no polarity, so you don’t have to worry about installing them backwards. The 74HC373 chip does have a polarity. Pin 1 will be on the left side of the pic (you’ll see in detail later one). The same is true for the EPROM chip. Since it would be impossible to burn a chip and have the tune be perfect, it becomes obvious that you don’t want to solder the chip in. Instead, use a socket so that it can be removed. You have two options: for less than $1, you can get a standard DIP socket. The problem is these are very hard to insert and remove the chips since there are 28 pins (it requires a lot of force and is hard to grip the chip). Your second option would be a ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) socket, which costs less than $10. It is a socket that has a lever: pull up the lever, set the chip in/lift it out, and flip the lever back – VERY nice to have since you’ll be doing this many times while tuning. Be careful when ordering the ZIF socket, as many of them are too large to fit on the board without running into things. The first ZIF I bought was made by Aries, and it was a very quality piece, however, it was too large and bulky to fit without a lot of modification to other components on the board. I ended up ordering a different one that was much more compact. I am unaware of the brand, however it is blue and is referred to as a low-profile ZIF. The only problem was that the lever end of it was in the way of the 74HC373. The easy solution is to buy a standard DIP socket as mentioned above. Solder this onto the board. Then, stack the ZIF onto this socket, which raises the ZIF away from the board enough to clear the surrounding parts. This setup worked very well for me. The following picture shows the too-big-to-fit ZIF in the back-left, the low-profile ZIF in the front left, and the DIP socket on the right:

The ZIF socket stacked on the DIP socket for added height:

And finally, a couple of pics with all of the parts installed:

I ordered most of my parts from www.jdr.com except for the low-profile ZIF socket and DIP socket, which I obtained from www.jameco.com. The following table containse the exact part numbers that I ordered. You’ll notice that I ordered two EPROMS. This way, it will be easier to burn one while the other is installed.

Additionally, I have recently located all of the parts you will need from one source. DigiKey is where you can find them. Their inventory selection can be overwhelming, so here are the part numbers you will want:

And for a final update to this page, I’d like to add that you can find ALL of the necessary chipping parts at moates.net. It is a great deal in my opinion, and you’re guaranteed to get the correct parts the first time around. It’s under the name of “Honda ECU Chipping Kit”.

There are two tools available for datalogging on Honda ECUs from www.moates.net and they include the HULOG and the HondaLog.

HULOG: The HULOG comes in a plastic enclosure and ONLY requires a pin swap if it is an older unit. All the new units come with 1:1 connector pinning, so will differ from the pictures shown in that no pin swap is required or will be present on the extension cable. It can be mounted externally or internally, depending on whether you want to pass the 4-pin header cable or a USB cable out of your ECU.

HondaLog: The HondaLog can be mounted directly to the ECU with no interconnecting cable It can also be mounted at the end of a 4-pin tether cable. Either way, no pin swap is required (note color of wires and their order in the pictures). The unit is shipped with two pinning options in terms of the attachment header. It also comes with a piece of shrink-wrap tubing in case you want to ‘wrap that rascal’ when you’re done. Either way, it goes to your USB cable and PC on the other end.

Pictures are shown below for the two units. The installation header is a 4-pin latching unit, and comes with the moates.net Honda Chipping Kits. You can alternatively use a 4-pin 0.025″ square-post breakaway header. Please take note of the directionality of the latch on the interconnecting cable though, since that is critical.

HULOG Pictures

HondaLog Pictures



]]> https://support.moates.net/huloghondalog-installation/feed/ 0 https://support.moates.net/g2-adapter-installation/ https://support.moates.net/g2-adapter-installation/#respond Mon, 10 May 2010 05:27:16 +0000 http://support.moates.net/?p=841

G2

G2 TBI-Style 2732-to-29C256 Adapter Installation Instructions:Here is a pictorial depiction of a G2 installation in a TBI-style ECM.
It shows the following:

1) Disassembly and removal of stock socket body.
– Take note of the ‘stock’ 2732A chip orientation. Your 2732A chip will probably be in a little plastic holder.
– Try and overcome the challenge presented by the disparity between that fact and this pictorial guide.
– Take apart the ECM case, loosen screws that hold ‘daughterboard’, and get everything free so you can get to the underside.
– Be careful with ribbon cables which are often glued to the ECM housing areas.
– Measure spacing between row of chip socket pins, and make sure you order the correct adapter part (0.6 or 0.45″).
– Using small screwdriver, gently pry plastic off of pins. It should come free, leaving pins to be desoldered individually pretty easily. This may not work as well with 0.45″ spacing sockets, and you might have to desolder the whole socket at the same time or mutilate it a little bit to get it out.

2) Desoldering of stock socket pins, removal of solder from holes using solder sucker.
– Apply heat and remove each individual pin (assuming you were successful with step (1).
– Use solder sucker to open up each hole for acceptance of the ‘new’ socket.

3) Soldering in place of a 24-pin collet-pin DIP socket. (For 0.45″ spacing, 12-pin SIPs are used instead).
– Just like it says. If you want a very low profile install, skip this step and go to step (4), except solder it in place instead of pressing it in.

4) Placement of G2 adapter along with optional ZIF and associated chip.
– Just like it says.

5) View of relative clearance and reassembly.
– Check and make sure it’s not going to hit anything when installed back in the car. If you have clearance issues, you might want to consider the solder-in option mentioned in (3-4).

Note that the height can be reduced by not using the ZIF socket, and can be further reduced by soldering the adapter directly in as mentioned (bypassing the DIP or SIP socket install).

These pictures should give you the information you need with respect to procedures, relative socket / adapter / chip orientation, etc.
However, if after viewing this you still have questions, just let me know at my email address on the main page and I’ll do my best to field them.

Have fun!

]]> https://support.moates.net/g2-adapter-installation/feed/ 0 https://support.moates.net/programming-chips-using-offsets/ https://support.moates.net/programming-chips-using-offsets/#respond Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:04:49 +0000 http://support.moates.net/?p=775 Introduction

If you’re completely new to burning chips, you may want to take a look at the Beginners’ Guide before reading the rest of this article.  You will probably still need to read this guide in order to choose the correct programming parameters unless you’re in the situation where you’re programming a chip that is the exact same size as the chip you are replacing.  Programming chips with offsets comes into play in two situations:

1. If the chip you are programming is of a larger capacity than the binary file you are putting on it, you need to use an offset to ensure the tune ends up in the right spot on the chip.
2. Switching adapters which hold multiple programs require the use of offsets to fit multiple programs on a single chip for a switching adapter.

Both of these cases will be covered in this article.

Chip Offsets With a Single Tune:

We’re going to assume you have either TunerPro or Flash n Burn open at this point and the chip physically oriented correctly.  If you need help with this, look at the Beginners’ Guide before continuing.  We will be selecting the correct buffer and chip addressing to ensure the chip is burned properly and can be used.

When in the software:

1. Select the type of chip you’ll be programming from the drop-down menu. This will likely be either the AT29C256, 27SF512, AT90F040 or Moates J3 adapter (F3/F3v2).
2. Pick the ‘Load file to buffer’ option, and navigate to the file you want programmed on the chip. Select it, and it will be loaded to memory on the PC. Take note of the file size indicated in the message window. (You can typically “hover” over the filename before opening it and Windows will pop up an information box iwth the file size)  It will likely be one of five sizes: 4k, 16k, 32k, 56k or 64k bytes.
   • The file you have loaded will determine your buffer addressing (start/end)
   • 4k byte = 0000/0FFF
   • 16k byte = 0000/3FFF
   • 32k byte = 0000/7FFF
   • 56k byte = 0000/DFFF
   • 64k byte = 0000/FFFF
3. In the top right part of the window you will see the Chip Addressing offset values that need to be changed. The buffer addressing along with the chip size will determine what offsets you need to use. (Flash n Burn usually automatically selects sane offsets based on your chip type and file size in order to place your buffer at the end of the chip, where it usually belongs.)
   The following table summarizes what offsets you need to use depending on chip used and file size:

   File Size	Chip	Buffer Start -> End	Chip Start -> End
   4k (4096)	AT29C256	000000 -> 000FFF	007000 -> 007FFF
   16k (16384)	AT29C256	000000 -> 003FFF	004000 -> 007FFF
   32k (32768)	AT29C256	000000 -> 007FFF	000000 -> 007FFF
   4k (4096)	27SF512	000000 -> 000FFF	00F000 -> 00FFFF
   16k (16384)	27SF512	000000 -> 003FFF	00C000 -> 00FFFF
   32k (32768)	27SF512	000000 -> 007FFF	008000 -> 00FFFF
   56k (57344)	27SF512	000000 -> 00DFFF	002000 -> 00FFFF
   64k (65536)	27SF512	000000 -> 00FFFF	000000 -> 00FFFF
   32k (32768 EECIV)	F3/F3v2	000000 -> 007FFF	032000 -> 039FFF
   56k (57344 EECIV)	F3/F3v2	000000 -> 00DFFF	032000 -> 03FFFF
   64k (65536 EECIV)	F3/F3v2	000000 -> 00FFFF	032000 -> 03FFFF
   216k or 224k (EECV)	F3/F3v2	“bank” format: non-linear!	convert to 256k!
   256k (EECV)	F3/F3v2	000000 -> 03FFFF	000000 -> 03FFFF

   While the correct values are often selected, you can manually enter them.  For a single-tune single-chip scenario, you generally want the buffer (or file content) to be placed at the ‘end’ of the chip. The notable exceptions to this rule are 32k EECIV Ford tunes (which need to start at 0x32000 and end before the end of the chip) and 216k/224k Ford EECV bins (which are not in linear memory format and need converted to 256k before programming).

