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Well after talking for years about eventually going to a standalone I dropped the hammer and ordered a Fueltech FT550 today. It's more than I need right now as I am currently n/a and will stay so until I learn to tune and feel comfortable with my abilities. Maybe more than I'll ever need hopefully since my end goal is a turbo setup with around 350rwhp. I also wanted to future proof in case rotary parts completely dry up and I end up going LSx one day. It may seem like an odd choice as they aren't mentioned much at all on here with no section of their own in the ECU section. I have it somewhat planned out in stages with certain things I want to do along the way. 1st the standalone and learning to tune. 2nd I want try running a FD UIM on a FC LIM( I know much fabrication will be required) to keep the supercharging effect of the dynamic chamber but with a shorter less convoluted path than the S5 VDI manifold. Since it is said to be the major restriction in the stock setups flow. 3rd to move to a turbo using a stock S5 turbo setup I have but with an external wastegate since even ported wastegates seem to have boost creep issues with the 3" exhaust setup I plan to run and eventually a turbo upgrade to get to the final 350rwhp. I did want a BNR stage 2 but I have since discovered a Borg Warner external wastegate turbo is around the same money or less with the CS Turbos Chinese knock offs. Though I'd rather have a BW. I plan to build my own manifolds so that should help with costs of using an external wastegate since the wastegate it's self doesn't seem too bad. If I'm lucky this is like a 4 to 5 year plan but who knows what life will bring so we'll see. Most of the pieces except the wastegate and turbo upgrade I have.
Ok short term I've got to get it installed. Still deciding on that. Was goin to wire my harness to their connectors but their connector kit has been out of stock for awhile and the 10ft harnesses are only $89 more so I got the harness. I thought about making a patch cable to adapt it but it's looking like the connector is NLA. I have a JDM ECU so I could de-solder the connector and design/ build a board to put it on. So a patch cable is still possible. I'm tempted to just build a new harness out of their unterminated one. I have a spare harness I could source connectors from. Downtime due to wiring would be much shorter with the patch cable as a large portion of that work can be done outside the car. I'll update with pictures once progress starts being made.
P.S. Since I stalled and didn't order last month like I had planned I ended up getting a free WB-O2 Nano since they're running a promotion right now. That's their Wide Band controller. I still had to buy the harness and sensor but every little bit helps.
For patch harnesses there are a bunch of options you could choose from as your 'female' such as Banzai's PFC adapter, or you could even track down the Denso PCB mount.
For patch harnesses there are a bunch of options you could choose from as your 'female' such as Banzai's PFC adapter, or you could even track down the Denso PCB mount.
I decided since I would have to extend the harness anyway to mount it where I could see/ reach the display to just go ahead and get their harness and use it for the extension portion. That said I didn't try to figure out what connectors they use but now that you mention it that would've been an option. I actually found the pcb mount connector on either Mouser or Digikey, can't remember which now, but it was out of stock with no lead time and 0 on order like it is NLA. That's why I was thinking of scavenging one. I also wondered if Banzai had any not built into patch harnesses if they'd sell me one. I may contact them.
Something like that is what I was thinking about building. With that one most of the work is already done. I just have to solder and wire it. Unfortunately it's out of stock.
Small update. I liked the DIY autotune breakout adapter that oinesra posted a link to. Unfortunately it is out of stock. I was however able to find somewhere with stock on the connector they use. Newark had it for $13.96. Ended up $26.16 after tax and shipping. Still no luck on the one for our ECU unless you buy like 1500pcs. This one will work it's just got and extra section I won't need. It came in today. Here's a picture.
I guess I'll make my own breakout board as originally planned. I would have just bought the DIY autotune one as I may end up spending more in the end depending on what a board costs. There are some proto board houses out there that run your board with other people's boards on the same panel to get costs down. Hoping it won't be too bad through one of them.
Last edited by Dak; Jul 30, 2021 at 07:18 PM.
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