the ignition is controlled by a signal from the ECU to each individual coil pack. there is no external electrical source for the charge, the coil pack merely needs a signal to fire and produces it's own charge. the timing signal is derived from the cam and crank sensors.

there is two ways to control timing, fool the sensors or control the igniter. I believe the FIC controls the cam sensor (maybe both) and can only retard the timing. either way it would only be able to retard the timing using those signals because they are odd signals and are difficult to predict.



still confused a little though

there were between 12 and 14 before... but under what driving condition?

driving they're (this could be they were or they are, which is why I am still confused. your verb tenses are mixed in the above paragraph ) in the 14's.

when you stop, they go to 11's or 12's (too rich, I agree)... then you go on to say you couldn't fix it with the FIC... when? now or then? it wasn't a problem before (the 11's or 12's at idle I am assuming) but now it's become a problem?




fuel wise it's piggybacking the injector, but is it intercepting or emulating the injector signal? in other words, is it a fuel map or an add/subtract map? specifically did you have to start from no fuel and build the entire map or did you add a percentage of fuel in each cell you needed fuel in and all other cells were empty?

sorry about all the questions.


if the FIC won't affect AFR's like it should the ECU might be fighting it. I don't believe anyone else has tried the injector piggyback method with this ECU yet, so you would be the first and therefor likely to encounter new issues

 

Yes, driving they're in the 14's.
It worked well before. Since we disconnected the battery and reset the ecu few months ago the fic started to act up.
We had to add and subtract fuel in percentages. Cause of the bigger injectors, we subtracted fuel before boost and added after. I hope I'm explaining this right.

 

yeah, the unit intercepts/changes the injector signal then. can you log injector duty cycle from the scantool or the FIC unit? something to look at anyway.

you say you reset the ECU a few months back and the FIC started to act up? that's particularly interesting. have you tried AEM's forum for known issues? they may be able to offer a little bit of help; some of the piggybacks I have researched offer pretty good tech support through their websites.

have you tried running without the o2 adjust feature at idle to see if the car can idle by itself? with larger injectors it may take a few minutes for the car to idle correctly. thunder-rush, IIRC, was running the NA split second piggy with larger injectors and did not use any closed loop tuning method for fuel. 10psi for 2+years

 

I spoke to the AEM guys on the forum and they're saying that nothing is supposed to change. But I'm not crazy. Ever since, it's not responding as crisply as it used to. Even few percent up or down you could see a difference, now you gotta go 15 or 20 for the same result. And then when the trims settle after a few days you end up too rich or too lean. And the only maps we're using are MAP and Timing. Everything else is set to zero.

 

I'm guessing you had to gap those, right?

 

I would

you should PM hackish if you haven't already. he has new information on the FIC it seems.

 

I have, and he said to bring the car in to his shop. But it's not running right now and Ottawa is 4 hrs away. So I have to at least fix this current problem and then go up to see him for fine tuning.

 

bummer man. when you get up that way hopefully he will take care of you

 

Unfortunately the problem is still here. The injectors and the wiring were ok. The only codes we're getting are random misfire and bank 2 too rich. The mechanic then put the stock injectors back and bypassed the FIC and the misfire is still there. He tried different scanners to get more info before buying new O2 sensors, but keeps getting same codes. He finally put new O2's in (which cost me $200) and the misfire was still there. He's getting frustrated and so am I as you can imagine. The only thing left will be to try out another MAF on Thursday when a buddy will bring his GS and and we'll put it in and see. The only time we weren't getting misfires was when we disconnected the MAF. That puts the car in limp mode, but it doesn't misfire. If anyone has any ideas please share them.

 

This is a known problem with the AEM. I spoke to the engineers about it for a long time and they understand what's happening but it really only affects the ralliart so they are not willing to put engineering time into fixing the problem.

-Michael

 

well, what was happening then?

 

The problem has been fixed. It was the MAF sensor. I had to get a new one, and the reason was the crappy Tial BOV. At idle it was not closing and the moisture got in and killed it. That's the reason it was gradual. Of course the ECU did not put the code out till yesterday. For five days the only code we were getting was bank 2 too rich. So finally we decided to get new O2 sensors, and it was wrong.lol The funny thing is that when I brought the car in to the shop last week, the first thing the mechanic said was: "I don't like the way the bov is open. Probably your maf is dead cause of moisture." He was right, but without the proper code we weren't sure.
Anyway, Greddy RS BOV is on the way.

 

Ok, sounds like a different problem then. I tried to make it work with an externally venting BOV but it didn't like it - I wasn't able to get it working well enough so I routed it as a recirculating valve. I wouldn't call the tial valves crappy- the knockoffs are but the real ones are actually quite good. You sometimes need to re-shim them if the engine makes a lot of vacuum.

-Michael

 

yeah, the knock-offs are very easy to get too. Tial has quite a bit of information regarding the fakes and how to identify them on their website. http://www.tialsport.com/realvsfake.html

 

I have the real Tial, and I know they have good quality stuff, but their bov's just don't work as well on some cars. The car was surging all the time, and I tried every different spring they have. Which cost me money for shipping. And if I have to shim a $250 bov, then screw it. Their wastegates are very good though.