   
   To do this manually:

   • Ensure Buffer Addresses are correct for the file size you have loaded.
   • Adjust the Chip Addressing start value and end value until the end value is the maximum value for the chip AND buffer address values are correct.
   • A short list of common chip addressing settings:
     • 64k bin: 000000 start 00FFFF end ( SST27SF512 chip )
     • 32k bin: 008000 start 00FFFF end ( SST27SF512 chip )
     • 16k bin: 00C000 start 00FFFF end ( SST27SF512 chip )
     • 4k bin: 00F000 start 00FFFF end ( SST27SF512 chip )
     • 56k Ford EECIV bin: 032000 start 03FFFF end ( Ford F3 chip )
     • 256k Ford EECV bin: 000000 start 03FFFF end ( Ford F3 chip )
     • 112k Ford EECV bin: SPECIAL need other software ( Ford F3 chip )
     • 216k Ford EECV bin: SPECIAL need other software ( Ford F3 chip )
     • BEB files CANNOT be programmed with FnB / TP.  Must program using Binary Editor
     • eBIN file CANNOT be programmed
4. Once you are satisfied with the offsets, perform a normal Erase/Blank/Program/Verify cycle!  Consult the Beginners’ Guide for more information.

Using Switching Adapters:

Using our switching adapters (G2X, G3, GX, TwoTimer, F3, F3v2,F8) requires programming chips using offsets of making “stacked” bin files.  Switching adapters use chips that are larger than an ECU requires, allowing the extra space to be used for multiple programs.  The “extra” space gets divided up into chunks, each of which can store an individual tune.  There are two approaches to creating proper chips for use with switching adapters, both equally valid:

1. Lump all tune files together on your PC into one bin file “stacked” which is the same size as the chip, program chip at once.
   • The “Bin Stacker/splitter” function in TunerPro can be used to prepare a single file from a group of tunes.  (You can also use a hex editor or other tool)
   • This “stacked” file contains all the tunes and can then be programmed like a “normal” file using TunerPro, Flash n Burn, etc.
   • “Normal” programming cycle: Erase, Blank check, Load tune/buffer, Program chip, Verify.
   • Entire chip gets programmed at once, all tunes for the ECU get programmed on the chip in one operation as part of the “stacked” file.
   • Requires preparation of new “stacked” file and reprogramming of entire chip if any individual tune changes.
2. Program the chip multiple times, once for each tune, different small selected area of chip Program/Verify cycle instead of whole chip.
   • Instead of relying on a program to create a “stacked” file, knowledge of chip addressing is used to place tunes at correct places within a chip.
   • Programming cycle changes slightly: Erase, Blank check happens at very beginning of cycle ONLY ONCE.  Does NOT happen before every Program/Verify operation, like normal.
   • Erase/Blank is followed by multiple Program, Verify operations.  Each operation is for one tune.  Each operation will have different start/end addresses which are a portion of the chip.
   • Does NOT require preparing any special files in advance – uses the same bin files which would be used for single-tune programming.
   • If you want to chance a tune which is already programmed, the entire chip must be erased and all tunes individually reprogrammed.

As a rule of thumb, tunes start at the end of the chip and count down.  i.e. “Tune 0” is in the highest addresses on the chip, or the top slot in a stacked bin.  “Tune 1” will be the next lower slot.  Some adapters have chips which can hold more tunes than there are address lines for switching.

Each switching adapter we sell has different numbers of available slots, slot sizes and corresponding chip addresses start/end:

• G2X: 27SF512 chip (00000/0FFFF), 16x 32kbit/4kbyte slots on chip:
  1. F000/FFFF
  2. E000/EFFF
  3. D000/DFFF
  4. C000/CFFF
  5. B000/BFFF
  6. A000/AFFF
  7. 9000/9FFF
  8. 8000/8FFF
• G3: 29F040 chip (000000 / 07FFFFF), 16x variable size slots, Ex remote required, addressing varies according to settings on adapter
• GX: 29F040 chip (000000 / 07FFFFF), 16x 64k slots, Ex remote required, addressing varies according to size of base file.
  • There are 16 slots on the chip.  Each slot is 64k ( 0x0FFFF) in size.
  • Tunes smaller than 64k typically need to be top-justified so that they END at the end of each window
  • When using the Ex remote (or no switcher – floating switch inputs) slot “0” will be at the end of the chip and bigger numbers on the Ex remote will mean slots closer to the beginning (0x000000) of the chip.
• TwoTimer: 27SF512 (00000/0FFFF), 2x 256kbit/32kbyte slots, idles in “high position”
  1. 8000/FFFF
  2. 0000/7FFF
• F3 (version one – switch pin and 2 tunes): special case.  Cannot program entire device at once, stacking NOT possible.  Program chip twice, manually change state of switching pin during programming. Note: “Erase chip” function does NOT erase whole chip, only erases the “bank” selected by the jumper
• F3v2 (version two – 4 pin connector and dial switch, 8 tunes): special case.  Cannot program entire device at once, stacking NOT possible.  Program chip multiple times, manually change state of switch during programming to select different slots. Note: “Erase chip” function does NOT erase whole chip, only erases the “bank” selected by the switch
• F8: special case.  Use F8 device utility to prepare and program tunes.

What makes engine management tricky is that even the best theoretical models fail to accurately represent physical behavior in certain situations.  All engine controllers would use the same logic and procedures for running the engine 100% of the time if there was a perfect engine control strategy.  Instead, most engine management schemes incorporate several different modes of operation in which different sensors dictate fuel and timing requirements.  Also, engine controllers have specific logic dictating when to switch between different modes of operation based on different demands from the driver and different engine conditions.  Some of the most common mistakes made by people starting out (hell, even experienced tuners too) are changing some of the “main” functions in order to try to fix a problem that is being caused by a secondary table or the computer operating outside its normal mode(s).  Better understanding of the various modes of operation will help pinpoint what needs to be changed in a tune.

It would probably be a good idea for you to have read the other articles about Injectors, Speed-Density, Mass Air Flow, and Alpha-N before reading the rest of this.

Some basic vocabulary:

• ECM, ECU, Engine computer : used interchangeably to mean the computer operating the fuel injectors and running the engine
• RPM : Revolutions Per Minute – how fast the motor is spinning
• MAP : Manifold Absolute Pressure – (usually) the pressure of air entering the motor
• ECT : Engine Coolant Temperature sensor – sensor used to measure the temperature of coolant circulating through a motor.  Sometimes called different things by different manufacturers.  I will use ECT here
• IAT : Intake Air Temperature sensor – sensor used to measure the temperature of air entering the motor.  Sometimes called different things by different manufacturers – I will use IAT here.
• MAF : Usually used as a shorthand for Mass Air Flow Sensor / Meter
• MAP : Manifold Absolute Pressure Sensor – a sensor that measures the pressure of air in the intake manifold
• Idle Valve : A electromechanical valve controlled by the ECM that allows air into the engine in order to control engine speed.
• Displacement : the volume swept by a piston descending from the top to the bottom of the cylinder bore.  More here.
• AFR : Air Fuel Ratio – the ratio of air to fuel present in a combustible mixture.  Usually stated as a ratio, i.e. 14.7:1 for the stoichiometric AFR for gasoline.  Stoichiometric AFR varies from fuel to fuel.
• Lambda : similar to AFR, except usually expressed as a number where 1.0 represents a stoichiometric mixture for all fuels.  Lambda and AFR are the same concept expressed in different units.
• Stoichiometric : a mixture containing the precise amount of oxidants required for complete combustion of all fuel present.  See here or here for more information on chemistry involved.
• Injector : a special type of solenoid that allows fuel to flow through it when energized (more)
• Pulsewidth : the length of time the engine computer applies electricity to the injector, or how long the injector is commanded to be open
• Flow Rate : The amount of fuel an injector flows once open.  These values are typically given in units of cc/min or lbs/hr at a specified fuel pressure. (injector flow rate varies with the square root of fuel pressure.)
• Latency : the length of time after the injector is turned on before it achieves its linear flow rate.

Goals of Engine Management

Although the answer is somewhat obvious (“make the engine run as well as it can”) it is worth a closer look at what engine management systems try to achieve and why.  Operating optimally normally means one of several things:

1. Making the most power possible without engine damage happening
2. Consuming as little fuel as possible in order to make a specific power output (maximizing efficiency)
3. Minimizing emissions

Most of the time engine management systems aim for more than one of these at once, i.e. Fuel efficiency while minimizing emissions or power and efficiency.  Generally, you cannot have your cake and eat it too when it comes to engine management because the physical conditions required to achieve optimal fuel economy are vastly different than those required to achieve optimal power production.  Minimizing emissions frequently conflicts with BOTH power and economy!

So how do engine management systems deal with the conflicting requirements of economy, emissions and power?  The answer is the title of this section – engine management systems switch between different modes of operation based on input from the driver, measurements from sensors and how they are programmed from the factory.  Sometimes in the course of tuning it is necessary to change not only configuration parameters of an ECM but also how it switches from one mode of operation to another.

