Profec B spec II install and review
 

Well, today turned out to be a pretty good day for the 7....I had a few things waiting to go on the car, and since the turbos were still hot after my drive to a friend's garage I decided to start on those first. After putting on new belts and installing my new tripoint AST, I was ready to work on the Profec B.

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...postid=1830044

Reading through a few threads had me wondering how I should install the controller. According to this picture:
https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...&postid=952472
the Greddy manual says to use version 1. Others on the forum have used version 2 and swear by it.

I decided to go with version 1 first to see if it would work well for me.

The install went pretty smoothly...something interesting though, was that my hose had a pill in it! It was my understanding that some 94's and all 95's had the pills built into the nipple, but obviously this isn't the case for my car.

Anyway, after routing all the lines into the car, I checked to make sure the car was boosting ~7 psi with the controller off. Bingo, car showed just under 7 psi on my autometer boost guage AND the Greddy profec (chalk up 1 advantage over the older profec B...more to come later).

Now to tuning....this new Profec B was pretty damn easy to setup...the low and high boost levels are set by entering a duty cycle for the valve controller. For 10 psi, I set my low duty cycle to 53%. I didn't bother with the high setting, since I don't plan to go past 10 anyways, so I just left it at 0% (which would put me at 7 psi, as if the controller was off).

I left the gain at 10% (too high gives you spikes, to low has your boost trailing off).

Now a few additional features that make this new profec B worth considering over the old one:

Warning - you can set a warning psi level. One you reach this level the controller will beep and flash red to warn you.

Limiter - If you hit warning, this limiter will kick in and lower the duty cycle a certain percentage from your setting (99% will bring you back to 7 psi)

Peak - this will show your peak psi until you clear it. Very helpful while tuning.

Last Boost - EXTREMELY helpful while tuning...after you let off the accel for 3 secs it will flash the highest psi reached.

Over the course of tuning the boost controller today, it seemed that the boost controller consistently read 1 psi higher than the boost guage. Hrm...so maybe I've been running a little higher than i thought all this time? Definitely good to know.

Finally, after all the tuning was done, I've set up my car to boost a consistent 10-7-10 in all gears (1-4 anyway :) ), and all the way to redline. It certainly seems as if my car is faster now, since it boosts much quicker in the lower gears...my next step is to dyno the car and see what my air/fuel looks like. Although I don't expect any surprises, it's just a good thing to know.

With the old profec B selling for $320....it seems a no brainer to pay less for more in the profec B spec II. The spec II retains the simplicity of the original, yet it adds a bunch of great features. I bought mine off of a ebay link that I found in another thread....just search for 'profec' and you'll find it. I got mine for $307 shipped.

Comments?

do u have any pics of it mounted in your car....what color does it light up..

here you go...
 

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...postid=1830125

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...postid=1830156

you can see that the display is blue in the first pic.......it flashes red when you get a warning or hit the limiter.

pretty cool. :D

where did you order it from?

here
 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=2417118020

there's only 2 left!

Shit man, I just bought the original profec B, i wish i knew this a month ago. Looks nice though...

sell it :D

Sounds cool...I did the version 2 with the Profec B and it works pretty damn nicely...I can predict boost in every gear. I decided to choose version 2 mainly becasue I threw out my pills when I installed the Home Depot Boost Controler...All working good till now.

wow...nice write up...the Profec B spec II looks just like Greddy's new turbo timer...but thanks for sharing the info...it'll come in handy in the future for me. :)

another thing: i'm not positive, but it seems like the controller won't let me go full boost until i'm warmed up a little. It makes no note of this 'feature' in the manual, so I'm not sure if I did something funky or what.

regardless, after a few minutes it stops messing with me so I guess it's a good thing. It's probably some sort of internal timer for the controller, since it doesn't take engine/water/oil temp into account or anything.

Apneablue, have you noticed this too?

Thanks for the pics very nice...

You can't reach full boost while cold because the double throttle is closed. It restricts airflow to the engine to prevent damage from overloading it while cold. It is extremely harmful to the engine to over-rev or overload the engine while it is cold, so don't do it ;).

Thanks for the input Nathan, but I may have been a little unclear....

I always warm up the car to at least 150 deg F water temps before going WOT. This usually happens in ~5 minutes or so of driving.

However, even after this warm up period the boost controller sometimes doesn't let me go WOT without flashing and beeping at me and limiting my boost (to a level that I put in), even though I haven't surpassed the warning psi. I'm wondering if perhaps the valve controller itself has an internal thermosensor that tells the controller when -it- thinks the car is warmed up.

Regardless, the controller eventually (after ~8-10 min) returns to normal operation. If this is an added feature of the controller, I haven't read about it anywhere. I'll send a note to Greddy and report back if this is the case.

:)

Nice post.
If only the display matched...
Do you find the blue display distracting at night?

Nice job i do agree the display should be red or orange.

Very nice. I think you've inspired me to swap out my profec for the spec II after I redeploy....

Nice write up Alien...

The blue isn't really distracting at all...

i think my picture might have made the blue brighter than what it is. Anyway, given that it's now my 2nd boost guage, it's easier to see than the one i have on my A-pillar.

Also, keep in mind I've got one of the Pioneer organic displays on my radio, so this little blue on my steering column is nothing :D

After talking to Greddy, they're not sure why the controller limits my boost after I start the car....I can stop it by cycling through the buttons on the boost controller (Lo -> Hi -> Lo) and then it works fine again. I found that I had forgotten to take one of the plastic caps off of the controller, so I did that and had to retune....i think my duty cycle is now set to ~37% for 10 psi boost, but here's the important thing: my gain is now set to 1%. Anything higher than that and I was spiking.

Anyway, I'll talk to Greddy again later today to see if they come up with anything....and if so I'll post it up here.

Oh, and for those of you who like to boost above stock levels, I believe this unit is capable of up to 43 psi :eek:

I hope that's a typo. The car should be FULLY warmed up before really getting on it -- at least 180 F. The double throttle plates do not open until 170 F and you will not get full boost below this temp.

I couldn't find this controller for sale anywhere but from that ebay source, nor could I find it on GReddy's site. I did find it on Trust's website, so I wonder if any other vendors will be carrying this soon or if this is one of those products that just stays in Japan. Reason being, I don't like buying things from eBay; I would rather go through RX7store etc.

well...that's true, but the weather here has been cold enough that I'd practically have to let the car heat soak before it'll see 180. A couple of months ago I seriously couldn't get the needle past 150.....maybe i need to block up the radiator or something during the winter.

Anyway, these days the needle on my guage stays pegged between the 150 mark and the 180 mark....which would mean it's 165, but I'll assume my POS autometer guage is off. :p:

i've mentioned this to Greddy....they say that it'll be up soon. FWIW I'm hesitant about ebay purchases too, but the guy I bought it from had a ton of good feedback so I went for it. He told me he has more, so let me know if you want his email and you can do it outside of Ebay.

this is true. I installed mine just the other day. Im gonna try the ver2 connecting to the pca since no one can tell me why it bad and every one ive talked to who has done it loves it and has hda no problems. ill post results
sean