Standalone Tips & Intall By Fast_a2_20v**Updated 4/23/05
As per the don's request...
I've done a few standalone installs now and tuned a couple more cars as well, all of my experiance is with haltech brand standalones so take what you will.
So you've got your standalone in a box, and its pretty fugging intimindating... Theres a 15lb coil of wires, a box, a manual, and a cd. (and maybe some sensors and shit)
Don't stress! lol... its not that bad!
So here goes the PRE INSTALL info...
1) dig the manual out, my first suggestion would be to find the list of "kit" contents, and inventory everything. Inspect everything for damage and check it off. The last time you want to notice your missing something important is half way through the install as many of these companies are overseas.
2) take the manual to the couch, with a magic marker, and DEVOUR it, just as you would a college text. This is ABSOLUTELY critical to a smooth install.
3) Pop the CD in your computer and get the software up and running... Go through each and EVERY menu and familiarize yourself. If you see a word that you don't understand, look it up in the manual. This will save COUNTLESS swear words when time comes to get the car running.
Figure out how to do basic things, like modify the fuel maps... big jumps, small jumps, whatever... How do you blend section sof the map, how do you change a percentage, etc...
4) Familiarize yourself with the support... Are there forums? buddies? etc...
5) know your setup. What size injectors? what cams what what what... this will be important if you are asking for help or need basemaps. It seems odvious, but you'd be surprised. [/list]
Starting the install... 1) the biggest mistake is to try to install a standalone on a car which is
not mechanically sound. If the car already runs, great! skip this step. If not, take this time to verify the following (i don't care who assembled it, CHECK these things because you'd be surprised what can slip through): Cam timing, leaks, check all bolts are tight... does the fuel pump work (seriously)...
2) collect these tools:
a) GOOD quality heat shrink.
b) good quality automatic strippers, the kind which grab the wire and then split apart
c) bare crimp connectors
d) soldiering iron -- gasp-- i will explain.
e) quality ELECTRONICS soldier, not the plumbing shit. get the good stuff lead based which kills you faster. If it kills you faster, its the right stuff. :face:
f) teeth :bowrofl:
g) quality electrical tape - eg 3m... Harbour freight need not apply.
h) some sort of wiring harness protection, either the black plastic loom shit (home depot, a dollar a package).
i) multi meter
j) brain
k) misc pliers needle nose and standard
l) m14x 1.5mm tap and 3/8" NPT tap- available at
www.mcmaster.comfor wiring supplies you can try a few sources i've found
www.pegasusautoracing.com carries wirring stuff but MAN they kick ass!
http://www.cableorganizer.com/ they even have the fireproof shit if you want to be big balla tony palo style.
3) Find a spot for the ecu, make sure that the loom can reach all of your fuel injectors, the crank sensor, the cam sensor, and your ignition components, either ignition moduals or an msd box.
4) connecting things, the wiring is dependant on your ECU, so follow thier instructions to the tee. wire up the injectors, IAT and CLT sensors, MAP sensor, and TPS sensor...
the IAT sensor IF it is a gm style one will use an M14x 1.5mm bung, the CLT GM style is 3/8" NPT... You can get taps for these at mcmaster...
www.mcmaster.comCRANK ANGLE SENSORthis is a 3 wire connector. The middle wire is ALWAYS the ground... the other two, one is shield, and one is the trigger or output... You can tell which is which, just get your multimeter, the one which is a circuit (connected / does not have infinite resistance) with the ground is the trigger, the one which does not appear to be connected to anything is a shield wire, you can leave it disconnected usually.
Trigger angle will be in the ballpark of 78-85 degrees, and if it asks for tooth offset try 12.
I say to soldier on the crank sensor because on one install i did it would not work without the soldier. I'm not going to make thoeries, it just didn't work.
CAM ANGLE SENSORSquint REALLY hard... VERY hard, the sensor itself says - O + for negative (ground) output, and postive. Hook up the respective wires...