Common Modes of Operation

Different ECMs will have different modes of operation and different rules for switching among them.  Many modes of operation exist to service requirements common to all engines, leading to many modes of operation being shared between different engine management implementations:

• Cranking: This is the first task for an ECM – help an engine transition from being spun by the starter to spinning on its own propelled by combustion.  This might not sound like a very difficult task, but there is a LOT involved!  While cranking, cam and crank sensors need to be monitored so the ECM can determine how fast the motor is spinning and what angle the crankshaft is at in order to provide accurate ignition timing, injectors have to be fired in order to deliver enough fuel to get the engine moving, the ignition system has to deliver sparks at an opportune time to ignite the mixture, (in some cases) the idle valve needs to be opened to allow enough air into the motor to get it running on its own…  And more sometimes!  Combine this with (typically) the lowest operating voltages because the alternator is not providing electrical energy and you have a potentially tricky situation.
• Startup: Once the engine is spinning under its own power, the fun can start.  There are often special rules that change the behavior of the ECU immediately after the engine starts.  Idling higher to prevent stalling is a common task in startup mode.  Many engines add additional fuel and change timing in order to try to help the engine warm up to desired operating temperature faster.
• Open Loop: This is a critical mode for the overall operation of the engine.  Open-loop mode is the mode used most often for performance, but it is important all the time.  Open loop operation uses a control strategy like MAF, Speed-Density or Alpha-N to determine fueling and ignition parameters to use to run the engine.  If tuning parameters related to open loop are incorrect, the motor will never run optimally.
• Closed Loop: This is an important mode for fuel economy and emissions.  In Closed Loop mode, the fueling and ignition values from Open loop are adjusted using feedback from additional sensors (usually Oxygen sensors).  Small imperfections in a tune can be corrected in closed loop, letting the ECU maintain much closer control over operating conditions than is possible with open loop alone.  There are usually limits to how large changes can be made by closed loop, which can lead to diagnostic error codes.  (Too Lean / Too Rich / O2 sensor)
• Power Enrichment: (aka “PE” mode) This is a subset of Open Loop operation where engine conditions such as AFR and ignition timing are adjusted with the goal of maximizing power.  Frequently, TPS readings close to wide open throttle serve as a trigger for PE mode.
• Tip-in: Sudden changes are a problem for all control strategies.  When the TPS sensor indicates the throttle has changed quickly enough, the ECU can enter Tip-in mode where
• Decel Fuel Cut Off (DFCO): When you take your foot off the gas, many ECMs will shut off fuel injectors in order to decrease fuel consumption and help promote engine braking.
• Dashpot: Many ECUs implement some form of digital dashpot using the Idle Valve.  The idea here is to prevent stalling when the throttle plate closes suddenly by opening the idle valve enough to gradually bring the engine to idle.
• Idle: At idle, the ECU tries to maintain engine speed while little or no load is placed on the engine.  Idle is often one of the trickiest states to control well.  Usually a mixture of airflow control (via Idle Valve or Drive-by-Wire), spark control and fuel control is used.  Strategies for controlling idle vary immensely among manufacturers.
• Limiting/Protection: Engines have limits – how fast they can safely spin, how much boost they can handle, how fast the car can safely travel.  Part of the ECM’s job is to monitor engine conditions and take measures before damage occurs.  Frequently, spark or fuel will be cut off until engine conditions return below a pre-set limit.

More to come later on this topic…

Before you read this, you should already have read the articles on Injector Theory and Speed-Density.  This article will not make much sense without the background information in those articles.

First, vocabulary:

• ECM, ECU, Engine computer : used interchangeably to mean the computer operating the fuel injectors and running the engine
• RPM : Revolutions Per Minute – how fast the motor is spinning
• MAP : Manifold Absolute Pressure – (usually) the pressure of air entering the motor
• ECT : Engine Coolant Temperature sensor – sensor used to measure the temperature of coolant circulating through a motor.  Sometimes called different things by different manufacturers.  I will use ECT here
• IAT : Intake Air Temperature sensor – sensor used to measure the temperature of air entering the motor.  Sometimes called different things by different manufacturers.  I will use IAT here.
• Displacement : the volume swept by a piston descending from the top to the bottom of the cylinder bore.  More here.
• AFR : Air Fuel Ratio – the ratio of air to fuel present in a combustible mixture.  Usually stated as a ratio, i.e. 14.7:1 for the stoichiometric AFR for gasoline.  Stoichiometric AFR varies from fuel to fuel.
• Lambda : similar to AFR, except usually expressed as a number where 1.0 represents a stoichiometric mixture for all fuels.  Lambda and AFR are the same concept expressed in different units.
• Stoichiometric : a mixture containing the precise amount of oxidants required for complete combustion of all fuel present.  See here or here for more information on chemistry involved.
• Ideal Gas Law : PV= nRT (Pressure times Volume equals moles of gas times ideal gas constant times temperature)  More to be read about this here.
• Moles : a measure of how many atoms are present.  See here.
• Induction stoke :  the part of a 4-stroke engine’s cycle in which air is drawn into the cylinder by the piston.  See here for more information if you are not familiar with a 4 stroke engine’s operation.

Many ECMs (particularly older ones) use extremely slow processors to run an engine, especially by today’s standards.  In addition to doing all the math required by Speed-Density to calculate airflow, the processor often has many other extremely timing or IO-intensive tasks, such as processing crank and cam sensor inputs, firing spark plugs and firing injectors.  Additionally, most of these processors lacked floating-point units (short explanation: pieces of a chip that understand what fractions and decimals are) limiting their ability to accurately represent a model that involved lots of numbers with a fractional component.   Bottom line: engineers had to come up with ways to simplify and speed up the math involved in speed density in order to get older, slower, cheap microcontrollers to be able to run an engine.

Obviously, different manufacturers implement things differently.  In the remainder of this article, we are going to explore briefly how Honda and GM simplified the ideal speed density system to make it more practical to implement on cheap hardware.

GM: Base Pulse Width (BPW)

Ideally, n = PV /RT and then injector pulse = n / injector flow constant

GM introduce the concept of “Base Pulse Width” or BPW to reduce the “V” and “R” terms.  Basically, the BPW is how long the injectors need to be open in order to fill cylinders at 100% volumetric efficiency at a standardized temperature.  The BPW is then multiplied by the Volumetric Efficiency table (which is no longer a VE table in the ideal sense of the word) to determine fueling at different load and RPM conditions.  This is then modified further by coolant and intake air correction tables to account for temperature.  This cuts the number of math operations more or less in half.  The idea behind Speed-Density is being applied in a way that is less math-intensive.

Honda: Required Fuel Value (ReqFuel)

Ideally, n = PV /RT and then injector pulse = n / injector flow constant

Honda took a different approach to the problem of simplifying Speed-Density.  Basically, the MAP sensor and RPM values measured by the ECU are used to index a LUT that contains (more or less) a desired fueling value.  Looking at the math above, Honda essentially pulls the final desired injector pulse (n / injector flow constant) out of a table.  This required fueling value is then scaled by various tables indexed by ECT and IAT which attempt to correct for variations in air temperature.  Honda reduces about half a dozen math operations to one table lookup and a couple of additional easy math operations.  Again, the principles of Speed-Density are being applied in a non-ideal way that attempts to capture what is going on in a way that is fast to implement on slow chips.

Be prepared to do a lot of reading in the numerous side links on this page.  More information that is beyond the scope of this overview will be available.

“Mass Air Flow” (MAF, for short) is a method of measuring airflow into an engine in order to supply an appropriate amount of fuel and adequate spark timing. First, vocabulary:

• ECM, ECU, Engine computer : used interchangeably to mean the computer operating the fuel injectors and running the engine
• MAF : Usually used as a shorthand for Mass Air Flow Sensor / Meter
• Vane Air Flow Meter (VAFM, “Flapper” type meter) : An early type of air meter rarely used today that relies on air pressing against a metering plate (“flapper”) to provide an airflow signal
• Karman Vortex air meter : A type of air meter that not used very much anymore that creates and counts vortexes (air disturbances) in order to measure airflow.
• Hot-Wire MAF : A type of MAF Meter that uses a thin wire heated by an electric current to directly measure air mass.  The most common type of MAF today
• Hot Film MAF : A type of MAF Meter that uses a metal film heated by an electric current to directly measure air mass.  Another type of MAF that is found today.
• TPS : Throttle Position Sensor
• MAP : Manifold Absolute Pressure Sensor – a sensor that measures the pressure of air in the intake manifold
• Displacement : the volume swept by a piston descending from the top to the bottom of the cylinder bore. More here.
• AFR : Air Fuel Ratio – the ratio of air to fuel present in a combustible mixture. Usually stated as a ratio, i.e. 14.7:1 for the stoichiometric AFR for gasoline. Stoichiometric AFR varies from fuel to fuel.
• Lambda : similar to AFR, except usually expressed as a number where 1.0 represents a stoichiometric mixture for all fuels.  Lambda and AFR are the same concept expressed in different units.

Types of MAF Meters and General Operating Principles

Hot Wire MAFs and Hot Film MAFs are the dominant technology in use today.  Earlier style meters (Vane/Flapper, Karman) required an external temperature sensor in order to provide a meaningful airflow reading.  Hot Wire and Hot Film sensors are often found coupled with a dedicated air temperature sensor but they do not strictly require one because the method in which they generate a signal accounts for the temperature of the air they meter.  If you want to learn more about meters, read up here.

ECMs generally have a routine (usually called the “MAF transfer function” or something similar) that converts the raw sensor readings into an airflow value. Sometimes this is a real-world unit (such as g/s or lb/hr) and sometimes it is a purely arbitrary synthetic unit that merely defines the shape of the curve. MAF transfer functions for hotwire MAFs are usually an exponential curve. The shape of the curve is usually determined by the physical characteristics of the sensor. The metering range of the sensor is usually determined by the cross-sectional area of the housing it is in. This means that an easy way to increase the amount of air a given MAF can meter is to put it in a pipe with a larger cross-sectional area. The new MAF transfer function can be approximated (usually fairly closely) by multiplying the old transfer function by the difference in cross sectional area.

Example Question: a meter in a 2″ diameter round housing can meter 1000g/s. The same meter in a 4″ diameter round housing will measure how much air?

Answer: First, find cross-sectional area of 2″ diameter pipe.  Area of circle = pi * r^2.  Diameter = 2 * radius. Radius = 1″, area = 1 * pi.  Second, find cross-sectional area of 4″ diameter pipe.  Area = 4 * pi.  New area / Old area = 4 / 1 = 4.  Multiply original airflow (1000g/s) by ratio of area (4) to get maximum value of 4000g/s.  Note that each individual point in a MAF transfer function can be multiplied in this manner to rescale.

