99-00 Adaptronic Standalone Install
 

After being ready to sell this toy i decided to give it one last try. In the past few days after tons of research and asking question i finally figured out a lot of the crap that was wrong with my tunning however also wrong with all the 99-00 wiring.

Before you start taring up the miata fix the wiring on the harness.
It appears that the unit it self comes with a mixed up set of wires. These wires allow the stock ecu to control the idle control valve. If you want the adaptronic to control idle then don't worry about the harness.

Anyhow.
This is the basic harness. First move the plugs from the 420 to Factory
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1315716702

Next looking at the middle (smallest) plug take the 3rd wire and mark it with one color marker. Then mark the corner one with a different marker. These are the 2 you need to switch.

How to actually switch them is look at the bottom of the plug, you'll find a little door looking piece. Using a small watch screw driver pull it out. It comes out about 1/16th of an inch NOT all the way out. Next look from the front of the connector where all the little holes are. There is a plastic piece that you have to lift up for the pin to pull out from the back of the connector.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1315716702

After the repair it will look like this.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1315716702

If you haven't bought a temp sensor yet get one and get the plug welded to your intake piping on the throttle body side of your intercooler.

Here's your plug...aluminum or steel depends on your piping.
Aluminum
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/3...sor-p-107.html
S. Steel
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/3...sor-p-231.html

Here is your temp sensor
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/g...tail-p-62.html

Heres my solution.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1315716702

Take a hot glue gun and spread it all over the connectors and the board to ensure it doesnt short out anywhere like in my first pic.

Now time for the fun part.
Pull the crappy plastic sensor off. You can either cut or strip the wires. Polarity doesnt matter so wire away.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1315716702

Stock ecu can also use this sensor just in case you gotta switch ecus for emissions.

Next unplug the stock MAF wire the MAP sensor per Stains instruction. Long story short 2 wires go to the throttle position sensor and the last one goes to the wires that went to the stock MAF sensor.
https://www.miataturbo.net/adaptronic-63/adaptronic-install-instructions-nb-32942/

You can now remove the MAF and toss the filter directly on the piping.
Save the maf for emissions if required...

Now on the inside of the car pull the cover on the bottom of the steering wheel. Unplug the 3 plugs going to the stock ecu and plug them in the adaptronic harness. Plug the output plugs from the harness to the stock ecu.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1315716702

The adaptronic ECU can be mounted several ways. The way i found most comfortable is to toss the ecu on top of the cover you took off a second ago. I used a towel to ensure the ecu doesnt knock against it. On my pic you can see whoever installed the alarm made a mess. Yours will be a lot cleaner if its factory.

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/b...t/DSCF0008.jpg

On my plug the wires from the left are the 4 from the harness. The ones on the right are from my LC1 and the serial plug for the laptop. I found that i have to put the serial plugs first and lift those up into position and then the left side.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1315716702

Toss the cover back on.

The LC1 has 2 plugs. One named IN and the other one named OUT. The serial wire goes to the adaptronic unit goes in the OUT plug, the terminator plug goes in the IN.


Terminator plug
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1315716702



Plug the ecu into your computer (DO NOT START YET)

Download the newest software.
http://adaptronic.com.au/downloads.html
You want the bottom 420c download not the 440.
Select and e420c Latest Download (version 10.000)

Install the download.
Double click on the Launch Wari.
Go to the update firmware screen, and then turn the key to the on position (don't start yet). It should now show a serial number and say its ready. Go to whatever drive is your main hard drive, go to program files, go to adaptronic engine management, wari and it should be in there E420C_V10.000. Then, click program. After it programs, click verify. After that click reset ECU.
Exit out of wari and click to Launch wari again. It should automatically start loading your ecu data. Wait for it to load 2-3 mins... Then go to open and open my map. It will ask you if you want to over write the settings on the ecu.. yes you do. This map is not 100% configured however its good enough to get you started.

Before you begin tunning configure your TPS, go to analogue calibrations. click on Learn for the 0%, then Floor the throttle (engine off) and click learn for 100%. I'm using LC1 and the map is set for LC1 however if you're using different wideband few steps will be different and you'll need to change the settings for that. You are using a wideband right?

Cross your fingers, make sure you're in neutral, hold the clutch and turn the key. If your car starts, Cheers.

It will idle as if its cold out, then at 63degrees it will go down to ~850-900 rpm.

That's it for the install. The rest is tunning.

