S-AFC installation questions...

[firebladejr]

Hi ppl,

I'm seeking a bit of help from anyone who has installed a s-afc (blue screen version 1) into a r33 gts-t.

Firstly I'm not sure which plug connector chart I should be looking at as my Skyline is a '95 model, however it appears slightly different from previous skylines eg. it doesn't have a seperate ignitor for the coil packs like my mates '93 model, and a few other minor differences.

Next up.. I've had a look at the wiring diagram which doesn't look too hard (if I can figure out which diagram I should be looking at: see question above), however it looks like I'll have three wires left over. Is the R33 a Hot wire type AFM? If it is then I'd assume that the other 3 wires are for Karman (spelling?) type AFM's.. is this right?

Also, one of the diagrams makes attention to the "ground" wires on the apexi unit. It says to make sure that the brown earth wire is connected closer to the ECU than the second, black earth wire. If this is the case, should I simply connect the brown wire to the ECU's earth pin and the black wire to a chassis earth?

Lastly, I purchased the unit 2nd hand and as such it has different settings in it. What settings should the unit have in it to keep the car standard? (keep in mind ur talking to a complete newbie here)

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Cheers.

[bbenny]

in regards to thw two earth wires, just splice the brown earth about 5cm infront of the black on the ECUs earth.

and get all the settings to zero (0) until you tune it on the dyno

[JimX]

Did you buy this off me last night? You should have asked about the settings They should all be zero for both high and low throttle settings for default settings. That's right in the middle because you can go + and -. I think the diagram you need is N6b or N4a or something. I left the book open on the right page for you.

I'm not sure about the extra wires because I don't remember having any, but I wouldn't be earthing anything onto the chassis. The unit is far too precise to rely on earthing through the dodgy earth on the car. I would do the same as I did and splice the relevant wire closer than the other as the instructions say.

Also, I don't know why but one of the bitch things we found when setting it up, was that my voltmeter wouldn't pick up the 12v on the 12v line that comes on with the ignition. This made me think we had the thing wired around the wrong way, and after a lot of procrastination we eventually wired it up that way anyway and found that it was correct.

[firebladejr]

hey JimX..yeah it was me that bought it from you.

I'm thinking that I'll hook it up to earth and power, that should let the unit power up, and then I'll play with the settings (set them back to standard) before connecting it to everything else.

I noticed u left the book open on the right page, but that page is for all Nissan's in general and has seperate diagrams for each of them.. the question is which one is the right one?

cheers.

[JimX]

On the page a few before that one it has a listing of engines, which shows you the right one to use. I think it was N6c or something from memory. Take a look a few pages back, you should be able to find your engine. But as I said, it's hard to tell if you have the newer engine or older. I'm pretty sure we have the newer one even though the book says that the 95 models have the older one.

[firebladejr]

ok done... I've got power to the safc and it lights up fine

Now.. which setting do I have to change to 0 ?

I've already gone through and changed the Hi/Lo settings back to 0% at each rpm point. What else do I have to change now?

I noticed other options such as Dec Air or something along those lines as well as a few other options... what should I put them at to keep it standard until I get it tuned?

thanks in advance.

[firebladejr]

ok... now some problems

Checking the pin chart from the apexi guide it seems i'm missing some wires in the ECU.

Basically I know I'm not looking at the chart upside down as the power and earth/ground wires are hooked up and working fine. Problem is I don't have an AFM wire.

Did anyone else have this problem? Does anyone know what colour the AFM wire is?

[JH32]

I had the same problem until I realized that the diagram in the book is of the actual ecu-pinouts themselves, not those on the wiring harness, if you know what I mean. That way it's sort of back to front.

But you've wired up the earth ... hmmmmm not sure bout that one

[firebladejr]

yeah I figured it out the hard way... The diagram is of the ECU pinouts as you said...

Just a note to anyone installing an SAFC onto an r33: To get an accurate presentation from the wiring diagram make sure you look at the wiring harness/plug from the wires-in side, not from the mating side.

Anyway.. its all in and working now

[JimX]

Good to hear! Don't forget to put up your before and after dyno results when you get them

[MattyB]

i had some also fun installing all the crap into my car. i know how you feel. its good when you get it all done. my mate helped me with mine and we installed

rsm, apexi s-afc II, defi guages, defi vsd, apexi turbo timer all in one go, then after that the car wouldnt run. we sat arround checking everything couldnt work it out. we solderied everything except one of the afm wires had crimp connectors already inline, so we just used that. but the original crimp had come loose. no afm meter. that would do it. otherwise we had no problems at all, everything worked perfect. happy as pig in shit.