MAF Systems

From here on in this guide, “MAF” and “MAF Systems” will refer exclusively to systems using Hot Wire MAFs and Hot Film MAFs. The reason for this is pretty simple: these type of sensors (at least theoretically) are capable of measuring air mass without the need for significant compensation for air density (i.e. altitude changes, forced induction, changes in air temperature).  In practice, many control strategies use other sensors to try to increase the accuracy of the MAF by additional adjustments but it is not strictly necessary.  MAF sensors do not know what “boost” or “vacuum” are – they deal exclusively with airflow.  If you are trying to make the transition from tuning mostly Speed-Density systems to MAF Systems, be very cautious with timing values as the same trends and rules do not apply to both systems.

Fueling with a MAF system is about as simple as it can get.  It goes something like this:

1. The raw sensor output is converted to an airlow value
2. The next step after determining airflow is to figure out how much fuel is needed to achieve a “target” AFR (more on AFR targets later) which is usually achieved by multiplying by AFR expressed cleverly (see footnote)
3. Finally, the desired fuel value is achieved by multiplying/dividing by a value (injector constant, injector slope, async BPW, …) to account for injector size.  Also any battery compensation is added.  (See Theory: An Injector Model for more information)
4. Done!  At this point, we have an injector pulsewidth!  PulseOut = (MAF_Transfer(RawMAFSensor) * TargetLambda * injector size) + injector latency

There is no “standard” way of doing timing with a MAF system, but all variants basically calculate a value that represents how much air is entering the cylinder each time the motor turns over.  It goes something like this:

1. Start with the same airflow value from step one of fueling. (MAF signal -> MAF Transfer)  This tells us the amount of airflow per unit time.
2. Measure how fast the motor is spinning (RPM) and from this calculate how many revolutions happened during the same time frame as our MAF sample.
3. Multiply/divide airflow by engine revolutions to get airflow / rev.  Most engine management stops here (GM, Subaru, Mitsufeces, …) and spark tables are indexed in grams/rev.  This is a measure of engine load (with a lowercase “l” to denote that we are talking about something different than “Load”, explained next)
4. Ford (and others?) instead use a “Load” (with an uppercase “L” to denote that we are talking about something different than “load”) value that is calculated by multiply/dividing airflow/rev by engine displacement to get a measure of how full the cylinders are relative to their maximum capacity naturally aspirated at sea level with certain air conditions.  If you’re at all familiar with Speed-Density, this should sound somewhat familiar because it is a concept VERY similar to Volumetric Efficiency.
5. Timing tables are usually in the form RPM x calculated load.  MAF timing tables will display a very different characteristic shape than RPM x MAP tables common in Speed-density systems.

Now that we have some concept of cylinder filling (“Load” or “load”), we should return to a piece of how fueling happens in a MAF system: target lambda/AFR.  Usually the same measure used to determine appropriate ignition timing is used to determine an appropriate target AFR/lambda.  In these cases, there is a table that dictates target lambda/AFR indexed by RPM and load.  Sometimes, RPM and TPS is used to determing target AFR instead of calculated load.

Strengths of Mass Air Flow

1. Extremely accurate fueling and spark delivery across a diverse range of engine conditions (at least while in steady-states): the holy grail for engine management. A properly set-up MAF system can adapt to changes in weather and altitude with ease.
2. Minor changes to engine equipment (i.e. headers, minor camshaft changes, intakes that do not significantly alter the placement of the MAF) do not require recalibration of the ECM.

Weaknesses of Mass Air Flow

MAF systems are known for having these issues:

1. MAF systems are extremely intolerant of vacuum leaks.  Any leaks between MAF sensor and engine generally cause all manner of odd problems, running lean in most cases due to un-metered air making it into the engine.
2. MAF sensors can be extremely sensitive to how they are “clocked” – merely rotating the sensor at a given spot in the intake tract can be sufficient to significantly change its output.
3. MAF sensors require laminar flow to read 100% accurately.  True laminar fluids do not exist so this introduces some degree of inaccuracy to MAF sensor readings.  Placing MAF sensors near bends, size transitions or obstructions where flow is less laminar greatly magnifies this issue.
4. A MAF sensor can be a flow restriction in cases where the MAF housing is the smallest portion of the intake system.
5. Hot-wire MAF elements are very fragile.  Debris can destroy delicate wires easily.  Dirt and oil deposits can build up on the sensor element, adversely affecting readings.
6. MAF systems have a relatively poor response to transient conditions, such as sudden throttle changes.  This is explained by the time it takes air to move from the MAF sensor where it is measured to the cylinder where it can be involved in combustion.
7. MAF sensors are not “one-way” sensors – reversion from a camshaft with large amounts of overlap can cause air to be metered on its way in to the engine and then again on its way out resulting in an artificially high MAF reading.  This can almost always be fixed by placing the MAF sensor sufficiently far from the throttle body, however doing so comes at the expense of making transient response even worse.

It may seem like there are a lot of weaknesses of MAF systems, but it is truly hard to emphasize just how amazing and important the strengths are.  It is no secret that the majority of OEMs today are implementing MAF systems as the primary control strategy.  There is a good reason for this, namely that engines can be controlled much more precisely (with the goal of meeting stricter and stricter emissions standards) with a MAF system than any other type of control strategy.

Note: I say “Multiply/divide” multiple times because multiplication and division are very similar operations but division is generally much slower on microcontrollers and other “small” processors often found in ECUs.  For this reason, most division is implemented as multiplication by carefully changing the scale of one of the operands.

If you do not have a strong background in physics and chemistry, be prepared to do a lot of reading in the numerous side links on this page.  This isn’t intended to be a brutal presentation of the topic, but theoretical concepts are necessary in order to be able to understand what is going on behind the scenes.

Speed-Density is a method of estimating airflow into an engine in order to supply an appropriate amount of fuel and adequate spark timing.  First, vocabulary:

• ECM, ECU, Engine computer : used interchangeably to mean the computer operating the fuel injectors and running the engine
• RPM : Revolutions Per Minute – how fast the motor is spinning
• MAP : Manifold Absolute Pressure – (usually) the pressure of air entering the motor
• ECT : Engine Coolant Temperature sensor – sensor used to measure the temperature of coolant circulating through a motor.  Sometimes called different things by different manufacturers.  I will use ECT here
• IAT : Intake Air Temperature sensor – sensor used to measure the temperature of air entering the motor.  Sometimes called different things by different manufacturers.  I will use IAT here.
• Displacement : the volume swept by a piston descending from the top to the bottom of the cylinder bore.  More here.
• AFR : Air Fuel Ratio – the ratio of air to fuel present in a combustible mixture.  Usually stated as a ratio, i.e. 14.7:1 for the stoichiometric AFR for gasoline.  Stoichiometric AFR varies from fuel to fuel.
• Lambda : similar to AFR, except usually expressed as a number where 1.0 represents a stoichiometric mixture for all fuels.  Lambda and AFR are the same concept expressed in different units.
• Stoichiometric : a mixture containing the precise amount of oxidants required for complete combustion of all fuel present.  See here or here for more information on chemistry involved.
• Ideal Gas Law : PV= nRT (Pressure times Volume equals moles of gas times ideal gas constant times temperature)  More to be read about this here.
• Moles : a measure of how many atoms are present.  See here.
• Induction stoke :  the part of a 4-stroke engine’s cycle in which air is drawn into the cylinder by the piston.  See here for more information if you are not familiar with a 4 stroke engine’s operation.

Basic Goals and Method

The goal of Speed-Density is to accurately predict the amount of air ingested by an engine during the induction stroke. This information is then used to calculate how much fuel needs to be provided and may also be used for determining an appropriate amount of ignition advance.

The theoretical basis for this is the Ideal Gaw Law (more here.) rearranged to solve for “n” (the number of moles of gas present :

• n = PV / RT

In order to use n = PV / RT to calculate the amount of air a motor ingests during the induction stroke we would need:

• P is pressure in the cylinder immediately after the intake valves close.
• V is volume, which we know from engine displacement.
• R we know (it’s the Ideal Gas Constant see here for more)
• T is the temperature of the gas in the cylinder immediately after the intake valves close.

Many of the things required to calculate the amount of air the engine ingests using the ideal gas law are missing, unavailable or at least incomplete.  Some notable points where reality is less than ideal:

1. Our MAP sensor measures the pressure differential caused by the downward stroke of the piston in the intake manifold, not pressure in the cylinder as the intake valves initially close.
2. We are assuming that there is no residual exhaust left in the chamber to contribute to “poisoning” of the intake charge.
3. Camshaft overlap (i.e. when both intake an exhaust valve are open simultaneously – see here) makes fluid flow modeling considerably more complicated.
4. T that we need is the temperature of the gas in the cylinder.  This is not usually MEASURED – instead it is ESTIMATED from the temperature of air in the manifold (IAT), the temperature of the cylinder heads (ECT) and other factors.  “RT” is often referred to as the “density correction term” as it tries to account for how air density varies with temperature.  Density correction is arguably one of the biggest problems with speed-density. (more on this later)

Speed-Density introduces the concept of Volumetric Efficiency (VE) to account for the differences between what it can observe and what is really going on.  (mostly problems 1-3 above)  Roughly speaking, VE is the ratio between the amount of air actually present in the cylinder and the amount of air we predict would be in the cylinder using MANIFOLD pressure (MAP) instead of cylinder pressure for our “P” Pressure term, REVOLUTIONS Per Minute (RPM) times Displacement (Volume / REVOLUTION) for our “V” term and an air temperature value estimated from some combination of ECT and IAT for our “T” term.

