My Engine Bay Renovation Thread, AE111 ECU conversion, wire tuck, and more... Options

[Coomer]

Now I just wish I had an AE111 motor (lighter internals, bigger intake/exhaust ports) to go with the ECU. Well, and that my car would run right, but hopefully I'll be able to figure that out soon.

Seems like it would be just as easy to port/polish an AE101 and put some lighter internals in it. I would definately consider some pod filters for those.

I don't think so...the AE111's ports are much, much larger, especially because I think I have a pre-'93.5 head. And to get the lighter internals I'd pretty much have to buy a blacktop motor, in which case I might as well just drop that into the car.

Nice work. That wiring looks like a nightmare to sort through.
I am now in a quandry. I have about 1400.00 to spend
on my car, I want to do the gt4 exterior conversion but I can
do a blacktop swap for around the same price. Maybe next year.
You will be an expert on the subject by then. I'm sure I'll need
some advise.

I could definitely help out...just let me know.

[Bitter]

There's not a filter or anything?

Not at the moment...I'll figure out something though. I'm just not sure which filter option I want to go with.

i think you should try to put the intake manifold on and the IAT in the stock location, its horribly important to the speed/density calculations that the ECU uses to figure out how much air is coming in.

Well, my intake manifold plenum doesn't have a spot for the IAT sensor (it's in the AFM for the AE101,) and the IAT is currently just hanging almost right in front of cylinder number two's velocity stack. Most people running this same setup do essentially the same thing.

ah ok, i thought it was dangling off in some corner of the engine bay :lol:

dont forget to check out the 4age forums for some insight and help.

time to get a wideband O2 and see whats going on i think, or atleast piggyback the stock sensor with a DVOM so you can see if its rich or lean when it bogs.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Jan 29, 2007 - 10:12 PM

[Coomer]

What's a DVOM?

And unfortunately, the Club4AG forums are down.

The other night I first tried putting on the motor's stock vacuum line thing that attaches to the tranny side of the block with two 12mm bolts and hooking that up to the vacuum line in the first post circled in yellow. While this restricted the flow of air into that port and lowered the idle down to around 900-1000 RPM, it didn't help the hesitation and poor driveability under partial throttle.

So I shortened up the MAP sensor vacuum line, from three feet to about three inches. That helped a little bit, but not much.

So I installed the stock plenum and stock velocity stacks and put a filter on the inlet of the plenum. Inside the plenum lies the IAT sensor. The vacuum line circled in yellow above connects to the small port on the plenum. The ISCV intake connects to the large port on the plenum. I'm tapping into the same spot for my MAP sensor, and now the line is about eight inches long. While this helped significantly, I still have quite a bit of hesitation.

The MR2OC guys said I should check timing (though I'm sure it hasn't changed) and maybe try letting the ECU learn some more.

Anyone have any good ideas?

[Bitter]

dvom is a fancy term for a multimeter

knowing what the O2 sensor is telling the engine could help determine whats going on.

[Coomer]

Ah ok, I figured that's what you meant but wasn't sure.

[97lestyousay]

And unfortunately, the Club4AG forums are down.

The Tech section is still up. Not much info on the 20V though.

[Coomer]

Last weekend I checked my timing and it's advanced ten degrees, which is ideal for the silvertop 4A-GE.

I then drove for about 60 miles, hoping the ECU would learn and adjust, and it didn't do much to help. I still have hesitation and poor response at partial throttle, and my idle fluctuates from idling near 2000 RPM down to about 1000 RPM.

Anyone have any good ideas?

[soulshadow]

The yellow part u circled was for the A/C when it was running. It would open if ON and Close if OFF. Most likely for the Idle.

There are 4 screws Located on the ITBs itself that you can adjust for air flow. Beyond that its going to have to be tunning your engine to run at Max performance. The main problem lies in between the Eng. sucking up too much air and not enough gas or even vice versa because my spits out soot for running TOO rich.