TPS This is information cut and pasted from the megasquirt website by bowling and grippo... You can find that website
here"You will need a TPS that is really a potentiometer and not a switch. Many older cars had idle or WOT position switches instead of a real TPS. A real TPS gives a continuously varying signal with changing throttle. There are two wires on the external wiring schematic that go from MegaSquirt into the TPS sensor. These two MegaSquirt wires are +5 Vref signal and a sense line. There is a third wire going to ground. Assuming that you have a proper potentiometer TPS, then +5 Vref goes to one side of the pot, the other side goes to ground and the sensor line is hooked to the wiper.
To hook up your throttle position sensor (TPS), disconnect the TPS, and use a digital multi-meter. Switch it to measure resistance. The resistance between two of the connections will stay the same when the throttle is moved. Find those two - one will be the +5 Vref and the other a ground. The third is the sense wire to MegaSquirt. To figure out which wire is the +5 Vref and which is the ground, connect your meter to one of those two connections and the other to the TPS sense connection.
If you read a high resistance which gets lower as you open the throttle, then disconnected wire is the one which goes to ground, the other one which had the continuous resistance goes to the +5 Vref from the MegaSquirt, and the remaining wire is the TPS sense wire."
OEM Integration info If you want to keep your oem cluster working, leave the OEM wiring connected to these sensors, and the coolant temp sensor, etc, and strip a small bit of each wire and soldier on the standalone wire... just like a diode mod.
so now you should have MAP, TPS, coolant and intake temp, fuel pump, and crank and cam angles hooked up, minimum.
5) clean up wiring... make it safe, but don't bundle it up so well that if you need to change something its a total joke. Make sure none of the accessory wires for the standalone provide 12v power are going to do anything you wouldn't like
6) power up the standalone, and verify that it communcates with the laptop.
now you need to check a few things
do all the sensors read "normal"? MAP shoul dread about 0 psi, coolant and intake temps roughly room tempurature... etc... calibrate the TPS and make sure it is working correctly.
7) Verify there are fluids in the car. make sure your not going to have any leaks... The first time i cranked my car over i forgot a bolt in the oil filter housing... by the time i knew it was out, there was castrol GTX EVERYWHERE... don't make the same mistake...
Disable your fuel injectors, you do not want to flood the engine.
9) Verify that the fuel pump primes AND runs when your cranking. Commonly it will prime and then not run when the key is on crank. I gave up on figureing out the oem wiring and just run a wire back there now.
9) RPM reading correctly? Make sure it is setup for a "motronic 60-2 wheel" with a magnetic sensor (so it needs a reluctor on most ecu's), its only a 2 wire sensor so diagnosis is relatively simple on that end of things...
10) have a buddy verify that you have spark to all 4 cylinders and it is going to what appears to be the correct firing order depending on if your running waste spark or what.
11) generally observe the car, is it leaking fluids? are there any wires too close to heat sources...
Starting It1) verify with a timing light that your ignition timing is close. Put the pickup on #1 plug wire or the negative to the coil... Lock the timing @ 0 degrees, and just shine the light on the cam gear, it should be very close to the cam timing mark on the cam gear when your buddy cranks it over (with injectors disabled)
2) check base fuel pressure, given a "normal" sized injector, EG, not 152lb'ers, try something in the ballpark of #40lb base pressure.
3) turn the fuel maps wayyyy down for low rpm... probably just leave the cold start correction and other adjustment maps alone for now.
4) re-enable injectors, crank the engine... You should be starting with VERY low fuel (to avoid using 923589502 spark plugs), so i wouldn't expect to hear much. Crank and add fuel, crank and add, crank and add... you should get some popping... just keep doing this until it fires up. If it almost starts and then dies you can sometimes save it by pumping the gas beacuse the Throttle pump enrichment will provide it some extra fuel to get rolling...
5) once its running however shitty, try to keep it running until its up to tempurature, do whatever it takes more fuel less fuel whatever...