A motor said to be operating with 100% VE has the same amount of air actually in the cylinder as predicted by n = PV / RT.  Most engines operate at considerably less than 100% VE in most operating conditions.  The difference between actual airflow and theoretical maximum airflow is termed “pumping loss.”  Some engines (most notably Honda engines ) can achieve slightly greater than 100% VE in certain conditions.  Most engines operating under forced induction can be thought of to have a VE greater than 100% in some conditions.

Speed Density ECMs generally have one or more VOLUMETRIC EFFICIENCY (VE) tables that are a critical item to be adjusted.  These tables allow predicted airflow values to be more closely adjusted to observed reality.

Strengths of Speed-Density

Speed-Density has many things going for it:

1. Pressure sensors do not pose any restriction to the flow of air into the engine, unlike a MAF sensor.
2. MAP sensors respond to changing conditions very quickly, enabling it to have fairly good transient response especially compared to Mass-Air-Flow
3. Compared to a carburetor, it allows much more control over the mixture at different engine loads
4. Simplicity: all the sensors required are extremely reliable.

Weaknesses of Speed-Density

Speed-Density is known for having several notable issues:

1. Density correction, density correction, density correction.  You might not think that temperature is that big of a deal, but trust me it is!  Seasonal changes can wreak havoc on speed-density systems.  Superchargers or turbochargers that compress air and raise its temperature from adiabatic heating cause significant changes in density that must be accounted for.  Altitude can also be really problematic.  Many systems incorporate Barometric Pressure sensors to try to address this, but it’s an imperfect correction.
2. Large camshafts with extremely low vacuum due to high overlap close to idle.  Camshafts that have low or pulsing vacuum close to idle present a challenge for Speed-Density.  MAP sensor averaging can help.  Alpha-N blending can help.  It is still very tricky to use speed density to predict airflow with a pressure sensor with camshafts that do not build an appreciable amount of vacuum.
3. Volumetric Efficiency tables can be very time consuming to tune.
4. Engine modifications generally produce volumetric efficiency changes requiring re-tuning.
5. Quite a lot of math is required to do Speed-Density “by the book.”  Because of this, most manufacturers implement something kind of like theoretical speed-density and cut corners or combine math operations in order to allow faster execution on puny computing hardware.  (Remember, most ECUs made prior to 2000 have a slower processor than the average inexpensive cellphone circa 2010)

Sanity Checking a Speed-Density Tune

There are a few rules that transcend particular manufacturer implementations:

1. Volumetric efficiency rarely changes suddenly.  VE tables should almost always have very gradual changes.
2. VE usually DECREASES as pressure DECREASES (i.e. more vacuum = less VE)
3. VE usually maxes out at an RPM close to peak engine torque at maximum observed load, which is usually where peak cylinder filling occurs.
4. Remember that VE tables are not the only thing that controls fueling.  Temperature correction tables (ECT, IAT) are often implemented as multiplier/divider tables.  Don’t forget about injector battery tables either! (see the separate article on Injector Tuning for more on this)

Alpha-N is also sometimes called “TPS maps” because the only sensor that is used for determination of fueling is the Throttle Position Sensor.  (And measured RPM, or how fast the motor is spinning)  Fuel and timing requirements for the engine are expressed as a function of RPM and TPS.

Alpha-N is used most of the time in tricky situations:

1. When the MAP sensor or MAF sensor has failed and the primary control strategy is deemed to be invalid.  Something-is-better-than-nothing is the idea.  (“Load with Failed MAF” is an example from Ford-land)
2. In conjunction with ITBs (Individual Throttle Bodies) due to the extremely low vacuum created by them (making Speed-Density tricky) and the desire to avoid needing to fit a potentially restrictive Mass Air Flow sensor (making MAF impossible).  Again, something-is-better-than-nothing is the idea.
3. In conjunction with ITBs and MAP as a load multiplier. (PowerFC D-Jetro for GTR Skyline, most notable example)  ITBs + Boost – Alpha-N output is multiplied by a MAP sensor to come up with a composite load index.
4. In conjuction with Speed-Density and some kind of blending algorithm.  This approach is often used with very large camshafts that pull little vacuum at idle.  Basically, TPS and MAP are allowed to contribute varying amounts to the overall load calculation.   Net result: more stable and meaningful load index close to idle when MAP sensor readings are unstable.  Found on the Electromotive TEC3 among others.

Alpha-N is very poor at dealing with hills (think about engine load going up and down hills at a constant throttle position), temperature variations and just about anything else that you’d care about except close to wide open throttle where it does fine.

Understanding your fuel injectors is one of the most important things you can do to ensure that fueling is appropriate for your engine.  First, some vocabulary:

• ECM, ECU, Engine computer : used interchangeably to mean the computer operating the fuel injectors and running the engine
• AFR, Air – Fuel Ratio : the ratio between how much air and how much fuel an engine is receiving or how “lean” or “rich” it is running
• Solenoid : a solenoid is an electromagnetic electromechanical device.  It operates by using electricity moving through a coil to generate a magnetic field which moves a plunger. (more)
• Injector : a special type of solenoid that allows fuel to flow through it when energized (more)
• Pulsewidth : the length of time the engine computer applies electricity to the injector, or how long the injector is commanded to be open
• Flow Rate : The amount of fuel an injector flows once open.  These values are typically given in units of cc/min or lbs/hr at a specified fuel pressure. (injector flow rate varies with the square root of fuel pressure.)
• Latency : the length of time after the injector is turned on before it achieves its linear flow rate.

Everything you ever wanted to know about injectors but never knew to ask

Injectors are pretty simple devices: turn on the electricity, wait till the fuel starts flowing.  Right?

Not quite…

Injectors are mechanical devices – once electricity is applied, the injector needs to move from its resting position in which no fuel flows to its open position where fuel is flowing at its published flow rate.  The problem is that this transition from “closed” to “open” is far from instant – some larger injectors can take several milliseconds to open fully.  During this time, injectors do not flow at their linear flow rate.  How long injectors take to open varies from injector to injector largely due to mechanical reasons.  Fuel pressure can also affect injector latency because of the force applied by fuel on injector internals.  And most importantly, the amount of electricity you supply to the injector controls how much magnetic force coils inside the injector can create.  Bottom line: when your battery voltage decreases (such as when cranking) your injectors take longer to open and fuel injector latency increases.

Tuning for Injector latency

Most engine computers have some kind of table to compensate for injector latency.  They can be called many things – “Injector Battery tables” or “Injector battery offset” or “battery tables” but they frequently look very similar: a table of how long to open the injector before it achieves linear flow (“latency”) versus measured battery voltage.  The idea here is that the ECM opens the injectors for a period of time (from the battery tables) to compensate for variations in injector opening time versus battery voltage.  If you change injectors, you probably need to update your battery tables, too.  If you vary fuel pressure, you may want to try changing the battery tables as well as other tables to account for changes in latency.

A basic method for tuning injector latency requires a wideband and a multimeter (or better yet, datalogging battery voltage from the ECU).  Follow this procedure:

1. Start by hooking up you multimeter or starting datalogging battery voltage.  If you are using a multimeter, use a voltage source close to the ECM if possible.
2. Fire up the car and hold it at a few thousand RPM.  Observe battery voltage – it should be fairly high. (13.8 – 14.5 volts, depending on the vehicle)
3. Gradually, let the car return to idle while keeping an eye on battery voltage.  Many vehicles will run anywhere from 0.75 to 0.1 volts lower at idle compared to cruising RPMs.
4. Problems with battery tables can contribute to hunting or unstable idle.  Once the car is idling, do everything you can to put an electrical load on the car – turn on headlights, turn on the stereo, turn on the fan for the climate control inside the car.  As you do so, keep and eye on battery voltage and observed air fuel ratio.
5. If you see the car run progressively leaner when you turn on electrical accessories and voltage drops, start increasing injector latency at the battery voltage you observe until you minimize changes in air fuel ratio when changing electrical load.  This will result in a curve with a steeper slope.
6. If you see the car run progressively richer when you turn on electrical accessories and voltage drops, start decreasing injector latency at the battery voltage you observe until you minimize changes in air fuel ratio when changing electrical load.  This will result in a curve with a flatter slope.
7. If you feel really adventurous, you can disconnect the large cable between the alternator and the + side of the battery (or sometimes a wiring distribution block) while the car is running.  When you do this, the battery will stop charging.  Voltage you observe at the ECU will decrease as the car consumes the battery’s charge.  You can generally tune a much wider range of the battery table by doing this but it is much more of a pain to do and will eventually drain your battery to the point the car will not run.
8. Note: these injector battery tuning methods assume the car is reasonably well tuned close to idle and will idle at a reasonably steady AFR.  Doesn’t need to be perfect, but you may do more harm than good messing with injector battery tables when the tune is jacked.

Another sign that your battery tables may be off is when the car runs poorly at small throttle angles compared to large throttle angles.  Sometimes changing latency is a quick way to fix a car running too rich / too lean that runs well close to wide open throttle.  Latency changes will have a large effect at low pulsewidths (i.e. closed throttle) but will have comparatively little effect at high pulsewidths (i.e. open throttle.)

You shouldn’t be afraid to adjust injector latency as part of tuning but always remember that it is a BROAD SWEEPING CHANGE THAT WILL AFFECT HOW THE ENGINE RUNS EVERYWHERE.  If you have a problem in a specific load condition, chances are your problem is elsewhere.  When you start seeing PATTERNS of problems (i.e. closed throttle too lean, close to idle where battery voltage too lean, hard starts/cranking when battery voltage lowest, etc.) then it is worth looking into whether a latency adjustment can solve your tuning issue.

