Fitted a Power FC last night and....
 

I fitted a Power FC last night and went through the initialisation stage ie the 30 min set up and then brought the car out for a run after looking at the settings to see if they were ok.

The IgnTiming was about 17 degrees on idle and rose to about 40 odds on boost is this correct and the MAF was 1000mv on idle rising steadily to over 4000mv on boost?

I have been told that if the MAF gives a reading of less than 1300mv on idle it is failing, would this be right?

I noticed that the fan comes on quite a bit more now, why would this be?

I have an AVCR inplace and tried running 1 bar but the check engine light came on warning me of detonation so set the car to 0.7 bar and seems ok so will run it at that until i get the car mapped.

I have the following mods so what BHP should i be looking at if i get the car set up to run 1.4-1.5 bar?

Apexi Power FC
HKS FMIC
Walbro 255 lt/hr Pump
FSE FPR
HKS Induction Kit
Full Apexi System from Turbo Back
AVCR Boost Controller
550cc Denso Purple Top Injectors
Front Entry TD05

Air flow & Ign. sound about right (similar to mine)
You'd be better off not using the car or certainly off boost till it's mapped. You can set the AVCR to off, this gives 0.5 bar boost tops iirc. Don't know but fans could be higher temps due to lean running?

If you have the hand controller, it'll read water temp & knock + others.

Who's doing the map, Andy F?

Gerry

Prob Andy F if he comes over to Ireland.

The water temp is around 89-91 degrees most of time, so fan is on and off quite a bit.

When i run about 0.7 i am getting no check engine light which is good, think i will just take it easy in it

There's a thread on here from some guys in Southern Ireland who are having there cars mapped by Andy later this month or next. Do a search for flat4 ire, he's organising something.

Try this: http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthrea...hlight=Ireland

CEL is a warning of more serious det. Maybe you should invest in a KnockLink too.

Water temps sounds same as mine.

CEL comes on blinking when you get a knock count of 40 or more, equivilent to first amber on a knock link I believe.
wrong way round on the MAF voltage.
a reading of 1000mV to 1300mV is a-ok, OVER 1600mV and its a shagger.
fan coming on early might be that OE ecu has a set temp. to activate fan, and PFC has a lower temp to activate fan.
Andy is on holidays I believe for a couple of weeks so may I suggest you try www.zenperformance.co.uk and ask Paul, very knowledgable on such matters ;)

Is a knock count of 40 bad or is that ok, dont wanna risk driving the car and blowing it up?

Think i am gonna go to the mapping session in Ireland next month when Andy is over

The standard map on the PFC is far far too advanced... so the fact that you get the CEL blinking and high knock counts is no surprise. Knock of 40 is not good at all.

Tony.

If you get a solid lit CEL when trying to run >1bar, then it is more than likely you need the 3 bar MAP sensor. I had the same problem with mine on mapping (Andy F). Basically, the CEL would light solid and the boost would drop to 0.5bar on the guage. I replaced it with the MAP sensor from the Apexi boost control kit and all was well. Dunno if the AVCR comes with this.

Flashing CEL though means knock activity.

The AVC-R does have the map sensor, so you get better boost control.

Doesnt come on now that i reduced the AVCR to 0.7bar so gonna run it at that as checked the knock moniotr on the commander and doesnt really go up that much.

I just wont boost the car too much and keep it to a minimum till the mapping date next month.

Cheers Banni for the manual

The fan/fans are controlled by set but adjustable water temps in the PFC map, maybe they are set slightly lower temps on the PFC than on the standard ECU.

Jonah

Am getting 30 as a knock detection when i boost the car on 0.7 bar.
Otherwise maximum i get is around 17.
What do the readings mean?

I get about 25-30 just before the rev limiter at 1.25bar.

30 is likely to be too much, and certainly too much if you don't have a slappy engine. On a slappy 97/98 car it seems that 25 can be hit without getting any actual detonation. However the thing to remember is that the KNock count is just an arbitary number, the only real way to determin how much i acceptable for your engine is to listen to it with a set of det cans while monitoring the knock levels.

Paul

I have a 2.5 which certainly aren't 'slappy'. I often see a mid teen figure on start up and see a 30 peak as quite normal on a run. I also have a knock link which is pretty quiet most of the time on Tesco's 99 Octane which is even quieter than Optimax. On the odd occasion I do get a momentary red on the K/L the Apexi can record a peak up to 80

If you want to be extra cautious (and if it was me I would be) each time you use the car go into settings-ign/inj and set ign to -5. This will retard your whole map by 5 degrees thereby ensuring a degree of safety, because as Tony says the standard wrx PFC map is way too advanced for UK fuel. You'll need to do this each time you start the ignition because it resets on power off.

If your check engine light flashes rapidly it means you've had a knock count of >60 (or is it 80?) on the WRX base map ie bad det.

The radiator fan comes in at 91C and goes off at 90C on the PFC.

For (albeit useless) info, my max knock count is around 13 at 5500rpm with 1.4bar. I often get a 6-9 when it briefly spikes to 1.55bar around 3600rpm, and is accompanied by a flicker of the 1st green on my knocklink. The beginning of sparkliness on my car as verified by AndyF's detcans was around 17ish IIRC. On the knocklink 1st green is ~9, 2nd green ~15, 1st yellow ~25, red in the 40s and above.

Cheers

Simon

Thanks for the replys ill retard the ignition each time till i get it mapped then.

I believe the power FC comes with the JDM map in it so the ignition is likely to be too far advanced for our fuel I would expect.

Might also be worth adding in some pro boost as a precaution until you get the map sorted out. Good luck with it anyway and keep us posted as to how you get on if you're tweaking it yourself!

Turned the ign/inj back 5 degrees, highest knock count i get now is around 16 :)

;)

Simon