EFI For Big Blue

[Gary Lewis]

Man, alive! Cool stuff! I know it will work, just a matter of grabbing all the handles.

I use the ELM 327 for OBDII. It was like $6 a few years ago. I have only ever run free software from my android with it, and it does all I need, but there is capacity for quite a lot, depending on what you can make the ship's computer plus the Arduino glean from sensors (factory or additional). I think you might remember that we found out Apple (at that time) did not play well with the way the bluetooth connection code stacked, and therefore wouldn't communicate. But I don't know if they have changed anything with that. Anyways, in future, someone with a popular interface will be able to talk to the truck.

I'm going to be looking into what it would take for me to go from OBD to OBDII on my 93. Just for curiosity's sake, unless it's not too difficult.

Yes, I remember the Apple problems. But I have a later app for my iPhone as well as an ELM device that worked fairly well on Russ' Suburban and our Subie.

Having said that, I doubt it can do what the Direct Flash Cable can do - write to the PROM on the ECU. So I'll use that cable to connect the Windows machine to the ECU for data logging and tuning. And I'll probably have another cable from the Arduino that will plug into the OBD-II port to monitor various things as I drive. Or, I could use an Arduino with wifi capabilities and use an ELM wifi dongle. But I don't really like the idea of having wifi emanating 24x7 from the truck, so like the hard-wired idea better.

As for changing yours over to OBD-II, that's a significant undertaking. Bill's the one to tell us how hard it is, but you'd need a harness and an ECU out of a truck just like yours but with EEC-V. Anything 1996 and later should be V, but I've heard that there were some prior to that as well. Plus you'd need the MAF, air inlet tubing, and maybe another O2 sensor as well as other sensors. Basically you'd need a donor '96 or later truck. I'm not sure the view is worth the climb.

[85lebaront2]

Yes, I remember the Apple problems. But I have a later app for my iPhone as well as an ELM device that worked fairly well on Russ' Suburban and our Subie.

Having said that, I doubt it can do what the Direct Flash Cable can do - write to the PROM on the ECU. So I'll use that cable to connect the Windows machine to the ECU for data logging and tuning. And I'll probably have another cable from the Arduino that will plug into the OBD-II port to monitor various things as I drive. Or, I could use an Arduino with wifi capabilities and use an ELM wifi dongle. But I don't really like the idea of having wifi emanating 24x7 from the truck, so like the hard-wired idea better.

As for changing yours over to OBD-II, that's a significant undertaking. Bill's the one to tell us how hard it is, but you'd need a harness and an ECU out of a truck just like yours but with EEC-V. Anything 1996 and later should be V, but I've heard that there were some prior to that as well. Plus you'd need the MAF, air inlet tubing, and maybe another O2 sensor as well as other sensors. Basically you'd need a donor '96 or later truck. I'm not sure the view is worth the climb.

FWIW, I do not try to do anything like that on my phone, (a) damn screen is too small (b) iPhone lightning port requires an adapter to USB, then you would need the software installed to do anything.

I used a dual boot MacBook Pro when I was setting mine up, I still have it but the battery is bad, I put the new one that Apple had installed in Mary's similar one (same year span) but it won't charge. I have a new (2018) HP wide screen laptop and a newer MacBook, the one with no optical drive and only 4 thunderbolt ports. I do have a Thunderbolt to USB adapter, but that gives me only 2 USB 3 ports.

On updating a 1993 truck, 1994 is the year Ford went to MAF/SEFI on the 5.0L automatic trucks, they also went roller cam and changed the firing order. Essentially, the updated wiring can be gotten from a 1994-96 F150 as far as the sequential EFI goes, front harness, first, 1994 also brought air bags, so the front harness has a lot of extra wiring and may not match the cab harness in the 1993. I think I have a 1995 front harness and may have a 5.0/5.8L engine harness. This will still be OBD-I, but I have heard there is an EEC-IV to EEC-V jumper harness, haven't seen one though. Fiveology has an OBD-II kit for the trucks and actually did a 7.5L conversion for someone in the 429/460 group on Facebook.

