Joel

A standalone is only as good as you can tune it. I don't prefer any Computer with a handheld controller, as there isn't ample room for a good/big display that makes the maps more visual. The Hawk also fails the test on making a nice display, even though it requires a laptop. While numbers are great, its much nicer to be able to graphically adjust once you have a general idea of the peak number you need. Throw around the fact that its easier to smooth a map out graphically then numbers, add some more features and some garuntees that you'll have success with the computer itself, and its a done deal for me. Haltech, Motec, Autronic, and the like all have many more successful implementations than others. AEM is catching up fast. It certainly will take you longer to tune a car, start to finish, for the same power goals on an SDS vs one of the other systems. A Hawk system is half way inbetween the mark in my opinion. Joel

I do know the sensor you use has two prongs. Only one of those prongs are for the gauge. If you use the wrong one, the gauge won't work. Joel

There are only a select few I would consider buying. Haltech, Autronic, AEM, and Motronic. All four have good offerings that aren't questionable in my opinion. I run a haltech now and love it. I wouldn't chose, for myself, a Hawk or an SDS. I don't care for either as a personal opinion. Joel

Coil pack? I would assume with that term you are using DIS, but you talk about a distributor. I will assume that you just mean the single coil? In the case you are using the single coil/stock dist type setup, you just use a wire to the Negative terminal on the coil to tach. In the case you are using a coil pack w/ DIS, you would need a circuit with 3 diodes inline. I can get you that info if need be. The starter and A/C are seperate from the ECU wiring harness. Water temp and oil pressure are single wire sensors, so if you took the stock harness out, you would need to run new wires from under the dash where the sensor wires used to splice about between the dash and the stock ECU (for water) and just under the dash for oil pressure. Damn, I wish could remember. I do believe its a two wire sensor, although I cut the other wire connector off so I would never get confused. One was used for an auto tranny I think. Not sure there off the top of my head. My wires pass within inches of the alternator. I use a Haltech E6K, but use the SDS Halleffect sensor (dual pole). The insulation should be enough that you would have no issues. In the case that you get irratic readings from the sensor, and you've troubleshot everything as far as placement/alignment of the sensor and its wiring, you can always wrap the wires with a conductive material and then ground that material. An example would be to wrap it in aluminum foil, and then wire the aluminum to a ground on the engine block. Hope that helps. Joel

None of these throttle bodies just "bolt on" to the Magna. I fitted mine by having Glen not drill the holes on the plate, and I drilled the plate, tapped the threads, and put on the studs. I would have a machinist do it next time (better equipment for the job). Joel

Oh, almost forgot. If you are installing a standalone, you might want to just leave (or install) the stock TPS even if your computer installation kit has it's own. These ford TB's have a flat end on the shaft, not the half moon standard like most everything else. Joel

I don't think there is any difference. IIRC I've heard from some people about the BBK's throttle linkage breaking or cracking being a common issue. I don't recall right off hand, but I would definately do a web search to be sure before you buy. I used a Ford Explorer 65mm TB off ebay, which is the same as the Ford mustang 4.6L TB. Joel

What size would the TB be if you didn't buy the BBK? I have a magna, but use a ford 65mm TB. I would, for a street car, go back to a 60mm if I wanted the car to be a better ride. The larger the TB is, the more jumpy the car gets. I wouldn't even consider anything larger than what I have now (65mm ford). Joel

actually, if you are using a stock dist to trigger a computers ignition and injection events, you are using a cam trigger. The DSM Ecu likely could be used, but it would require some level of electronics expertise. The stock trigger isn't a square-wave trigger like a hall effect sensor, which is what is used on a DSM. You could use the DSM ECU if you could, like many ECU manufacturers like Haltech, make reluctor adapter and convert the signal to square wave. Joel

what years? Turbo II era? Is that what you are using? Joel

Compression does not directly cause detonation. Heat cases it. By removing hotspots (places in the chamber that would heat up faster than others) you remove chances for endgas auto-ignition. Chip, your safe at 25psi on pump gas! Wanna know why? You have control over your ignition system. Run less ignition advance, the motor won't need it anyway. Just have to tune the ignition back to dial in the pressure, if you so choose. There are many reasons why detonation occurs. But, to answer the questions in your mind already about why you could in fact, with the ability to control your ignition system, run higher boost safely, try to understand why ignition retarding helps keep spark knock away in the first place. The answer is time. Joel