The AE111 do have a bigger Intake manifold for the vaccum ports, so you will have to adjust ur 101 to match that with the Ae111.

By they way coomer are u selling ur old ECU? I need one.



The ones circled in red can actually be adjusted. I think CW for more vaccum and CCW for les vaccum. You will just have to play with it.


This post has been edited by soulshadow: Feb 5, 2007 - 3:09 PM

[playr158]

chris are you running anything else on the same line as the MAP sensor, might want to try giving it its own line?

This post has been edited by playr158: Feb 5, 2007 - 3:03 PM

[lagos]

coomer...

so you reinstalled the stock intake manifold, right?
when you checked your timing, you had the ecu in diagnostic mode?

you can get one of those cheap a/f ratio gauges to test the o2 sensor. you hook it up, drive for a few miles and then look at what its doing at idle and at cruise. if all is working correctly, you should see it bounce back and forth. if there is a problem with the o2, it will either read rich or lean all the time.

then do a vac test. if you dont have a gauge, you can just do a boost leak test. fill the motor with air from a compressor and use soapy water to look fir any vac leaks. you would probably need the intake manifold installed for this test.

if it passes all those tests, then i would point the finger at your map sensor and intake air temp sensors.

This post has been edited by lagos: Feb 5, 2007 - 3:51 PM

[Coomer]

The yellow part u circled was for the A/C when it was running. It would open if ON and Close if OFF. Most likely for the Idle.

There are 4 screws Located on the ITBs itself that you can adjust for air flow. Beyond that its going to have to be tunning your engine to run at Max performance. The main problem lies in between the Eng. sucking up too much air and not enough gas or even vice versa because my spits out soot for running TOO rich.

The AE111 do have a bigger Intake manifold for the vaccum ports, so you will have to adjust ur 101 to match that with the Ae111.

By they way coomer are u selling ur old ECU? I need one.

Are you sure it's for A/C? What I've read is that it's for power steering.

And I don't think I want to mess with the individual vacuum settings for each cylinder yet...there'd be no way to really reliably tune the motor on my own doing that.

And I may sell the old ECU...it depends on whether or not I end up going back to the stock setup if I can't get this working.

chris are you running anything else on the same line as the MAP sensor, might want to try giving it its own line?

Yeah, I teed into a line, but I'm not sure where that line goes. From what I heard it should be a good vacuum source.

coomer...

so you reinstalled the stock intake manifold, right?
when you checked your timing, you had the ecu in diagnostic mode?

you can get one of those cheap a/f ratio gauges to test the o2 sensor. you hook it up, drive for a few miles and then look at what its doing at idle and at cruise. if all is working correctly, you should see it bounce back and forth. if there is a problem with the o2, it will either read rich or lean all the time.

then do a vac test. if you dont have a gauge, you can just do a boost leak test. fill the motor with air from a compressor and use soapy water to look fir any vac leaks. you would probably need the intake manifold installed for this test.

if it passes all those tests, then i would point the finger at your map sensor and intake air temp sensors.

Yeah, I reinstalled the stock intake manifold plenum and stuck a filter on the end of it.

And yes, when I was checking timing, the car was in diagnostic mode.

I'll have to see about finding a cheap a/f ratio gauge and checking my vacuum lines.

[Bitter]

you can use a multi meter to read the narrowband, its actually not that far off from what my wideband reads! i was getting over 1 volt which was over 11:1 at WOT, and my wideband agrees.

[Kwanza26]

you can use a multi meter to read the narrowband, its actually not that far off from what my wideband reads! i was getting over 1 volt which was over 11:1 at WOT, and my wideband agrees.

Only he's not having a problem at WOT... and narrowbands' MAXIUMUM accuracy is at WOT. I always reccomend a wideband for tuning so you can accurately tune the entire rpm band...