[Gary Lewis]

FWIW, I do not try to do anything like that on my phone, (a) damn screen is too small (b) iPhone lightning port requires an adapter to USB, then you would need the software installed to do anything.

I used a dual boot MacBook Pro when I was setting mine up, I still have it but the battery is bad, I put the new one that Apple had installed in Mary's similar one (same year span) but it won't charge. I have a new (2018) HP wide screen laptop and a newer MacBook, the one with no optical drive and only 4 thunderbolt ports. I do have a Thunderbolt to USB adapter, but that gives me only 2 USB 3 ports.

On updating a 1993 truck, 1994 is the year Ford went to MAF/SEFI on the 5.0L automatic trucks, they also went roller cam and changed the firing order. Essentially, the updated wiring can be gotten from a 1994-96 F150 as far as the sequential EFI goes, front harness, first, 1994 also brought air bags, so the front harness has a lot of extra wiring and may not match the cab harness in the 1993. I think I have a 1995 front harness and may have a 5.0/5.8L engine harness. This will still be OBD-I, but I have heard there is an EEC-IV to EEC-V jumper harness, haven't seen one though. Fiveology has an OBD-II kit for the trucks and actually did a 7.5L conversion for someone in the 429/460 group on Facebook.

Bill - I'll be using this Microsoft Surface tablet for my in-truck logging and tweaking. However it only has two USB ports so I'll have to use a USB spliter to accommodate the Direct Flash Cable, the one to the Innovate wide-band, and the Core Tuning dongle that's needed to let Binary Editor work. But Adam has assured me that a splitter works fine for that.

In the shop, while I'm learning and getting my head around things, I'll use the Windows 8 desktop. I already have it running Binary Editor, as described above,t but now need to do the same on this one.

[85lebaront2]

Bill - I'll be using this Microsoft Surface tablet for my in-truck logging and tweaking. However it only has two USB ports so I'll have to use a USB spliter to accommodate the Direct Flash Cable, the one to the Innovate wide-band, and the Core Tuning dongle that's needed to let Binary Editor work. But Adam has assured me that a splitter works fine for that.

In the shop, while I'm learning and getting my head around things, I'll use the Windows 8 desktop. I already have it running Binary Editor, as described above,t but now need to do the same on this one.

That is what I do, I have a 4 USB port I use, so I can have everything I need connected, Dongle, Mouse, Mongoose and Innovate.

[Gary Lewis]

I'm capturing this so Core Tuning can know what issues their customers may run into, as well as the work-around I found.I just tried to install Binary Editor. The first thing the documents say to do is to install Microsoft's .NET package but that was already on the shop computer. However, when I then tried to install BE I got this error message:So I tried installing Microsoft's 2007 Office System data connectivity components - to no avail because Microsoft said that I don't have any 2007 Office System applications on the PC. True, mine are all Office 365. :nabble_anim_confused:So, with quite a bit of Googling and several other attemps I did find a writeup that explains that installing Microsoft's 2007 Access database engine should work as it doesn't look to see what applications you have loaded. That installed nicely and then Binary Editor installed. Having said that, I don't know that it will work with Office 365. But at least BE installed. :nabble_smiley_good:Meanwhile I texted with Adam and have a 9:00 call with him set up on Monday. However, I won't have the dongle that is coming in the mail, and that's needed in order to make BE fully functional. So we may have to reschedule. We shall see.And, I now have a test harness, thanks to Bill and a bit of solder, heat shrink, tape, and convolute.

I now have a running ECU!

I rang out the test harness and everything was good with one exception - Vehicle Power. Turns out that my switch of choice, a marine grade 30A pull switch was flaky. But, since it is the only one I have that is easy to tell if it is on or off, I pulled out the CRC QD Electronic Cleaner and shot it full. A few pushes and pulls and it started working properly.

