ECU Tuning Weird Cars

Let's say you wanted to do a performance tune on a 97 Mercury Sable or 2.9L Chevy Colorado - ie, something really off the beaten path. Is there a way to do this though the diagnostic port or should I just get a standalone computer?

Remember, I'm electronically retarded, so type slowly.

HP Tuners should be able to tune the Colorado. A piggyback AFC may be able to hack the fuel delivery on the Sable.

later, matt

DaewooOfDeath wrote: Let's say you wanted to do a performance tune on a 97 Mercury Sable or 2.9L Chevy Colorado - ie, something really off the beaten path. Is there a way to do this though the diagnostic port or should I just get a standalone computer? Remember, I'm electronically retarded, so type slowly.

Most older cars store their tune on ROM that cannot be flashed. At the very least, you'd have to replace the ROM with an EEPROM and use a "burner" to create a custom tune. Then you'd have to figure out what each individual table meant.

MegaSquirt would be much easier.

there's people megaquirting old mopeds- i think a Sable would be pretty doable..

A moped would be pretty easy, there aren't a lot of subsidiary systems like traction control or even AC compensation to deal with. It's about as simple as a four-stroke engine is going to get. A 97 Sable will be more of a challenge.

If it's an oddball, be prepared to do some research on your own. Don't expect to be able to follow in the footsteps of others. I would anticipate a wiring diagram at the very least and you may have to scope out the various sensors and coils to make sure you have the settings right. This would be easier with a parts-bin Sable than it would with something really weird though.

If they are both '97's, that's a very tricky year.

they can not be flashed via the OBD port (that didn't start happening for a few years after that).

But some of those could be flashed with the right hardware. Before that, the EEPROM needed a lot of work to be erased.

A better question- what do you expect to get out of it? Not being familiar with electrons, do you know about engine tuning enough to make it better if you could do it? It's not a trivial thing to do....

While there are often standalones for ALMOST anything - and even the ones they're not quite right for can usually have some parts swapped on to make them work - tunes for the stock ECU would need to be handled on a case by case basis. Usually there's only an off the shelf solution if the ECU is closely related to something in a popular performance application.

A MegaSquirt standalone isn't just the best, if you don't want to end up painting yourself into a corner it's also the easiest. A piggyback doesn't save you much work beyond building a harness-to-MegaSquirt adapter and doing the initial flash.

GameboyRMH wrote: A MegaSquirt standalone isn't just the best, if you don't want to end up painting yourself into a corner it's also the easiest. A piggyback doesn't save you much work beyond building a harness-to-MegaSquirt adapter and doing the initial flash.

So MS has added automatic transmission capability?

Certainly, the Sable has an auto trans, which is controlled via the EECV.

I think there is a Megasquirt thingy that does that.

Sable you can use a Tweecer or one of the other custom ROM burners that plug into the service port on the ECU.

Colorado is easy, EFI Live supports it.

Tweecer and EFI Live are both 1000% better solutions than Megasquirt for anything but a gutted racecar running a manual transmission. Unless you have some crazy twin-boosted, nitrous, 15:1 compression, huge cam beast in either one of those cars (which would be awesome) there should be plenty enough room in the stock ECM to destroy the perfectly good factory coding already in place.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: I think there is a Megasquirt thingy that does that.

Correct, you'd need a GPIO board that ties into the MegaSquirt over a CAN bus.

AFAIK, a 97 Sable would be EEC-V. Moates sells units that will let you copy the ROM and alter the fuel and ignition tables Some models keep the changes internally, others allow you to burn and use your own PROM.

http://www.moates.net/ford-pre2005-c-63.html

NFI, etc.

Carter

MadScientistMatt wrote:

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: I think there is a Megasquirt thingy that does that.

Correct, you'd need a GPIO board that ties into the MegaSquirt over a CAN bus.

No CAN bus on a '97 Sable. SCP is there, but not CAN. And IIRC, you can't control the engine over SCP of that era. We never tried to, at least.

MegaShift?

erohslc wrote: AFAIK, a 97 Sable would be EEC-V. Moates sells units that will let you copy the ROM and alter the fuel and ignition tables Some models keep the changes internally, others allow you to burn and use your own PROM. http://www.moates.net/ford-pre2005-c-63.html NFI, etc. Carter

Of their products, the "Quarterhorse" is pretty much was was done in the day. It would be what I would call and RCON, it appears. It would be even cooler if you could integrate some kind of external data acquisition- just a simple a/f meter recording.

That would make me consider doing a Challenge Ford, and calibrate to my heart's content. I think.

Say a V6 Contour or something like that.

Would have to look a LOT harder into it before spending.

(note- FWIW, most of the best power settings are actually in existing calibrations like on the Sable- just have to know how to get them to be the primary control)

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: MegaShift?

That is the firmware and parts that run on a GPIO board. See this link:

http://www.msgpio.com/manuals/mshift/index.htm

The CAN bus, in this case, would simply be two wires running from the MegaSquirt to the GPIO board, and possibly also to other aftermarket display and data acquisition devices.