[JH32]

hahah sweet that sorta happened to me too.

hooked it all up ... made a new little harness for the safc II to plug into ... soldered everything up ... and it didn't work.

found that one of the earths wasn't soldered well enough

all works sweet now! just gotta get it tuned

[firebladejr]

ok.. I thought i'd test-tune it to see if it works. Now I'm a bit concerned...

Ok to test it I thought i'd use the aftermarket BOV problem and see if I could get it working. Problem is I don't have an aftermarket BOV

Anyway, I undid the vacuum tube that goes into the passenger side of the BOV (it's about an inch in diameter) and then plugged it up so that it doesn't leak vacuum on idle.

Next I took the car for a spin and found out that it definetly stalls (about three times whilst going around the block).

I thought I'd play with the Dec Air settings on the safc and see if that helps. I read a post from JimX (did a search) and got settings like

Thr: 5%

N1: 15%

N2: 7.5%

which are supposed to solve the BOV problem... turns out it's still exactly the same

I thought I'd try and change the Lo throttle setting (1000rpm) and up the fuelling until I got it to idle properly... well I upped it all the way to 20% and the problem still exists.

Question is:

Is there anyway that I can check if the SAFC is actually working? In the monitor menu everything seems to move and I get funky graphs and guages that all work.. but it doesn't seem to adjust the fuel at all.

I was thinking of adjusting it to the richer side (less chance of engine damage) in the Hi settings, and then taking it for a spin.. if it works i assume that it will run like a pig at more than 46% throttle (my Hi throttle point).

Will this work? Is my BOV theory correct or is there a difference with a/m BOV's that I'm missing?

thanks in advance..

[JimX]

The Dec Air thing doesn't work very well, and for many people it doesn't do anything at all. This isn't the S-AFC's fault but rather the ECU's and it can't be compensated for. You can buy a HKS idle control kit for a few hundred bucks to fix it for good if you have the stalling problem. Until you get an aftermarket BOV, just leave the Dec Air function on 0 like I told you.

To tell if the S-AFC is working or not, go for a drive! If the car drives exactly as before, then it's working perfectly. Remember it intercepts your AFM signal, and if it doesn't process this properly and pass it through at 0% then your car will sense a failed AFM and go into limp home mode where the car won't rev over 2000rpm and run mega-rich until it's fixed.

[firebladejr]

ok.. wot I might do is unplug the safc at the apexi harness/clip... i suppose if the car runs crap or doesn't start then its working. I beleive this will effectively stop the AFM from working as this is the only wire that is actually intercepted from the ECU and therefore relies on the safc. The other connections shouldn't make a diff as they are only tapped in.

Is this right?

[JimX]

Yes that's true, unplug it. That's how I discovered what it did when it wasn't running, when I accidentally yoinked my cable out

[pushead]

dude man, i did some research on the SAFC before i installed mine recently as seen from my threads (do a search). DO NOT UNPLUG THE SAFC from the harness. Reason? Your AirFuel is snipped from the ECU which runs directly into the SAFC then outputs it. (yellow wire/white wire). If you disconnect the harness from the SAFC your car will run without any air/fuel as a result it will cause damages to your engine.

[pushead]

check Hi/Low Rev's in Settings and make sure all the Ne points (rev range) is set to 0% before tune dyno. Don't play with the settings because if you adjust it accidentally and make your car too lean, lean = detonation = engine damage.

To answer your question, the SAFC uses hardwire. from the diagram it should be HW4. Set the in/out to number 4, cyc set to 6 with arrow pointing upwards.

[JimX]

Pushead, that's incorrect re: unplugging the S-AFC. Without an AFM signal the ECU goes into limp home mode. This means it runs mega-rich and will not rev above around 2000rpm. I've done it myself when I accidentally yanked the cable out. I know there is more than one person around here who will back me up on this one.

Also, he doesn't have to set anything other than zeroing all the mixture adjustment points like he's already done. It came straight out of my car with everything else set up as it should be.

[pushead]

I did this myself also. Stalled straight away, the ecu couldn't find any AFM as it tries to detect from the SAFC but it is unplugged. Don't think that will be any good for the engine.