Then I added the Harbor Freight fuse/ammeter, hooked the rig to a 5AH battery normally used in a trailer brake system, added a battery charger to that, and hooked the test harness up. As expected, there was no current w/o the ECU. So I added the YAZ3 ECU, which came from a '95 w/a 4R70W. Then, with the "key" switch on I saw .2A. Then I added my ELM wifi dongle to the OBD-II port and turned the "key" to On. The current jumped to .3A and I got a wifi signal.

Then I fired up my scanner app on my iPhone and discovered that it is reading a Ford OBD-II ECU that runs an SAE J1850 PWM protocol at 41.6 Kbaud. And, oddly enough, the MIL is not lit and there are no trouble codes outstanding.

Then I discovered the Terminal function of the app where I can send the ECU specific commands, as explained here. So I sent it "0100" which is "In mode 01, what PIDs are supported?" And the answer came back: 416B 1041 00BF 9FF9 10C9. I'll have to see if I can decode that.

Then I asked it what the engine RPM is by sending "010C" and got back 416B 1041 0C00 00DC. Again I'll have to translate that.

But, the bottom line is that:

 

[grumpin]

I now have a running ECU!

I rang out the test harness and everything was good with one exception - Vehicle Power. Turns out that my switch of choice, a marine grade 30A pull switch was flaky. But, since it is the only one I have that is easy to tell if it is on or off, I pulled out the CRC QD Electronic Cleaner and shot it full. A few pushes and pulls and it started working properly.

Then I added the Harbor Freight fuse/ammeter, hooked the rig to a 5AH battery normally used in a trailer brake system, added a battery charger to that, and hooked the test harness up. As expected, there was no current w/o the ECU. So I added the YAZ3 ECU, which came from a '95 w/a 4R70W. Then, with the "key" switch on I saw .2A. Then I added my ELM wifi dongle to the OBD-II port and turned the "key" to On. The current jumped to .3A and I got a wifi signal.

Then I fired up my scanner app on my iPhone and discovered that it is reading a Ford OBD-II ECU that runs an SAE J1850 PWM protocol at 41.6 Kbaud. And, oddly enough, the MIL is not lit and there are no trouble codes outstanding.

Then I discovered the Terminal function of the app where I can send the ECU specific commands, as explained here. So I sent it "0100" which is "In mode 01, what PIDs are supported?" And the answer came back: 416B 1041 00BF 9FF9 10C9. I'll have to see if I can decode that.

Then I asked it what the engine RPM is by sending "010C" and got back 416B 1041 0C00 00DC. Again I'll have to translate that.

But, the bottom line is that:

 

That's great!

[85lebaront2]

I now have a running ECU!

I rang out the test harness and everything was good with one exception - Vehicle Power. Turns out that my switch of choice, a marine grade 30A pull switch was flaky. But, since it is the only one I have that is easy to tell if it is on or off, I pulled out the CRC QD Electronic Cleaner and shot it full. A few pushes and pulls and it started working properly.

Then I added the Harbor Freight fuse/ammeter, hooked the rig to a 5AH battery normally used in a trailer brake system, added a battery charger to that, and hooked the test harness up. As expected, there was no current w/o the ECU. So I added the YAZ3 ECU, which came from a '95 w/a 4R70W. Then, with the "key" switch on I saw .2A. Then I added my ELM wifi dongle to the OBD-II port and turned the "key" to On. The current jumped to .3A and I got a wifi signal.

Then I fired up my scanner app on my iPhone and discovered that it is reading a Ford OBD-II ECU that runs an SAE J1850 PWM protocol at 41.6 Kbaud. And, oddly enough, the MIL is not lit and there are no trouble codes outstanding.

Then I discovered the Terminal function of the app where I can send the ECU specific commands, as explained here. So I sent it "0100" which is "In mode 01, what PIDs are supported?" And the answer came back: 416B 1041 00BF 9FF9 10C9. I'll have to see if I can decode that.

Then I asked it what the engine RPM is by sending "010C" and got back 416B 1041 0C00 00DC. Again I'll have to translate that.

But, the bottom line is that:

 

Sounds good to me! If you hook a distributor up you can get an rpm signal into it using an electric drill.

