Autronic install at PDX Tuning

kleinkid · Post by **kleinkid** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 11:59 pm

I had an Autronic 1993-1996 JDM WRX plug-in replacement board installed, and dyno tuned by PDX Tuning yesterday. Dustin did the installation, Mick tuned the ECU while his able assistant, Jarrad, sat in the drivers seat and operated the Mustang Dynamometer. This board replaces the stock ECU board inside the stock case. Some modification of the sheetmetal of the case is required for the Autronic board to fit inside, in addition, a couple of holes are drilled for the access port and the MAP pressure line. No pins or pin positions need to be moved or swapped for the stock harness to plug right in. Prior to going to PDX, I had drilled and tapped a 1/8"NPT hole in the intake manifold for an Autronic intake air temp sensor that PDX would install. I removed the manual boost controller that was installed and returned the lines to the stock configuration on the boost control solenoid and intake resonator. The Autronic will control boost or the IAC, but not both. We chose to control boost with the Autronic and disable the IAC. The Autronic is used to set idle, which it is doing at about 950rpms. The car idles great. The stock function of a higher idle at cold start up, then idling down when the engine warms up, is no longer present, but it started right up cold this morning and idled right at 950, so that is OK. Boost is set at 16psi. There are no issues with the type of coil, wasted spark vs. coil on plug, etc. There are no issues with the tachometer, the Autronic works with the stock system. After installation, the car started right up, though very rich. Mick and Jarrad used the software to adjust the Aurtonic and got the car running great. I had already installed a VF-12, '06 FXT IC, 440 cc injectors and a 255lph fuel pump. Here are the numbers: 220HP and 296TQ, at the wheels, AFR ratio basically 11's. This car is very fast now and runs great. Drove 180 miles back home last night. Wow! That pressed back into your seat feeling is very fun. MPG seems similar to the trip down to Portland. When the mods were 3" TBE only, and on this dyno, this car was 141HP 158TQ. The Autronic is a very nice computer, and can do a lot of functions very effectively. It is not cheap, in any way. I am very happy with what it did for my car. The team at www.pdxtuning.com ,PDX Tuning in Portland Oregon, did an outstanding job installing and tuning. Contact them for your Autronic pricing, and installation and tuning costs. Thank you PDX and Autronic! Link to dyno sheet

http://subieclub.com/uploads/1192990251 ... 432527.jpg

douglas vincent · Post by **douglas vincent** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 6:24 am

Holy Torque monster!

kleinkid · Post by **kleinkid** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 6:51 am

I'm telling you! Need to be careful that I don't abuse the transmission. It is as fine as a 180,000 mile transmission can be, I guess. Have not had any problems with it. Just don't want to break it by being silly.

legasee · Post by **legasee** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 6:59 am

holy crap.. 70 hp and 138 tq's.. Just by EMS, thats crazy. What other supporting mods have you done?

kleinkid · Post by **kleinkid** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:11 am

Vf-12, 440cc injectors, 255lph fuel pump, and '06 FXT IC.

Post by **Legacy777** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:14 pm

Yeah, it's crazy what a good EM system can do. I really need to get off my butt and finish mine.

dropdfocus · Post by **dropdfocus** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:29 pm

Yeah, talk about flogging a transmission with mad torque! Yikes!!

Brat4by4 · Post by **Brat4by4** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 6:34 pm

Nice to know the plug-in board can work!

Sighhhh.. I had to sell all my stuff to support my wife and kid habit.

kleinkid · Post by **kleinkid** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:27 pm

I had to sacrifice a few things to afford this mod habit also. Like, I'm homeless and live on the street now, but I have a fast car! Just kidding, not really homeless.

dscoobydoo · Post by **dscoobydoo** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 1:30 am

Damn, curious why you are running better numbers than me.

That board must work pretty well.

Brat4by4 · Post by **Brat4by4** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 1:46 am

So if you were to swap in another stock ecu, plug the MAP line and you could run stock again?

kleinkid · Post by **kleinkid** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 2:16 am

A stock ECU would plug in again. No change to the harness at the ECU end.

The Autronic intake air temp sensor is spliced into the stock MAP at the MAP harness connector. Not sure if that would affect plugging in a stock ECU again.

You would plug the Aurtonic MAP line.

Drew--call PDX they can explain the advantages of an Autronic over a PP6, and give you an idea what it would do for numbers on your set up.

ciper · Post by **ciper** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 2:30 am

Does the Autronic use a narrow band oxygen sensor for low throttle fuel adjustment? In other words will it dynamically adjust fueling when driving around town?

555BCTurbo · Post by **555BCTurbo** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 2:41 am

Wow...that is a ton of torque John!

Brat4by4 · Post by **Brat4by4** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 3:20 am

That's a sweet deal. So I assume it uses the stock crank and cam sensors? I had the full stand alone Autronic and it needed hall-effect sensors (or something like that).