You can always sanity check your injector battery tables visually.  Injector latency always increases as battery voltage drops.  If you look at a 2D graph of battery voltage versus latency, it should always be relatively smooth.  As voltage increases, injector latency should level out and change much more slowly than at lower voltages.  This is not a Ford thing or a Honda thing – this is a universal thing that all cars that use fuel injectors will follow.

Tuning for Injector Flow

We haven’t said that much about injector flow up to this point, but it is equally important to having your engine run correctly.  Injector flow is the “obvious” thing that most people change when installing different injectors.  Most older systems account for injector flow with a “fuel constant” (it is called many different things in different systems such as… ) – when you change the size of injectors, you multiply the fuel constant by the difference in flow between your old injectors and your new injectors.  For example:

1. Fuel constant = 16.4
2. You have 24lb/hr stock injectors
3. You install 32lb/hr stock injectors
4. 24 (old) / 32 (new) = .75
5. New fuel constant = old fuel constant * change in injector size = 16.4 * .75 = 12.3

Keep in mind, this is just a guideline to get you close.  You can use the injector size / injector constant to make sweeping, global changes to fueling if your tune is off everywhere.  You *should* be able to get a tune very close to where it was before an injector change by changing nothing more than battery tables and an injector size / injector constant.

Some systems (Ford, GM LSx, newer Dodge / DCX Hemi, others) use a dynamic flow model of injector behavior rather than a single “injector constant.” These systems try to more precisely account for the flow of injectors by modeling how injector flow changes as a function of how long they are open.  Most ~87-2009(ish) Ford uses the concept of injector slopes.  There is a “low slope” and an “high slope”, along with a threshold to change from one to the other and often a minimum pulsewidth.  The injector slopes can be thought of as TWO injector flow constants and the ECM changes from one to the other as the injector opens.  When changing injectors on Fords or other manufacturers that use dynamic flow models, a good starting point is to scale both slopes (or all members of a dynamic flow table) uniformly by the predicted difference in injector flow rate.  An even better approach is to copy values from another OEM calibration that uses the injectors you have installed.  Some injector suppliers (but not many – Injector Dynamics is the one that comes to mind) do dynamic flow testing and can supply you with data precise enough to plug in.

We are a small technically-oriented outfit that focuses on product development not fancy packaging, phone support, and marketing.  We bring you high-quality, value-priced products aimed at self-starters willing to read documentation, learn independently and most importantly try things on their own without someone providing guidance every step of the way.

About Moates.Net and our products:

It is important for you, our users, to understand what we expect of you and what we aim for in our products.  Our philosophy at Moates.Net is simple: we want to bring enthusiasts the highest quality products for tuning their cars at a reasonable price.  What we mean by “enthusiasts” is simple: people who are motivated to learn about tuning their car.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re working on your own car or work for a shop – if you’re willing to learn about tuning a car, you are part of our target audience.

Our objective isn’t to make a fortune – there are plenty of companies out there that sell comparable products for a whole lot more.  With that said, there are trade offs in our approach.  Our products frequently do not even have boxes, let alone fancy packaging like other vendors.  Our products do not ship with much printed instructions – instead our documentation can be found online.  (Like this support site!)  We devote most of our resources to product development, leaving limited resources for intensive support.  We have chosen instead to provide inexpensive products with fewer frills aimed at a more educated user.

What We Expect of You

Here at Moates.Net, education and teaching are things we value highly.   We don’t expect everyone to be born knowing how to tune a car or use our products.  We expect anyone who purchases our products to be willing to READ and learn independently. We will help you if you run into trouble, but we expect you to READ documentation and try to do it on your own first.  We base a lot of the technical documentation and guides we develop on the questions that you ask.  (If you have any suggestions for additional guide topics, we are always willing to listen.)  Many of our activities, such as this support site and our YouTube channel with its video tutorials, are aimed at providing resources to further educate our users.

If it doesn’t work out…

Worst case, we have a no questions asked money back guarantee for any parts returned in the condition they were received.  (We can’t issue a full refund for items damaged through neglect, negligence or abuse.)  We hope this isn’t how things end, but you’re only out the cost of shipping and the time you spent trying to figure it out.

This is the documentation for the Nissan Boards.  At this point, there are only one version of the boards, 1.1nm  As future revisions to the board are produced, this page will be updated.

Applications

These boards are designed for S13 and B13 applications.  They will NOT work with S14a ECUs that have a 20×2 pin header.  They will not work with late S14/N14/etc. ECUs that have a 40×1 header. Known good applications:

S13 Silvia RWD “Red top” SR20DET (i.e. 62, E5, etc.) 240 swaps, etc.

S13 Silvia RWD “Black top” SR20DET NON VVTI (VVTI motors not supported) 240SX, etc.

S13 240SX KA24DE twin cam engine US Engine

B13 Sentra FWD SR20DE Sentra, etc.

U13 Bluebird SR20DET

About the Board Hardware

The 20×2 Nissan ROM board has two 28 pin sockets for an EPROM such as a 27SF512 or 27C256.  These are not “even-odd” style boards – chips installed in this board should always have identical programs unless you REALLY know what you are doing.  You will need to buy a ROM burner separately if you do not already have one – this board cannot program chips.

You can use two Ostriches with this board.  Insert each Ostrich like it was an EPROM.  Make sure JROM is not installed (see below for more) or you may have issues with addressing and Ostriches.  You will need a 5.x version of TunerPro RT to have native dual Ostrich support.  You can accomplish the same thing using TunerPro 4.x by also using EmUtility (available from tunerpro.net in the utilities section) to run one Ostrich in emulation mode while TunerPro natively runs the other Ostrich.

Switching and JROM

As previously mentioned, the 20×2 board allows the use of two programs with near instantaneous realtime switching.  The JROM is used to change between two programs when using 512k chips (i.e. 27SF512 or 27C512).  By default, the adapter uses a 32k program from 08000h to 0FFFFh.  When JROM is present, the adapter uses the 32k program from 00000h to 07FFFh.  You can mount an external switch for the jumper if you like.  This link has more information about programming multiple programs and offsets.

Software support

This board has no copy protection that would prevent you using it with a particular software package.  The technical answer to “software support” is to say that it will work with any software capable or providing a Nissan binary ROM file.  Software I have tested these boards with:

• Tuner Pro RT ( www.tunerpro.net )
• 925style.com ROM Editor ( ask google “925style ROM editor” – original site is down)
• Nistune

Just to reiterate – any software that can output a binary file will probably work fine with these boards.

Installation

Installation of the Nissan 20×2 boards can be quite tricky.  A proper de-soldering iron is required for good results.

1. Remove both the top and bottom case from the ECU
2. De-solder all 40 pins of the 20×2 connector.  remember, a clean de-soldering job is critical to this working correctly.  Be careful not to overheat and burn any traces as this can be easy to do.  When you are done, it should look something like this:
3. Place the installed pin header in the 20×2 header so that the “notch” in the header faces towards the blue ECU connector:
4. Solder the 20×2 header in place carefully.  Again, remember clean, accurate soldering is critical for this product to work correctly:
5. Find the jumper marked “CJ1”  – you will need to remove it and move it to position “CJ2”  as this enables the use of the ROM board.  (Putting the jumper back to CJ1 will enable the use of the stock program.)  Be careful when doing this.  The use of two soldering irons, a soldering iron and de-soldering iron or best yet – a set of SMD tweezers will make things much easier.  If you damage the jumper removing it, do not worry – you can use a small piece of wire or a paperclip instead.  (Trim any excess wire / paperclip if you use this method)
6. Finally, slide the 20×2 board onto the installed header:

There are several groups of ECMs.

94-95 LT1,LT4,LTx: These can be tuned via TunerCATS ( link ) with the $EE definition and an ALDU1+CABL1 (94 – square ALDL style connector) or ALDU1+CABL2 (95 “D” shape OBD2 connector).  These are typically the 16188051 ECM.  APU1 also works for reflash on these vehicles.  No chip adapter needed.

94-95 TBI: Unlike all other TBI ECMs (which use a G2 chip adapter) these ECMs are memcal like their TPI cousins and work with the G1 memcal adapter.  Take the cover off the ECM and if you see a memcal, you probably have one of these.  The 16168625 is an example.

94-95 W-body LQ1: uses the regular MEMCAL found in 1227165/7727/7730 ECMs, you can use the G1 adapter in these units also.

94-95 3800: Primarily use the 16183247 and subsequently a different style memcal is used than earlier ECMs.   The 94-95 3800 powered regals use a similar ECM that is weatherproofed, the 16183428, but that ECM is specific to the 94-95 3800 Regals only. This family of PCMs have the little blue ‘box’ memcal that has the integrated knock sensing board.   A G4 chip adapter is required for these, it’s shorter than the G1.

93-95 3100 vehicles (except for the A-bodies, which use a non-weatherproof version of the 94-95 LQ1 PCM) are all flash units. Unfortunately we don’t currently have a solution for these.

(Thanks to Robert Saar for his help!)

There are a few solutions for people with 96-97 computers:

-Convert to a 94-95 ECM that is well-supported by TunerCATS OBD1.  This will require an ALDU1+CABL2 combo, TunerCATS OBD1 tuner ($69.95) with a single definition file ($EE – $19.95) OR TunerCats WinFLash and TunerPro RT with the $EE definition, along with a new 94-95 ECM.  This may involve minor wiring changes.  Arguably the most simple and straightforward option.  Preserves all engine sensors, distributor, etc.  This option will work for LTx engines ONLY.  96-97 Vortecs must use another option.

-Convert to a 98+ ECM that is well-supported by EFI Live.  This will involve more substantial wiring changes and a supported 98+ ECM.  This will involve a 24x reluctor conversion kit. (See here for more information.)  This is *NOT EASY OR SIMPLE* but arguably provides the best solution because quality, trusted LSx electronics replace many problematic parts on the earlier engines such as replacing  the Optispark system with coil-near-plug as found on the LSx.