[Gary Lewis]

Sounds good to me! If you hook a distributor up you can get an rpm signal into it using an electric drill.

True, but I don't have the input pin on the ECU connector do I? Hmmmm, I'll have to look at that, but I don't remember mapping that one.

 

[Gary Lewis]

Sounds good to me! If you hook a distributor up you can get an rpm signal into it using an electric drill.

True, but I don't have the input pin on the ECU connector do I? Hmmmm, I'll have to look at that, but I don't remember mapping that one.

I'm not sure if there will be better info for today, so I'll take the time while I'm waiting for over 5000 binary files of calibrations to Binary Editor. Yes, over 5000.

Anyway, I got the registration dongle as well as the Direct Flash Cable in the mail today. Guess what - the DFC says Mongoose on it in big letters. So there's one mystery solved - the Mongoose Package shown on the home screen at Core Tuning is apparently the Direct Flash Package shown on the "shop" page that you go to when you click on the Mongoose Package. However, I haven't as yet been able to reconcile the fact that on the home page it is $649 and on the Shop page it is $629. Glad I ordered from the Shop page.

Then I set about getting it to working. However I ran into problems and texted Adam, who then remoted in and took over the shop PC. But, after quite a while he was also stumped. So I suggested we use this tablet since it is what I'll ultimately use anyway in the truck and it is Win 10 while the shop PC is Win 8.

So he got off and I went through the steps, I think, and got Binary Editor loaded. But when I said "update" it came back with a list of over 5000 calibrations to load, and here I sit while it goes about it in the background. We just counted down to less than 1000 left, so we shall see. And when it gets done I'm to get Adam back online.

[Gary Lewis]

I'm not sure if there will be better info for today, so I'll take the time while I'm waiting for over 5000 binary files of calibrations to Binary Editor. Yes, over 5000.

Anyway, I got the registration dongle as well as the Direct Flash Cable in the mail today. Guess what - the DFC says Mongoose on it in big letters. So there's one mystery solved - the Mongoose Package shown on the home screen at Core Tuning is apparently the Direct Flash Package shown on the "shop" page that you go to when you click on the Mongoose Package. However, I haven't as yet been able to reconcile the fact that on the home page it is $649 and on the Shop page it is $629. Glad I ordered from the Shop page.

Then I set about getting it to working. However I ran into problems and texted Adam, who then remoted in and took over the shop PC. But, after quite a while he was also stumped. So I suggested we use this tablet since it is what I'll ultimately use anyway in the truck and it is Win 10 while the shop PC is Win 8.

So he got off and I went through the steps, I think, and got Binary Editor loaded. But when I said "update" it came back with a list of over 5000 calibrations to load, and here I sit while it goes about it in the background. We just counted down to less than 1000 left, so we shall see. And when it gets done I'm to get Adam back online.

Morning update: Adam wasn't available yesterday afternoon given how late I finally got all the updates done. But we may get to work on it a bit today, although both of our schedules are a bit hectic.

However, I've been poking around in Binary Editor trying to familiarize myself with it. I loaded up the calibration for the YAZ3 box that is for a 1995 5.0L w/a 4R70W, which is the one I have connected to the test harness and have been looking through it. But, to this point I don't think I've gotten the box to talk to Binary Editor.

Nonetheless, I'm gobsmacked at how many parameters there are in the box. It is just absolutely mind-boggling.

So, let me give you a taste. Here's a screen shot of the spark information. Just note the number of folders/files on the left that have information. I've opened the Base Altitude Spark file, which I think is the spark advance in degrees on the X axis, and engine load on the Y-axis.

However, look at the info in the box in the lower right, which is shown much larger in the following pic for those of you on itty bitty screens. That is the calculation the computer goes through to determine the engine spark advance. In other words, it takes into account the barometric pressure, the Engine Coolant Temp, the amount of EGR, the Air/Fuel Ratio, combustion noise (could that be spark knock?), IMRC - whatever that is, and the Dashpot - whatever that is. AND THAT IS JUST THE SPARK ADVANCE!

YIPES!