Few basics about the my ecu map file...
uses stock red/brown 240cc injectors
uses stock coils
uses the 3 bar map sensor
predicted map is set for boosted motor, not NA so you'll see rich values the instant you floor the gas.
the fuel map is only roughly tuned up to about 5k rpm 20-100kpa.

Excellent writeup! Thanks for taking time and documenting this. I'll be doing this on mine too.

When changing injectors make sure you change the injector cc in the "tunning modes" tab and also dont forget to change your injector dead times in the "corrections" tab > "Set for primary injectors"

Good thread - I'm about to install a new e420d Basic Select into my race car, so this is a good refresher!

Nice to see some activity on the adaptronic here as well. Will be doing an e440 select install myself as soon as the "season" is at an end over here. (pretty soon...)

I'll be tossing my new map soon, just working out on cleaning up my fuel map a bit more. Known bugs so far are throttle on transitions are little lean while the iac is on cold idle ( < 63C) That's about it.

Good writeup. I wish I had a chance to try all of this out, especially the stock ECU idling. My car ran fine but cold idle or electrically loaded idle was poor.

Long story short, starts and idles like stock at 1400-1500 rpm when cold. After it goes into hot idle, it idles like at 800 or so rpm (stock idle). Doesn't die when the fans kick on, doesn't die when the windows are raised up, matter of fact the engine moves maybe 20-30 rpm at the most.

Here's my new most updated file for stock injectors.

Since a recent confusion has come up. My file above is set so the idle valve is controlled by the stock ecu. Using my file on a harness that is set for 420c idle control without changing the correct settings in the file will cause the car to die or not even start.

Excellent article. I'm looking at the same ecu for my car, if I can get a response from the seller. Do you happen to know if the adaptronic can tune with the factory o2 or is it required to go with a wideband? Do you have a check engine light when running the ecu?

I have no idea if it can read the factory o2 however it wont be useful for tunning anything other than maybe up to 80kpa anyhow unless you're planning on running stoich in boost... Seeing that 100% of the members i've seen on this forum tune via wideband i feel safe enough saying...tune via wideband don't procrastinate to get one.

As far as the check engine light.. Its off by default due to the way the wiring harness is wired.. The stock ecu has an output for the check engine light, this wire is cut off and the standalone is in control of this wire so you can use the check engine light as a shift light or whatever else you want to use it as.

When checked with a code reader you'll find codes on the stock ecu since it won't be seeing readings for few of its sensors. In other words, no you wont pass emissions if they plug into your obd2 port.

I have an e420c which is configured for the factory O2 sensor. I did try it with 'rapid learn' for a bit, but found that the ecu was removing large quantities of fuel from the map probably because of the on/off nature of a narrowband sensor. So I turned it off and put the ecu into closed loop and I'm using the base map I got from adaptronic with a few tweaks until the car gets turbo'ed.

As the base map from adaptronic was so good the car is running well with no issues (pinking etc). I have my afr's set for stoich or thereabouts while the car is NA. Fuel consumption has improved. But until I've fitted my wideband I won't use any of the adaptive modes again. This will happen once the turbo goes on.

Did you need to do any wiring for the stock o2 or did you just plug in the ecu harness and go to analogue calibrations > Oxygen sensor type > OEM narrowband?

If so i wonder if it will be any issue to run both lc1 and narrowband...

No wiring required. Just changed that setting as you have it.

I'd probably just run one after all if the stock o2 sensor is plugged in it won't be creating any errors, but the adap will be ignoring it and using the LC1 to control either one of the adaptive modes or running closed loop.

The only reason why i'm interested in the narrowband is to confirm my LC1s readings or if theres any offset.

narrowband only see's a 1v difference compared to the lc1's 5v so the narrowband won't be much use in confirming the accuracy of your wideband. Probably be best to use a tail pipe probe on another lc1 to check. Although of course the results from that will be slightly different to your bung mounted sensor, but should be close enough to give a good idea of how accurate it is.

Have you done a free-air re-calibration of the lc1 o2 sensor yet?

So now i have the narrowband as a backup and i'm seeing the narrowband reading about .6afr higher than my lc1.

The narrowband only reads from 14 to 15.5 so...

I'd say if you've re-cal'ed the lc1 and are happy that is working ok then I wouldn't worry about the difference. Are your lc1 o2 sensor and the narrowband sensor very close together or some distance apart?

LC1 reads 14.7 narrowband reads 15.3 so little over half a point.