-Use TunerCATS OBD2 Tuner.  Even though there are no hardware changes needed for this, I put it towards the bottom of the list.  TunerCATS OBD2 Tuner is only available with Roadrunner ECM hardware because of licensing restrictions BUT Roadrunner hardware isn’t compatible with 96-97 ECMs.  You will end up having to spend $489 on a RoadRunner guts kit (that you can’t use on a 96-97 ECM!), $280 on the  TunerCat RTOBD2 package, and $80 on a definition for your ECM.  Grand total: $850.  Now go back and compare costs to the two conversion options above if you wonder why I didn’t list this option first…

Basics

When we talk about “OBD1” GM vehicles, we mean vehicles made from (approximately) 1986 to 1995.  These cars used several different types of engine controller – some have one injector for each cylinder (Tuned Port Injection, or TPI along with the LTx motors) while some have fewer injectors that are placed near the throttle body (Throttle Body Injection, or TBI) instead.  All the vehicles of this generation speak the ALDL protocol for logging/vehicle communication.

For purposes of this guide, “ECM” means Engine Control Module, Powertrain Control Module (PCM), Engine Computer Module (ECM) – terms will be used interchangeably to mean the same thing.

Hardware for OBD1 GM

Overview

94-95 model years are oddballs.  Many of these ECMs support being reflashed over the ALDL interface (e.g. LT1) using TunerCATS.  Some (like the 94-95 TBIs) use a G1 adapter.  Many Grand Prix from these years use the G4 adapter.  Diesels generally use the G5 adapter.

The process for tuning OBD1 GM products is pretty much the same for all 86-93 model years.  First, a “chip adapter” is used to convert whatever the ECM in question needs into a form that accepts a 28 pin EPROM.  Some chip adapters require soldering for installation (G2, G2X) but most do not (G1, G3, G4, G5).  The same EPROMs can be used for all of our OBD1 GM products (except the switching adapters…) which is usually the 27SF512 – C2.

After a chip adapter has been installed in an ECM, tuning can begin.  You can burn chips using a ROM burner such as the BURN1/2.  Alternatively, you can either use the Ostrich 2.0 emulator or the emulation facilities of the APU1 to make changes while the vehicle is running.

Logging from the computer is accomplished using either an ALDU1 or the logging facilities of an APU1.  For 86-94 vehicles, CABL1 is required to connect the logger and the vehicle.  For the 1995 model year, CABL2 is required due to the physically different connector.

Instead of buying the BURN2, Ostrich2 and ALDU1 separately, you can buy the APU1 unit that does the functions of all three pieces in one unit.

Hardware

G1 – “Memcal” style chip adapter (TPI, Syclone/Typhoon, 94-95 TBI, 92-93 LT1, etc.)

G2 – “TBI” 24 pin style chip adapter

G2 GN Style – Grand National Only.

G2X – Multiple program switching version of G2

G3 – Multiple program switching version of G1

G4 – Blue Memcal style chip adapter for some 94-95 vehicles

G5 – Diesel memcal style chip adapter

HDR1 – Header that allows reading memcals in a BURN1/2.  Used to read stock program on memcal ECMs.

BURN2 – Programs chips

Ostrich – USB Chip emulator, allows realtime changes while engine running

Socket Booster – required for use of Ostrich 2.0 in TBI applications.  Can be used instead of G2 adapter.

ALDU1– USB ALDL interface

CABL1– Used to connect an ALDU1 or APU1 and a pre-1995

CABL2 – Used to connect an ALDU1 or APU1 and a 1995 car

APU1 – Combines the functions of the BURN2 (programming chips), Ostrich 2.0 (real time chip emulation) and the ALDU1 in one unit

Applications

This table is abbreviated. If you don’t see your application here, please email us.

* Socket Booster (S_BOOSTER) required for Ostrich 2 emulation and TBI ECMs

If you have excel, you can also take a look at this spreadsheet for a list of what hardware you’ll need with various combinations.

Software

TunerPro RT ( link ) and TunerCATS ( link ) are the two most commonly used software packages for OBD1 GM.

FreeScan is a free datalogger that works with some GM vehicles. ( link )

There is an excellent cross-reference I found with google that lists common ECMs, which mask (software revision) they use and various other useful information.  ( link )

Holden Vehicles

TunerCat OBD1 tuner seems to have the best support for Holden vehicles at this time ( link ) although TunerPro has support for some ( link )

Hardware-wise, the majority of these vehicles use the G1 chip adapter.  Some of the newer vehicles use our newest G6 chip adapter.  We don’t know the Australian vehicles as well as those stateside so we recommend you check out http://www.delcohacking.net for more info on these vehicles.

The main product that we make for 98+ GM vehicles is the RoadRunner emulator that allows realtime changes to be made to a LS1 ECM.

The RoadRunner is designed to be used with either EFI Live or TunerCATS software.

EFI Live is a comprehensive tuning software package that includes both an editor and logging application.  The software has the most comprehensive vehicle support out of any package we sell for OBD2 GM, working with both Gen3 and Gen4 ECMs and TCMs.  It is licensed on a per-vehicle or per ECM type basis.

Tuner CATS OBD2 tuner is used primarily with the RoadRunner hardware.  It only supports Gen3 LS1 ECMs/TCMs.  Tuner CATS OBD2 tuner can ONLY BE SOLD WITH ROADRUNNER HARDWARE.  WE CANNOT SELL IT TO YOU UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES UNLESS YOU BUY ROADRUNNER HARDWARE.  It is licensed on a per ECM type basis.

We also often get asked, “Can I use your product to let me put _______ on my engine?” The answer to this is very simple: our products let you tune factory Ford computers.  If the factory Ford computer can do it, our products can help you tune it.  If there is another factory Ford computer that you can swap to run your engine that does what you want, great.  Some examples of what I’m talking about here include putting a MAF sensor on a car, running a car without a MAF speed-density, switching to coilpacks, etc.  If you can’t do it with a factory Ford ECM, our products aren’t going to help you achieve your goals.

We offer products that work with almost all ~1986-2004 Ford ECUs that have a J3 port (i.e. EECIV and EECV).  International users report success using our products with non-US computers that have a J3 port.  A J3 port looks like an edge of a circuit board that kind of sticks out.  J3 ports must be cleaned with a wire brush and solvents in order to remove the protective coating on the circuit board before they can be used.  They are almost always behind a rubber protective panel.  We do not offer any products for Ford computers that lack a J3 port, such as pre-1986 and 2005+ computers.  Also, cars branded by Ford but manufactured by others (i.e. Ford Probe, made by Mazda) often use computers that lack J3 ports.

It is critical that the vehicle is fully off before installing or removing anything on the J3 port.  Failure to power-off the ECM correctly can result in frying our hardware, your ECM or both!!!  If you have any doubts at all, remove the keys from the ignition 100% or disconnect the battery.  WARNING WARNING WARNING!

On this page “application” simply means the car/ECU/engine you are working with.

“ECU” means ECM, PCM – the computer running your car’s engine.

“Strategy” is Ford lingo for a set of procedures (i.e. code) that an ECU runs.  (Closest GM term: Operating system)  Most of the time, a strategy is particular to an ECU, i.e. the GUFB strategy runs onA9L ECUs.  Sometimes more than one strategy can run on the same ECU (i.e. GUFB/A9L + GUFC/A9P) .  Most of the time the “tuner” cars (i.e. Roush, Saleen) use unusual strategies that are often simply renamed factory strategies.

“Definition” means a file that describes the location of parameters that can be changed in a strategy.  All of the Ford tuning software uses definition files to process raw files.

“Patch code” refers to special routines that change the way a strategy operates in order to allow Quarterhorse to log all vehicle parameters.

Hardware used with Ford:

F3 Chip adapter – This stores a new program for a Ford ECU and clips on the J3 port.  This is a simple Ford “chip” that can optionally store two programs.  It works with both EECIV and EECV.

Jaybird – This is a Ford-specific device that writes F3 chip adapters ONLY.  It uses the same Flash n Burn software as a BURN1/BURN2

F2A – The F2A is a Ford interface for the BURN1/BURN2 programmers.  It lets you write a F3 chip adapter using a BURN1/2 programmer and the Flash n Burn software.

F2E – the F2E is used with a F2A and a BURN1/2 to read the stock program from a ECU.

BURN1/BURN2 – These general purpose ROM burners can be used with a F2A to program F3 chips

FORDEMU – This adapter allows the use of a Ostrich emulator to make real-time changes with a Ford ECU.  This product has been replaced with the Quarterhorse.  It does not work very well with EECV ECUs.

Quarterhorse – The Quarterhorse (or “QH” for short) is our flagship Ford tuning product.  It allows changes to be made while the vehicle is running.  It also allows datalogging by spying directly on RAM locations.  In order to log all vehicle parameters, patch code that is specific to each strategy is required.  Many of the features of QH require special definition files and/or software support that may not be available for all applications.

Software for Tuning Fords:

You can read the binary from any J3 Ford computer with our gear (BURN2+F2A+F2E), but that does NOT mean that any J3 ford computer is fair game.  In order to be able to display a raw binary from a Ford ECM in a real-world units that might make sense to you, a definition is required.  The def is kind of like a roadmap that allows software (Binary Editor or EEC Editor) to translate what runs the car’s computer into something meaningful to you.  Defs have to be developed by a human being for each application.  PLEASE ASK US FOR HELP IF YOU ARE NOT SURE YOUR APPLICATION IS SUPPORTED!!!

TunerPro / TunerPro RT (www.tunerpro.net) : Great for basic editing.  Free.  Somewhat limited definitions compared with other software.  At time of writing (11/28/09) lacks full support for QH, but beta versions have support.