Those chambers were hit to hard with the grinder. Go get some 3m Scotch bright pads and smooth them out. Joel

20 deg. of advance at 2000rpm on my stock motor (w/ MPI) seems to tall for it. I run about 15Deg. at 2000RPM I'm tuning my ignition maps to have a small hump right around tip in to help throttle response, which tapers off. At my altitude this is around 10inHG-5inHG. Idle You must keep the ignition low, the motor can't use additional timing and will misfire at anything higher than 12deg randomly. I keep my idle at 780rpm or so, and run 9deg. I don't get "full advance" if you will until about 3000rpm. Since I haven't dyno'd the car, I guesstimate that peak torque (max VE) is ~3500rpm, so I bring the timing down as boost comes up steeper than 4500rpm and up. 3500RPM at full boost (15psi right now) I run 23deg. At 4500rpm I start giving timing back at 1 deg per 500rpm intervals (based on the 3500rpm range of timing). Joel

Charge times on CDI are extremely low, sometimes as low as 0.2ms to fully charge a coil. CDI would definately keep a distributed ignition running top notch. Joel

I'm not talking about ignition timing. I'm talking about injector phasing. It's hit or miss on any batch fired or multipoint system... unless the hawk support sequential injection with individual injector trim a phase settings, you are at the same disadvantage, and the injectors hit or miss the 'exact' event. Thats basically what I said in my last post... although many have seen so-called slight improvements in power just switching to sequential. Who knows if thats really the case, as each run on a dyno can be off by a certain error margin. In any case, part throttle to full throttle stumbles can be solved with a throttle pump setting. Usually there will be both a injection increase and a sustain setting. Try raising one and then the other in stages until it no longer misses on throttle movement. Joel

Oooh kay... Languauge filter is a database is a little to large IMO. Yikes. Joel

The point is that cool fuel is not boiling fuel, its not already vaporizing, and thus allows a more dense fuel to be pumped and injected before it gets vaporized. Sequential injection has some decent advantages. One of them is called injector phasing. Injector phasing allows you to "phase" an individual injector to be timed for fuel hit the back of the valve just before it opens. With batch fire/MPFI firing batches of injectors, phasing isn't allowed, and thus doesn't see the benefits... its hit or miss. When comparing the two for max power, you won't see a huge difference, we aren't even talking 15hp on a 500hp motor. We are talking less. On the other hand, if you want decent low speed and idle quality, sequential injection does it much better, and the reason is mentioned in the previous statement. The problem with TBI/Batch fire is that sometimes the miss (as opposed to the hit), you don't hit the back of the valve, but rather you hit the valve after it opens. This ruins the mixture quality (don't read as lean/rich, but the actually quality of a homogenous mixture), thus can effect low speed/idle conditions greatly. You will even see that proof in the stock good running conquest. No matter how well you make it run, the quest just doesn't run as good as it goes at WOT. WOT is less effected by the vaporization of the fuel at the valve. The reason is at higher throttle angles and higher RPM, there are much more turbulence and air speed to effectively vaporize the fuel into a higher quality mixture than at lower speed cruise/idle. Another reason to cool the fuel down is to lower the pump temperature, which lowers the output fuel temps as well as pumping in or above pump specs, and prolongs the life of the pump. Joel

Fair enough. $75 wouldn't be as bad, as MSRP is way to much. Not sure I would still use the stock setup for any amount of excessive power, but who knows? I don't have experiances with them, so I can't say much there. Joel

