Stevo3's Fuel Upgrade Thread

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Ive seen piggybacks do haywire things with a poor power source, poor ground, and being turned on and off with ignition.

[mastacox]

You're not going to want to give it an "always on" source straight from the battery, what you need to do is have it be on whenever the ECU is on.

What I did is get a Painless Cirkit Boss 7-circuit axillary fuse block from Summit Racing LINK. It's only $62.95, and is weatherproof. It has 4 circuits that are only on when your ignition is on, and then three that are always on. I plugged the "ign hot" line from the aux-block into the ECU's power wire, so whenever the ECU is on the block's 4 ignition-hot circuits are on, and then I powered the FTC and the Wideband O2 gauge and LC-1 controller each with it's own circuit. This way everything has its own fuse (which you can size based on the unit's current draw), definitely a good thing.

I repeat, wiring directly to the battery is BAD.

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Can you please elaborate on why its bad? I had my setup for many years and no problems.

[mastacox]

Can you please elaborate on why its bad? I had my setup for many years and no problems.

Easy, you don't want your FTC to be on all of the time, it will significantly degrade the lifespan of the unit. Why would you leave it on all the time if you aren't using it all the time??? It doesn't make sense when using a relay and/or aux fuse box is an easy and similarly inexpensive alternative.

Also, you don't have a fuse in-line and can easily start an electrical fire if the FTC goes kaput and grounds somehow.

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I didn't mean to imply running the unit without a fuse. My bad. I have yet to see the lifespan of a unit drastically decreased because of it always on (ran mine this way for close to 5 years). In fact, Ive seen more issues when you wired via ign scrabbling map settings. Not trying to proven that anything is wrong, just my personal experience after wiring a few of them

[Stevo3]

You're not going to want to give it an "always on" source straight from the battery, what you need to do is have it be on whenever the ECU is on.

What I did is get a Painless Cirkit Boss 7-circuit axillary fuse block from Summit Racing LINK. It's only $62.95, and is weatherproof. It has 4 circuits that are only on when your ignition is on, and then three that are always on. I plugged the "ign hot" line from the aux-block into the ECU's power wire, so whenever the ECU is on the block's 4 ignition-hot circuits are on, and then I powered the FTC and the Wideband O2 gauge and LC-1 controller each with it's own circuit. This way everything has its own fuse (which you can size based on the unit's current draw), definitely a good thing.

I repeat, wiring directly to the battery is BAD.

You got some pipctures you can put up tonight? Id like to see Where the wire gets rand from to the fuse panel.

[mastacox]

I didn't mean to imply running the unit without a fuse. My bad. I have yet to see the lifespan of a unit drastically decreased because of it always on (ran mine this way for close to 5 years). In fact, Ive seen more issues when you wired via ign scrabbling map settings. Not trying to proven that anything is wrong, just my personal experience after wiring a few of them

Well the fact is that leaving the unit on all the time is not the way to go, and using a fuse block or relay gives the unit power straight from the battery without having it on all the time.

I agree that trying to pull power off of the ECU's wire is not a good idea, since that wire is sized to power just the ECU not a bunch of extra mumbo jumbo (especially since the wideband unit and gauge would have to be powered off it too). By having it so the ECU's power wire triggers a relay, you can still have "pure" power from the battery without leaving the unit as a constant drain even when parked.

[mastacox]

You got some pipctures you can put up tonight? Id like to see Where the wire gets rand from to the fuse panel.

In the wiring instructions for the FTC, the FTC's power is tapped into a "red" wire on the ECU (at the time I just had to assume this was the power wire, turns out I was right). So, instead of tapping the FTC's power directly into the ECU's wire I plugged the auxiliary fuse block's "ign-hot" wire into it (that's the wire that activates the relay built-in to the block) and then powered the FTC using one of the auxiliary fuse block's circuits. This is better than trying to tap into say the cigarette lighter too, because the cig lighter is on in "ACC" mode, while the ECU is only on in "ON" mode on the ignition. As an added bonus, I was also able to power the wideband controller and gauge using the fuse block as well, and that way they only turn on when the ECU is on as well, not in "ACC" mode...

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures right now and I'll be going out of town for the weekend, but if you can wait till Monday night, I could pull the glove box and snap a few quick pics for ya. The setup is very slick looking, and the block looks factory under the hood since I covered the wires in plastic flexi-conduit. I also have to say that Painless' instructions and installation are super easy, even a caveman could do it

[mastacox]

And going back a little bit-

Yeah, im willing to bet the high altitude has a lot to do with it, because they are located in california, assuming where they have tested the product there and came up with the maps at that altitude. Which isnt off by near as much as where you are located. So im guess i should be fine until i get to the shop to have the o2 bung welded on.

Actually, the tune is altitude independent, because the unit uses a absolute pressure sensor. But, it was a little on the cold side when I was doing my first tuning, and large temperature changes can mess up your tune. Basically, I think my "summer tune" map would work o.k. as a temporary map for you, if you need it. Lots of people have mixed results with URD's default map, so just keep it in mind.

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Well the fact is that leaving the unit on all the time is not the way to go

Good to know for future reference. Could you please provide me with supporting documentation that states this? I am having a hard time finding it and would love to read up on it.