The install was easy enough thanks to the video. The only two bits I would add is dremeling a semicircle in the positive terminal cover and the battery cover for the interceptor power wires to go through.

Unfortunately I think I'm running rich at idle. During warmup the exhaust fumes were pretty acrid and after warm I'd get the loping idle. I will have to do some diagnostic stuff tomorrow morning.

Even more unfortunately I'm getting the "pebble rattle in a can" sound trying to go WOT in 2nd and 3rd gear around 4-5k RPM. Rattle happens almost immediately after punching the throttle. According to the HKS boost controller max boost was 6.5 PSI. This is with 91 octane gas.

I hope some diagnostics will reveal an immediate solution tomorrow morning but I'm not hopeful. Scott, if by any chance you read this please try to get in touch with me so I can get some pointers about where to look. Thanks.

 

Loping idle, ping at the onset of boost? First thought, sounds like the pressure hose to me. Verify the vac gauge in the laptop is 1:registering vac. 2: responds quickly when the engine is free reved. If it seems to respond slowly it may be kinked/pinched.

 

I'm having problems trying to get the MicroTech software to work.

Press "f1" to connect. That works but none of the gauge indicators show anything. Am I doing something stupid? Is there something else I need to to in order to make the gauges read anything?

Select <Data Gauge> from the main menu results in the error:
Run-time error '13'. Type mismatch. Clicking "OK" exits the program.

I also had a number of engine codes. Here's what I did for driving:
1. Start car. Turn steering wheel full left, then full right to reset calibration. Drive in 1st/2nd to warm up engine.
2. Start car. Drive 2 miles to gas station. Partial throttle, taking it easy. Fill tank.
3. Start car. Drive 2 miles home. Try full throttle in 2nd, 3rd, get ping.
4. Next morning. Start car. Get CEL
P0300 Random/Multiple Cylinder Misfire Detected
P0410 Secondary Air Injection System Malfunction
Pending P4700 Trouble code definition not found
Pending P0300 Random/Multiple Cylinder Misfire Detected
Pending P0172 System too rich (Bank 1)

Oh, and the inteceptor's green/yellow lights are lit when key is in start position, yellow blinks very rapidly when car is running.

 

Update: Scott called me and we were able to get past this immediate issue.

Solution: Remember to use the black dongle when connecting the serial cable. The maps are actually stored in the dongle which is interesting.

Map change: change ignition timing for 2 psi boost and above. Decrement all values by two (e.g. from -04 to -06). This elminates the pinging, but naturally reduces some of the felt power. Felt a slight lurge immediately after going WOT as the engine revved up but tuning will probably take care of that.

Idle is running rich, at 12.05 or below. I haven't been able to play with that but on the first page, everything to the left of your idle vacuum (-20 to -21" in my case) controls idle AFR.

Scott recommends low 13's for idle AFR, 11.5 AFR under boost. At this point the car is fairly drivable and needs dyno time to dial things in.

Oh, big kudos to Scott for staying on top of this board over the weekend to help troubleshoot people with questions and problems. He was kinda surprised no one posted questions friday night but I guess some people wanted to wait and let someone else go first.

 

Just in case you have any issues with the laptop loosing connection with the CPU at random times (especially when data logging). I found that it was the USB to Serial adapter I was using... Had to buy 3 of them made by diffrent companies before I found one that would work well with the microtec.

 

I have been debating on installing this all day, but I am hesitating because everyone seems to be having problems. I still might install it, but I'm thinking I'm going to wait until a few more people report back.

Did Scott mention why you are having all of these problems? Why did you need to retard the timing, obviously to stop the pinging, but I would think it shouldn't have been pinging in the first place.

 

well FWIW, we have 93 octane on this side of the country. I'm pretty sure scott tuned conservatively enough for 91 octance, but if you were to get a bad tank of 91 octane, it might put you a little close to the edge.

dragon...what usb->serial adapter are you using? my laptop only has USB, so I'm going to need one of those too.

 

2 CELs for me....
-P0300 Random/ Muliple Cylinder Misfire Detected.
-P0172 System too Rich (Bank 1)

Did this take care of your "Random/Multiple cylinder Misfire" CEL?

Below is a screenshot of my idle settings. I'm also at -20Hg at idle. I lowered the values for the 30Hg to 5Hg boxes slightly (see yellow line on graph). The idle AFR's came up to about 12.5 but the engine kept shutting off with these settings. I returned it to the initial numbers for now, my idle is at 11.0AFR with engine warm.

 

Yes, the ignition timing change seemed to take care of the CELs. More driving is required to really make sure it's "fixed".

I'll report back once I play with idle to see if I experience the same issues once I try to lean it out.

 

I'm using a Belkin. Model # is F5U109.
At first it didn't work. I had to get an updated XP driver from their site, but it worked perfectly after that.

 

Adrian, Why does your Microtech screen show an AFR of 10.3? If the wideband isn't hooked up yet, how is it measuring that?

 

Looks like I may have spoken prematurely. After a few more miles of stop/go driving I've got the following on the outbound trip:
P003 Fuel Volume Regulator Control Circuit Low

And going back home:
P0172 System too rich (bank 1)
Pending P0001 Fuel volume regulator control circuit/open
Pending P7101 Trouble code definition not found
Pending P7200 Trouble code definition not found

 

snap, lots of problems...
Im sure theyll all get worked out in due time

 

It's not connected to the Interceptor-X (maybe in the future). It always displays 10.3 on the software.
I'm using an LC-1 and XD-1 gauge to monitor the AFR's.

 

FWIW, Scott told me that due to the way the stock ECU and the Interceptor are wired together, the System Too Rich CEL will never go away, because the stock ECU will forever see that the system is too rich due to the AFRs under boost. IIRC, that light only comes on once the stock PCM gives up trying to lean the system out.

At least, that's what I think he told me.

 

I was specifically told by Scott when I bought this that it shouldn't cause any cel's. I believe I specifically asked him about how the cars ecu would respond to the overly rich afr without Greddy's cold loop dongle and he said it just required tricking the cars O2's. Very lame.

 

I hope that isn't true. That means I won't know when a "real" problem pops up, like if the engine is knocking.
Are we supposed to hook up our Canscan every other day and check for "real" codes?

 

plus you can't pass inspection with a CEL

 

yea, I refuse to accept any system that constantly illuminates a CEL...i've all along stood by the fact that the oem PCM needs to be fooled into thinking it has control, or else you'll throw a code.

hopefully this problem can be fixed. if not then im going to be very unhappy.

 

can't you just turn the unit off?

 

Yeah, I'll be quite pissed off. I thought the unit was to run cel free.

 

Scott! Get in here and shed some light as to why this is happening!

Hopefully you guys dont have to send it back to get anykind of modifications done... that would result in :

Seriously, im thinking of going with this ecu, and all the unhappy customers isnt that impressive after making them wait this long.

Hopefully its something simple

 

wow,
people have had it for less than 3 days. and you that does not have one are saying, UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS.

would you let them speak for themselves. read, learn and if you dont have one stay out of the thread. you have nothing to add.

beers
just my opinion i could be wrong.

 

they don't sound too happy to me...

 

**** and to know i was just about to buy zolies unit . I thought scott said everything was worked out and alot of research went into it . I guess all cars are different our future does not look good. DAM CAR