What would the F-CON truely offer that makes it worth more? I don't think anyone will see the gains on this unit. Does it have an AIC builtin or something. As far as being "cheaper", if the feature set it similar, how much proof do you want. I can count the number of successful people in dsm-land with the F-con on less than one hand doing better than 12s. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of people with the S-AFC doing better than 12s. Just because something is expensive doesn't mean its worth the money. "The HKS PFC F-CON is a plug-in fuel management system designed to supplement and refine the OEM fuel curve in order to maintain a proper air / fuel mixture when increasing boost pressure in turbocharged applications. To achieve maximum safe power, the PFC F-CON optimizes the factory injector pulse width signal by recalibrating information obtained by both the PFC F-CON absolute pressure sensor and the OEM engine control unit (ECU). Each unit is application specific and includes a preprogrammed ROM for particular performance stage. A Fuel Cut Defencer (FCD) is also included in certain PFC F-CON kits to override the factory fuel cutoff. The PFC F-CON offers simplistic integration via a plug-in vehicle specific wiring harness and a compact pressure sensor. The PFC F-CON is programmed with an interchangeable ROM for each specific vehicle application. If additional tuning of the PFC F-CON is need, fine-tune adjustments can be performed via the plug-in HKS Graphic Control Computer (GCC)." Basically, What you get in the case of the starion is a programmable frequency generator. You plug this thing in, and using the chip you ordered with it, it "adjusts" the frequency that your airflow meter reports to the ECU. You have little adjustment possibilities unless you buy the GCC box to plug into device. Once you buy the GCC, you can plug in and adjust the frequencies to 'fake' the ECU into providing more or less fuel in that portion of the map. The F-CON alone is MSRP 1100.00 http://www.hksusa.com/products/more.asp?id=748 Then the GCC to adjust it is MRSP 590.00 http://www.hksusa.com/products/?id=688 Guess what the AFC does? Same thing, without a chip. You do all the adjustments yourself, no GCC to buy, no "special chip" which does nothing as far as I can tell, aside from perhaps connecting it to the unit, and it attempting to run with additional fuel PW. The FCD portion is questionable on the 88+, as supposedly there isn't a fuel cut. I think 'fuel cut' is similar to that of a 1g DSM; MAS Overrun. You can only push so much through the stocker before it start losing counts. Thats when the stock ECU gets pissed, knocks your fuel off to make you stop. Enlarge the MAS, or hack the stocker, and the stock ECU won't know anything about fuel cut. So, seems to me, $1700 for a non-mpi fuel computer is pretty far out there. Way to much for a possibility of MAYBE tuning 50hp in with some added boost capabilities. I'm sure you could find a used EBAY unit somewhere But you can with the AFC as well. However, if you have this much money to your name, why not try for MPI? Joel

After looking at the $900 price tag, I would say... run away screaming, before you get ripped off. The AFC Does work on this car, and is much cheaper. I had one on my 85.5, and it worked fine. Joel

Nothing wrong with merging after the cat, so long as you merge it at an angle with the exhaust flow. In a 3" exhaust, pressure increase by the time your after the cat would be minimal in the exhaust system itself, although you'll likely have flow loss in the dump tube from the wastegate. For "max power" I would dump to atmosphere. For quiet, you could do this. For emissions, you have to do it before the cat. Joel

I run Wastespark and Batch fire injection with a crank trigger. It requires a twin pole trigger (one pole for sync, one for triggering). Joel

You should only need the cam trigger if you are planning either Sequential ignition or injection. I thought the autronic would support batched modes and multiple trigger types? Joel

Fastest four cylinder in the world didn't mean that the motor was the highest output. Just meant they put it on a light chassis (a bike, for instance). 360hp on a turbo 4, to me, isn't going to convince me of anything. But, opinions are like.... me? hehe If DIY Engine management is your thing, sounds good. Joel

CDI is not required on DIS for quiet a while. Plug gaps will be small, but all those 600hp stock coil DSM owners don't complain about what size their plug gaps are. I stand by that opinion. For dist. ignitions, CDI will be required eventually, I'm sure. Joel