Does it have the lean-run highway mode? That's the best thing about some stand-alones. Make crazy power and pull in 30 on the highway... as long as you stay out of it!

livestrong14 · Post by **livestrong14** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 3:39 am

Awesome numbers John!!

kleinkid · Post by **kleinkid** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 4:16 am

O2 sensor--it uses the stock O2 sensor. While tuning, a wide band O2 sensor was in the tail pipe.

It uses the stock cam sensor.

Mick explained to me that the lean function thing is not enabled, I don't remember why, but gas milage would not be affected very much.

Adam West · Post by **Adam West** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 6:00 pm

First the cleanest....now the quickest? I HATE YOU!!!

Just kidding. Can't wait to go for a ride!

Cheers,
AW

Adam West · Post by **Adam West** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 6:01 pm

WTB, Autronic...Cheap, very cheap...ah, heck....

mick_the_ginge · Post by **mick_the_ginge** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 10:54 pm

As I tuned Johns car I thought I would post my comments in this thread.

First of all Johns car is by far the cleanest Legacy I have ever seen.

For the Autronic to correctly funcation a charge temp sensor was installed as as the Autronic is a MAP based EM the stock MAF wires are used to route the temp sensor back to the Autronic board. This means that if you want to put the stock ECU back in you will need to unconnect the Autronic temp sensor and re-connect the MAF sensor. This was the only change to the wireing harness.

Autronic uses all the stock sensors (and it's own charge temp sensor)

I left the Autronic is open loop fuel mode, I did not enable the closed loop fueling operation. The Autronic does work with the stock narrow band O2 sensor but works far better when the closed loop is used along with a true wideband. The Autronic only adjusts fueling in closed loop when it's within 1% to 2% of the target. This means when the stock narrow band is used the closed loop fueling it does nothing is the richer areas. A Narrow band is only good at 14.7:1 AFR. A wideband spliced in is a far better.

Have fun with the car John

kleinkid · Post by **kleinkid** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:51 pm

Thanks, Mick. You did a fine job on my car. That was nice of you to offer to pay half of my future speeding tickets. Oh, you didn't? Anyway, it was good to meet you, and I had a nice day spending time with you and the rest of the PDX team. Would adding a wideband O2 sensor be worthwhile at some point? Or even neccessary?

mick_the_ginge · Post by **mick_the_ginge** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 1:24 am

Using a wideband with the closed loop fuction will enable the autronic to make small fueling adjustments. This function mainly effects cruise, you may get slightly better cruise petrol mileage but we spent along time timing those load cells so I doubt it will make much difference.

If you were going to do self tuning I would say that it's a have to have but as you are not then a wideband in this case is not needed.

Maybe plan to pop into PDXTuining again in the spring for a tune checkup. At that time we can temporaryily splice in a wideband and check the AFR's while cruising on the roads making any small adjustments if needed. We could also enable the closed loop with the stock sensor and test out how well it works. If I think it's working to an acceptable level we can leave it enabled.

farfrumwork · Post by **farfrumwork** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 2:15 am

MAAAAAANNN!!

I just saw this now, and all I can say is WOW.

Now I MUST have some EM!! All I would need is the injectors, tune (our local tuner is tits with the autronic), and I could have an insane torque machine too - oh yeah, and the autronic

And I thought that my vf12 equiped SS was torquey

sweet #'s man, very nice. Gotta be 300hp at the crank and xxxtq (thats tripple x torque - Obscene!)

Good luck out there

-Chad

Oh yeah - Super cool that the early wrx board "plugs"in too. Saves significant install costs I'm sure.

dscoobydoo · Post by **dscoobydoo** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 3:12 am

If Mick is not watching this John, you might want to ask him a few questions for me.

As the JDM WRX's had the 440's and the 16G ( close to a VF12), the numbers he worked are really good.

I am wondering how well the ECU would handle a larger turbo and larger injectors.

Going from a MAF to MAP is definately better and you prove this.

The issue I have with my set-up is it is still running MAF, and the car cannot adjust when there are big charge temp changes.

With the Autronic's temp sensor, it obviously can do these changes. This is one of the reasons you are putting out more power than me.

NOW, you just have to tell all of us WHERE you got the EM and how we all can go about getting one.

LOL

D

kleinkid · Post by **kleinkid** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 3:39 am

I bought mine from PDX Tuning. They asked for a partial payment prior to them ordering it from Autronic in Austrailia. It takes about two weeks for the product to get to Portland, through Customs. Don't know the answer to your question regarding larger injectors and turbo, but would think it would be OK. Remember Nico had a lot of mods to his engine and it worked. Again, I would suggest talking to PDX on the phone or via e-mail, and get the right information. See ya, time to go out for a drive!

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Autronic install at PDX Tuning

Autronic install at PDX Tuning

my poor stock tranny

wide band?

PDX for Autronic in the PNW