Don't bother trying to accurately tune it, because the ECU is still using the fuel correction maps, which are still untuned, so if you tune the a/f while its cold, it'll just be f'd up when its warm
trust me, i've chased my tail around a lot doing that.
tune the vacuum parts of the map according to the wideband for 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, and maybe 3000 rpm, while its 100% up to temp... just do this in neutral.
For timing, I followed billy's lead with a basemap he posted a long time back, and ramp up timing very quickly, this seems to work great on VW. You should probably ramp up to 35 degrees or so of timing by 3000 rpm, under vacuum... Then just straightline it all the way out to redline... Total timing under boost, eh, thats a can of worms and really depends on what turbo and what your setup is. To be honest i really don't want to give a # here because i just KNOW somebody is going to boost 30psi on pump gas and then complain when they pop there motor. 10 degrees total timing under say 20psi of boost would be a SAFE place to start, but keep sharp!
So, anyways that should give you a map which the car runs good with no load and at operating temp. I usually let the car cool, and then re-start it, tuning the fuel correction map as it warms up. Once its warm again, you can start it a few times and mess with the amount of prime MS until it starts really nice... THis should have you starting nice under most conditions. Your coolant correction map if the car only cooled to 70 degrees, just continue the trend into the very cold weather, and taht should get you close.
TPS enrichment, no science here either, once you have the car running crisp, open up this menu... You can blip the throttle and watch what happens to the a/f, or blip it repeately and see if the mixture leans out or gets rich... Play with the values until this seems good, but most importantly play with them until the car responds nicely...
Tuning the car!
First thing to do this is not guts and glory, its tuning as methodically and safely as possible, don't plan on going out and doing some big power burnout pulsl right off the bat...
Next, grab a buddy... Have him put put your car down the road, or if its an automatic, just put it in gear and sit there, make correction sto the map because sometimes they change a bit under load... best thing here is to use an all ranges modifier, or a fuel multiplier value change, to get you close... because often if a car runs a little different under load, it does so in all rpms... anyways... Put down the road at 1000 and get the vacuum happy... then 1500... then 2000... 2500... etc etc... They shouldn't require much of a change at all from what you had in neutral... and like i said you can usually do this all at once and get them all very close in one shibang... Tune for 14.7's under light throttle, i would recommend aiming for 13.5's under heavy throttle and no boost... Anyways, tune all of your vacuums until you have a car which can be granny driven around town and run up into the higher rpms and light throttle...
Tuning boost is something to approach cautiously and methodically... Start at the lowest boost possible... And low rpms... Get on the throttle and allow it to start to build boost and then stop... Was it rich? lean? try to get it to be rich, and then make an educated guess about what it would do in the higher boost area on the same rpm field... Then do low boost in the next rpm, using the previous RPM to guestimate how much fuell... and so on... all the way up...
its slow, and tedious... bt you sort of have to hack it out... once you get a low boost map roughed in you are probably going to make some power...
Then you need to make a decision either datalog on the street or dyno tune... In either case, you need to get a printout of a/f at given rpm's so you can fine tune the maps... at a given MAP..
The #1 thing that people seem to do is IMO to get too caught up in numbers and what works on other peoples setups... LISTEN to your engine... does it sound clean and crisp? or does it sound like a person who smoked 3 packs a day for 30 years? If the engine breaks up AT ALL and the a/f is correct, play with the timing! This is why i was reluctant to give out timing #'s... My buddies 2JZGTE supra motor doesn't like more then about 10 degrees of timing on pump ass, but my other buddies honda likes 18! you can't just stamp a timing # on an engine... Tune the engine to where it is happy! This mostly takes an ear for what a happy engine sounds like, which should be smoooooooooooooth power. "pissed off" sounding usualy means somethign is not right, IMO.
Datalog your road speed... if you have the option, it gives you a virtual dyno because you can monitor your rate of acceleration... Changes in a/f and timing you can see if the car accelerated faster...
Anyways this is in no means meant to be an end all for tuning your car and i'm no pro myself... I want to draw up some drawings for how to do the CRANK angle sensor test... and also find this article on how to wire up a TPS... So stay tuned there is more coming. (no pun intended
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