Anyway... still sounds like a MAP pressure problem. My suggestion... a few years ago during our ITB B16B build... there was a MAP sensor problem similar to yours. We were getting unequal pressure readings to the MAP... which caused the engine to stumble in the mid-range... because each throttlebody is independent, each will have different pressure going into each cylinder. Hooking up the map to only one pressure source will cause a slight lag between each individual stroke and the ecu will throw off fueling. This doesn't happen at WOT which the ECU reads off the TPS more. We never got a perfect fix... but we hooked up a vaccum line to each individual throttlebody and ran it to a canister, then to a single line to the MAP. This did fix a lot of the stumbling, and with further tuning I'm pretty sure the engine would have ran great. Unfortunately this project was scrapped and a LSVTEC build came into effect. I believe the stock blacktop intake manifold has a built in vac port that grabs a source from all 4 throttles... similar to its brake booster line... except smaller.

[Bitter]

nah, the narrow bands swing at idle and closed loop is usually about the same as what you see the swing on a wideband as being. its acutally pretty accurate, just harder to read since the swing is more dramatic.

[Coomer]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Bee, I'd do that, except I can't really access the bottom of the manifold. I tried and tried but it's too high up to get at from the bottom and there's no way I can see what I'm doing from above.

There are these tiny holes that connect to vacuum lines that then connect together:



Do you think those are big enough to get a reliable vacuum for my MAP sensor from them?

I was also thinking though, I removed my charcoal canister, which was never really hooked up right in the first place I think. And I remember I smelled gas in my engine bay a couple times. All I have right now is a single fuel line coming from the tank to the engine. Should I have a charcoal canister, and if so, how are those vacuum lines supposed to be hooked up? And then, do I need the VSV for EVAP hooked up somehow?

[Kwanza26]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Bee, I'd do that, except I can't really access the bottom of the manifold. I tried and tried but it's too high up to get at from the bottom and there's no way I can see what I'm doing from above.

There are these tiny holes that connect to vacuum lines that then connect together:



Do you think those are big enough to get a reliable vacuum for my MAP sensor from them?

I was also thinking though, I removed my charcoal canister, which was never really hooked up right in the first place I think. And I remember I smelled gas in my engine bay a couple times. All I have right now is a single fuel line coming from the tank to the engine. Should I have a charcoal canister, and if so, how are those vacuum lines supposed to be hooked up? And then, do I need the VSV for EVAP hooked up somehow?

You don't *need* the evap system hooked for the engine to run correctly. The fuel smell is directly because you have no charcoal canister to absorb it. Anyway... those vac sources you have pictured are too far, or should I say too close to the throttle body. They're basically right on it... so no... it'll get you a fairly unstable source of pressure. Preferably, you get it as close to the head as you can for the most accurate pressure. I haven't researched exactly what the difference between the silvertop and blacktop intake manifolds are... but I remember reading there is a difference beside the size. I've never had to deal with a MAP source on the stock 20V ITBs before... so i can't relate any expertise there. I had mine hooked up the same as you have yours in the picture... but never got the engine to a tuning stage to diagnose... so... gotta research.

[Coomer]

Thanks for the advice Bee. I think where I have tapped into now is the vacuum rail, which supposedly gets vacuum from all four cylinders...I'm not sure how close to the head the vacuum holes are, but it's probably fairly close.

[netrata]

Coomer,
I stumbled on this on ebay from a good seller I bought a part from a while back. It might be of good use to you since your running ITB's.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/JDM-20V-AE1...1QQcmdZViewItem
I am also on the side viewing vac. related issues that you are having with your conversion. I'll be trying to help you out a bit at a time

[Coomer]

Thanks for the link, but I don't think I want to spend another $110 just yet if I end up having to keep the factory plenum on.

[blazin674]

very nice work, this is my first post here but i have been on other forums before and currently own a 1987 corolla fx16 gts with an ae101 20v in it and was plannin on swapping to an ae111 ecu this is a great help to me