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A'ight boys here it is. A (hopefully) good installation "manual" for putting the SAFC on the 2004 Ion Quad Coupe 2 - I make no guarantee this will work on any other model or year Ion. It definitely will not work on an 05+ (thanks vin)
First off, you wire up the bitch to your stock ECM. Here's the wiring map I used:
Note that the 'C1' block is the one that has "Delphi" stamped on it and is square in shape and closer to the driver's side / wheel of the car than the C2 block, rectangular in shape.
There are a few things to note about the installation at this point that you would find (buried) in the SAFC Manual.
Notice that you must cut the air flow / pressure signal wire (Light green on the ECM) and run one part into the SAFC, and the other part back to the ECM. DO NOT SIMPLY TAP INTO THE LIGHT GREEN WIRE WITH THE SAFC CONNECTIONS. Also, note the grounding configuration. The brown wire should tap into the ground wire closer to the ECM than the black wire does.
Here's the finished product:
Once you've got good, solid connections here, you're ready to fire up the car! Follow the SAFC's installation manual closely. You should not immediately start the car. first you just turn it to "run" but don't start it, and set up your SAFC & make sure things are being read correctly.
First run the 'initialize' command on the SAFC to 0 everything out.
Next your configuration should first consist of setting the # of cylinders to '2' (to get proper RPM reading) and the throttle type to the upward pointing arrow (up and to the right). Once you've done this, head to the NE-Point settings and set your max one to at or just above your RPM cutoff. On my car it's 6600. Then set your correction (NE) points to wherever you think good intervals are w/in the RPM range. If your boost really kix in at a certain RPM, make sure to have a point at or just before that mark!
You can now start your car.
Make sure, now, that all the different sensors are monitoring correctly by utilizing the Sensor Chk and Monitor functionality on the device. If they are not, read over the manual and make sure things are as they should be, and/or post questions here and we'll try to help you out
Q: What should my AFR be if I'm boosted?
Well this is a twofold answer. It all depends on if you're building boost at the time. If you are not actually building boost, then your AFR can be sitting on "stoich" (for economy) or 13.1 (for good performance all the time). However when you're building boost, do not go any leaner (higher) than 12.5:1! The ecotec can handle slightly leaner amounts under boost, but you're really asking to blow up.
If you go leaner than that, you're risking a situation known as "detonation" or "knock" where your spark plug lights off the fuel before your piston has come around to accept the new charge and come back down. So you're basically exploding the fuel while the piston's still coming up - NOT GOOD! This is a very quick way to blow up your engine.
You can always go richer under boost (10, 11, 12:1 AFR) but you're sacrificing performance (and fuel! [img]{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif[/img]). A recent stage kit swap on an SRT4 yielded nearly a 20hp gain going from mid-high 8:1 AFR to low 10:1 AFR. If the tune were to bring that out to 12's a nearly 60hp gain could be easily realized. So you want to go lean for more power, but not too lean so that you get knock.
Incidentally, the SAFC-II has a knock sensor tap to show you if you're getting any knock as well. A great thing in and of itself.
How good is the SAFC?
The SAFC is a rather "simple" tuning device. On a stock Ion, you won't be able to handle boost above ~5psi without upgrading some more parts or going with another tuning solution.
Without upgrading to another tuning system, the option is to upgrade the fuel injectors in your car. Once you do this, the SAFC can send a signal to the new, larger, injectors and they'll put in more fuel than the old ones did at the same level of correction. For reference, the Ion comes with ~24lb injectors. People have upgraded these to the injectors found in the Redline (32#) and found them to be adequate. I'm unaware at what level of boost these become "too small," however - so if anybody is please post here.
Note that by putting in larger injectors, the "standard" signal that your car was getting (at idle, for instance) will now be dumping too much fuel into your engine. For this reason, you'll likely have to use the SAFC's "negative" correction (below the center line on the map) to take out some of the fuel that was being put in w/ the default signal.
First off, you wire up the bitch to your stock ECM. Here's the wiring map I used:
Note that the 'C1' block is the one that has "Delphi" stamped on it and is square in shape and closer to the driver's side / wheel of the car than the C2 block, rectangular in shape.
There are a few things to note about the installation at this point that you would find (buried) in the SAFC Manual.
Notice that you must cut the air flow / pressure signal wire (Light green on the ECM) and run one part into the SAFC, and the other part back to the ECM. DO NOT SIMPLY TAP INTO THE LIGHT GREEN WIRE WITH THE SAFC CONNECTIONS. Also, note the grounding configuration. The brown wire should tap into the ground wire closer to the ECM than the black wire does.
Here's the finished product:
Once you've got good, solid connections here, you're ready to fire up the car! Follow the SAFC's installation manual closely. You should not immediately start the car. first you just turn it to "run" but don't start it, and set up your SAFC & make sure things are being read correctly.
First run the 'initialize' command on the SAFC to 0 everything out.
Next your configuration should first consist of setting the # of cylinders to '2' (to get proper RPM reading) and the throttle type to the upward pointing arrow (up and to the right). Once you've done this, head to the NE-Point settings and set your max one to at or just above your RPM cutoff. On my car it's 6600. Then set your correction (NE) points to wherever you think good intervals are w/in the RPM range. If your boost really kix in at a certain RPM, make sure to have a point at or just before that mark!
You can now start your car.
Make sure, now, that all the different sensors are monitoring correctly by utilizing the Sensor Chk and Monitor functionality on the device. If they are not, read over the manual and make sure things are as they should be, and/or post questions here and we'll try to help you out
Q: What should my AFR be if I'm boosted?
Well this is a twofold answer. It all depends on if you're building boost at the time. If you are not actually building boost, then your AFR can be sitting on "stoich" (for economy) or 13.1 (for good performance all the time). However when you're building boost, do not go any leaner (higher) than 12.5:1! The ecotec can handle slightly leaner amounts under boost, but you're really asking to blow up.
If you go leaner than that, you're risking a situation known as "detonation" or "knock" where your spark plug lights off the fuel before your piston has come around to accept the new charge and come back down. So you're basically exploding the fuel while the piston's still coming up - NOT GOOD! This is a very quick way to blow up your engine.
You can always go richer under boost (10, 11, 12:1 AFR) but you're sacrificing performance (and fuel! [img]{SMILIES_PATH}/smile.gif[/img]). A recent stage kit swap on an SRT4 yielded nearly a 20hp gain going from mid-high 8:1 AFR to low 10:1 AFR. If the tune were to bring that out to 12's a nearly 60hp gain could be easily realized. So you want to go lean for more power, but not too lean so that you get knock.
Incidentally, the SAFC-II has a knock sensor tap to show you if you're getting any knock as well. A great thing in and of itself.
How good is the SAFC?
The SAFC is a rather "simple" tuning device. On a stock Ion, you won't be able to handle boost above ~5psi without upgrading some more parts or going with another tuning solution.
Without upgrading to another tuning system, the option is to upgrade the fuel injectors in your car. Once you do this, the SAFC can send a signal to the new, larger, injectors and they'll put in more fuel than the old ones did at the same level of correction. For reference, the Ion comes with ~24lb injectors. People have upgraded these to the injectors found in the Redline (32#) and found them to be adequate. I'm unaware at what level of boost these become "too small," however - so if anybody is please post here.
Note that by putting in larger injectors, the "standard" signal that your car was getting (at idle, for instance) will now be dumping too much fuel into your engine. For this reason, you'll likely have to use the SAFC's "negative" correction (below the center line on the map) to take out some of the fuel that was being put in w/ the default signal.