EEC Editor http://www.moates.net/eec-editor-software-from-paul-booth.html : Cheap ( <$50 ) software with fairly extensive editing support for editing Ford tunes.  EEC Editor requires you to purchase definitions on a per-strategy basis.  One strategy will cover more than one box code.  Definitions for datalogging can be purchased separately.  As of time of writing (11/28/09) has QH support for MANY applications including Fox body mustang (GUFB/GUFC/etc. A9L/A9P/C3W/etc.) 94-95 Mustang (T4M0, CBAZA) along with many 96-03 applications.  Custom definitions available for a fee.

Binary Editor (http://www.eecanalyzer.net) : Relatively cheap ( $80 BE / $130 BE + EEC Analyzer) software with comprehensive editing support and comprehensive support for QH.  See here for a list of strategies supported.  Binary Editor comes with a bunch of definitions that are free and there are others you need to pay for.  You can see most of them at http://www.eecanalyzer.net in the downloads section.

This article was accurate as of the time it was written (2009) but things may have changed.  At Moates.net, we rely on information from our users about what works and what doesn’t work.  Please investigate on PGMFI.org and elsewhere to confirm the information you find here!  Things may have changed and we may not be in the loop.

Unsupported Vehicles

• V6 Hondas have very limited hardware and software support
• K-series Hondas have no support from hardware we make at this time
• 2001+ non-K series Hondas (D17, R18, etc.) have no support from hardware we make at this time
• Automatic Hondas have very limited support. Very little has been done with automatic transmission controls and many tuning packages eliminate the code used to control auto transmissions.

Unsupported ECUs

• Anything pre-1988 probably lacks spark control. There isn’t much if anything available software-wise for these ECUs. You might find 24 or 28 pin EPROMs inside, you might not. Your mileage may vary.
• 1988-1991 DPFI (Dual Point Fuel Injection – Throttle Body Injection) ECUs have zero software support. 90-91 models can be chipped like an OBD1 ECU hardware-wise, but that doesn’t solve the software issue.
• 1988-1989 Civic Si (PM6) and 1988-1991 CRX HF ECU (PM8) require a daughterboard we do not sell in order to be chipped. Use a 90-91 ECU on these model years.
• 1992-1995 JDM GSR Automatic ECUs (hardware design makes chipping them impossible. Auto JDM P30s are ok)
• 1996-2001 ECUs (OBD II – hardware design makes chipping very difficult to impossible, requires surface mount soldering tools and chips no longer available on the market.)
• Prelude ECUs (trivially chippable, but unless you are going to develop the software support, it doesn’t currently exist)
• V6 ECUs from Legend (early models can be trivially chipped, but unless you are going to develop the software support, it doesn’t currently exist)
• NSX ECUs (early models can be trivially chipped, but unless you are going to develop the software support, it doesn’t currently exist)
• Basically any ECU other than an Integra or Civic ECU is not well-supported

This information was last updated 2/4/09 by Dave Blundell.

Types of Nissan Computer

Trivially chippable Nissans fall into several categories:

28 Pin EPROM (VG30DETT 300ZX Twin turbo, KA24E 240SX, RB26DETT R32 Skyline GTR, …) – If you see a 28 pin EPROM inside the ECU, this is your application.  Ostrich 2.0 works in almost all cases, but many of these applications will require a SocketBooster.

20×2 ROM Board “S13” (SR20DET Silvia/240, SR20DE Sentra, SR20DET GTiR, etc.) If you see a spot on the edge of the circuit board with two rows of 20 pins, this is probably the application.  (also see below S14a)  The Nissan 20×2 Adapter board is intended for this generation.  Two Ostrich emulators can be used for realtime emulation.

20×2 ROM Board “S14a” (SR20DET “black top” VVTI, 95-97 “B14” Sentra, etc.) If you see a spot on the edge of the circuit board with two rows of 20 pins, this is probably the application.  (also see above S13) These are not supported at this time.  Future hardware may add support.

40×1 ROM Board (Late model sentra, 240?) If you see a single, extremely long row of pins that are very closely spaced together, this is your application.  These are not supported at this time.  Future hardware may add support.

Many Nissan ECUs are not trivially chippable (RB25 Neo, R33 Skyline, R34 Skyline, 350Z, …)

Software

TunerPro RT has definitions for most S13/B13 platforms.

925style ROM editor supports most JDM ECUs.  I’ve used sucessfully with S13 SR20DET and R32 GTR Skyline.  It isn’t officially available anymore but you can find it easily with google.

CROME is compatible with certain Nissan ROMs, particularly those used in S13 based vehicles.

Honda ECUs have a Diagnostic Generation, Model and a Board Revision.

The diagnostic generations are OBD 0, OBD I, and OBD II.

Examples of the model are  P28, P72, etc.

The board revisions are 1980, 11F0, and 1720.

Diagnostic Generation (OBD 0, OBD I, OBD IIa/b)

Every generation

From top to bottom:

Knowing the generation of your ECU is extremely important. For a P28 it is easy because the P28 was only made for OBD I vehicles, however Integra ECUs like the P72 and P75 have both OBD I and OBD II variants. Be weary of this when you are purchasing an ECU online, an OBD II ECU is basically worthless.

Model (P28/P72/etc)

Side view of P28

Just because you have an OBD 0 or OBD I ECU doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be able to just up and tune. Take a look at the side of your ECU, you’ll see 37820-PXX-XXX. The numbers following the P, like P28 or P30 are very important. Here are some things to note about the most common variants:

• P05 – Civic CX – Most basic supported ECU. Doesn’t have O2 Heater circuit, disable this to prevent CEL
• P06 – Civic DX – Same as P05 but has heater circuit
• P08 – JDM Civic – Same as P06, but has VTEC
• P28 –  Civic Ex/Si – The standard issue tuning ECU.
• P30 – Del Sol VTEC – Same as P28 but has a Knock Board
• P72 – Same as P30 but with IAB control
• P75 – Same as P72 but with no Knock Board or VTEC control

Board Revision

The only reason that the board revision is typically of interest is when you are attempting to add components like a VTEC conversion kit.

The board revision can be found silkscreened onto your ECU:

This is a 11F0 board

USDM/JDM

The only time you need to worry about whether your ECU is UDSM or JDM is when selecting which chip kit to purchase. JDM ECUs require slightly different chips than their USDM counterparts, so make sure you select the right one when you order.

USDM (Rectangular)

Only certain Hondas can be tuned using our hardware. In short, these are any vehicles that run a B, D, H, or F (Accord) series engine with a distributor and can run an OBD I ECU. Whether they accept these ECUs natively or via an OBD II to OBD I or OBD0 to OBD I conversion harness makes no difference.

Some of the OBD0 (pre-92) vehicles can be chipped and tuned natively, but the OBD I software tools are so much more advanced and user friendly that it is worth considering converting these vehicles to OBD1 with a conversion harness when possible.

If you have a 1996-2001 Honda, you will need to remove your stock OBD2 ECU and plug-in a supported OBD I ECU via a conversion harness. Please make sure you order the appropriate harness for your car as different model years used different connectors.

Supported Vehicles

• 1992-2000 Civic (1996-2000 Civics require OBD2-OBD1 conversion harness, use 92-95 OBD1 ECU)
• 1992-2001 Integra (1996-2001 Integras require OBD2-OBD1 conversion harness, use OBD1 ECU)
• 1992-2001 Prelude/Accord (1996-2001 Preludes require OBD2-OBD1 conversion harness, requires Integra or Civic OBD1 ECU swap, )
• 1988-1991 Civic/CRX Si-HF or swapped cars (can use OBD1 ECU and OBD1 tools with OBD1/OBD2 distributor swap and conversion harness)
• 1988-1991 Integra/CR-X/Civic with B16A swap (requires PR3/PW0 ECUs to use as OBD0 Vtec)
• 1990-1991 Civic/CRX Si D16A6 (will have PM6 ECU, ready to use as OBD0 non-vtec)
• 1988-1989 Civic/CRX Si, 1988-1991 CRX HF (requires use of a 90-91 ECU to use as OBD0 non-vtec)

Supported ECUs

• 1992-1995 Civic (P05 | P06 | P08 | P28)
• 1994-1995 Del Sol VTEC (P30)
• 1992-1995 Integra GS-R (P61, P72)
• 1992-1995 Integra RS/LS/GS/SE (PR4 | P74 | P75)
• 1992-1995 JDM Civic, Integra, Del Sol, etc. (P30, P72, P54, P08, etc. small square case. Place note in order!!! JDM ECUs require different parts than USDM)
• Chippable OBD-0 ECUs (PW0 | PR3 | PM6)
• see also pgmfi wiki on the subject

Note: If you do not see your car or ECU specifically listed here, please check to make sure you do not have an unsupported setup before purchasing anything!

Supported Tuning Software

• Neptune (targets primarily 92-95 OBD1 ECU hardware, very actively developed, advanced feature set, per-vehicle licensing)
• eCtune (targets primarily 92-95 OBD1 ECU hardware, starting to be poorly maintained, advanced feature set, per-vehicle licensing)
• CROME Pro (targets OBD1 ECUs, supports datalogging, getting to be poorly maintained, great for “simple” tunes, flexible licensing)  There is a very nice PDF tutorial written up by Darren Kattan. Check it out by clicking HERE.
• CROME (as above, free but without datalogging support)
• BRE (Primarily targets OB0 Vtec computers: PR3, PW0. Also has limited support for PM6. Only recommended for “simple” setups. Not very actively supported)
• TurboEdit (Primarily targets OBD0 non-vtec computers, i.e. PM6. Only recommended for non-vtec engines and very simple setups. Not very actively supported)
• Uberdata (Older application. Targets OBD1 platform. Once thought to be dead but seems to be some recent development activity)
• FreeLog (Free, datalogging package, works with Crome, not heavily supported/updated.)