I spent the day installing my SMART upgrade this saturday. It took me from noon until 8PM to do everything the way I wanted. Pulling the DP and having the bung welded in was the eaqsiest part of this install, for me anyway. (Mechanical Engineer, not an electrical kinda guy)

I installed the entire SMART setup just as layed out in the instructions. I did do some variations from the norm however. I already had a remote LED mounted on my steering column pod for the XEDE status. I added an LED to the same region for a "Launch Control Active" indication light. I used the 12V power off of the cigarette lighter to power a 12V DC relay and the LED. I put a SPST pushbutton switch tucked away in the back of the storage cubby below the radio. This switch switches the DC power to the LED and the Relay. When the switch is pushed to the on position, the relay closes and the LED comes on. The relay switches on the signal wire between the clutch switch and the XEDE. So when the LED is on, LC is active, when it's off, it's not. I do a lot of Heel-Toe downshifting when driving spiritedly and this was an important feature for me, albeit time consuming to set up.

Similarly I put a remote LED for wideband status tucked away in the cubby as well. I didn't use the supplied LED but rather a 5mm green LED from radio shack. I was tired of all the Red lights so I picked green. It's in a position that I can just see it out of the corner of my eye, which is good, because I don't need to know anything about it unless it's starts flashing.

Firmware.... ahh the infamous (for me at least) firmware update. I, like most people, work a 9-5 all week, so my install was reserved for a weekend. This, of course, meant no one was available to give me some tech support when I had some issues, but I got it worked out anyway. FYI for everyone out there, if you're using a Radio Shack USB to serial adaptor, the default setting works fine for DLing and uploading maps, but not for a firmware upgrade. You need to go into the device manager and the advanced settings for the adaptor and put the two communication slider bars to the minimum settings in order to increase connection stability. This is what I had to figure out in order to get my Xede to update without any error messages. Took 2 hours poor me....

The rest of the install went just as layed out in the instructions, and all went pretty well.

Driving impressions....

For everyone that said SMART made no difference or little difference, I had a wildly different experience. SMART improved the drivability and power delivery of my car tremendously. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that my car was tuned in 70 degree weather with little humidity and we are now experiencing close to 100 degree weather with high humidity.

To put it short... my car feel as powerful now as it did the day I drove it off the dyno when it was 70 degrees outside. I am VERY satisfied.

Launch Control... seems cool, didn't launch with it yet but I did do a few flat shifts. It's pretty cool and I look forward to trying it out at the track this coming weekend. However, when I flat shift, I get a bucking when I let out the clutch between gears, it seems to put a lot of stress on the drivetrain and I'm not sure how much I like it. I'm going to play with the engagement RPM to see if that smooths things out.

Shiv,

You've said in other threads that your SMART fuel table is for 91 octane CA ****.... can I highlight the entire table, and lean it out a couple notches for our 93 octane fuel in NJ, or leave it alone? When I do the highlight all cells trick the yellow box traces a path in the +1 region above 5500 RPMs. That means it's adding fuel to the base fuel map, right? If I lean the SMART table a bit it would be safe with our fuel, or leave it alone?

Ok, I think that sums everything up for now....

- Steve

 

Shiv, put up a new SMART template for you 93 race gas guys .

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...=153207&page=2

 

Well look at that!!! Thanks!

 

I like your idea of the relay for the launch control. I may have to try this as I don't like driving with it all the time. The NLS is nice though.

 

Hi Steve,
I too am a little perplexed by reports of no subjected gains with the SMART system. On all the cars I've set up here, both myself and every I've talked to who have done a before/after drive were wildly enthusiastic

To answer your question, yes, the SMART fuel maps can be made less conservative. And as jj said, the updated tables can be found at. Give it a try and see if you like them more. If not, go back to what you are currently running and enjoy.

Cheers,
shiv

 

Well I'm going to update the map after work and see if I notice any improvement. I'll keep everyone updated.

Thanks for the help Shiv and everyone else.

- Steve

 

Played with SMART more today, loaded the agressive maps linked in here. With the new SMART Fuel and Timing table performance was definately improved on 94 octane. When using the "Yellow Box Trace" method, I discovered that smart was still adding a small amount of fuel at WOT and pulling a small amount of timing. Ambient temps tonight were in the min 70s.

Shiv: One bug/problem. When the SMART timing table transitions from adding timing to pulling timing, I get a distinct, persistant misfire. This only occurs when I gradually roll into the throttle, as soon as the yellow box tries to cross that threshold it's like my car hits a wall and there is a persistant, audible misfire that will not go away until I lift off the throttle and reapply. If I get into the throttle hard it transitions smoothly and there is no misfire? Thoughts??? Iremoved the positive values below the happy line on my SMART timing table and the problem was solved. I ordered new spark plugs and I'm thinking of an ignition upgrade to help this issue, but I think it may be an underlying bug.

- Steve

 

Yeah, mine did the same thing. Plug in the C reader and it shouldn't act up anymore. Mine was much more violent when it hit timing addition, however

 

The c-reader was in there, it was so bad the c-reader couldn't even stop the P0300s getting spewed out...

 

Try putting zeros in the first three load rows of your timing table (not smart timing). I had a similar issue which seemed like severe turbo surge on throttle tip in that went completely away. Car drives like butter now.

 

Interesting, I may have to give that a shot.

- Steve

 

my car starting doing that violent part throttle misfire the other day too, and i don't have smart. and my timing table is zeroed out.

also, do you guys have a problem moving at like 5mph or less in 1st gear? Seems as though ever since i installed v3 my driveability has taken a dump. When im in 1st gear, car moving with little or no throttle at less than 10mph it just bucks around. It never used to do that. Makes being in a traffic jam a real B*TCH.

Anyone else experiencing anything of the sort?

 

Have you checked your tables against the templates for SMART that Shiv posted? You might have input and output values off.

 

I'm running smart-less V3 right now and the car drives like a top.....I actually think I picked up HP going from V2 to V3. Cold starts are smoother as well.

I am only a stage 0+ though.....once you dick with cams and cam gears you are on your own.