Alumicraft getting a new computer mid season

Hey guys Brennan here from Switch-Pros, Travelah is a good friend and just so happens to be my next door Neighbor. I wanted to chime in here to offer any insight I have. I would like to discuss with anyone who has had an issue so that it might be rectified. We have a great tech support team and a really good warranty. We will typically have the units sent in for testing and typically replace any components that have failed. If the unit is past the warranty timeframe we normally offer replacement parts at a discounted rate. If you had an issue did you contact us to problem solve? I appreciate you all and I hope I can be a service to the group.  

 
Switch-Pros said:
Hey guys Brennan here from Switch-Pros, Travelah is a good friend and just so happens to be my next door Neighbor. I wanted to chime in here to offer any insight I have. I would like to discuss with anyone who has had an issue so that it might be rectified. We have a great tech support team and a really good warranty. We will typically have the units sent in for testing and typically replace any components that have failed. If the unit is past the warranty timeframe we normally offer replacement parts at a discounted rate. If you had an issue did you contact us to problem solve? I appreciate you all and I hope I can be a service to the group.  
Click to expand...
Cool of you guys to chime in. Will definitely be looking into your products when it comes to my dash rewire

 
acefuture said:
Cool of you guys to chime in. Will definitely be looking into your products when it comes to my dash rewire
Click to expand...
If you have any questions please feel free to ask. I will also have Mikey who is our tech support also monitor this thread. 

 
Alright got it wrapped up and running. From start to finish it took me (with some help from my dad) 24 hours to get everything in from Friday to today. Very happy with the outcome. Since the Holleys are not weatherproof I looked at various options for mounting and decided to pick up an outdoor junction box from HD which will have a lid put on it and sealed as well. The trunk on the car was a good place to mount since the original mefi was just the other side of it. 
 

IMG_0661.jpeg
 

I rubber mounted the box to the trunk, and rubber mounted the Holley to the box. Drilled out a 2 1/2” hole and ran the harness out through the bottom with an offset so it makes it harder for debris to get up inside. I will also make some fittings to seal off any remaining space so it makes it more difficult for sand to get in. 
 

On the backside of the trunk I mounted my relays, fuse bus, and dash connectors. Pretty simple mounting solution that is decently well protected. 
 

IMG_0663.jpeg
IMG_0664.jpeg

Also replacing the Bosch 044 with the AEM replacement pump to weed out the potential pump failure 

IMG_0666.jpeg

Long term I’d like to put a cannon plug in place like the last harness had. I inspected the entire harness as I removed it and didn’t find any red flags. It was tightly loomed together so seeing any issues with wires internal was next to impossible. But the quality of workmanship from Redline on this harness was impressive. I can only assume the cause of the issue was a failing MEFI. Guess I won’t ever know forsure, but glad to have an ECU I actually trust now. I did some basic tuning tonight and got it idling with general sensor mapping done. I’ll hopefully get it on the dyno this week or early next and call it a wrap. Thanks for everyone’s input on this thread, that’s why I like forums more than Facebook. Hopefully someone else finds this thread helpful in the future 

IMG_0665.jpeg

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Reece Pettersen said:
Stay away from switch pros. They are being torn out of x2 race cars I know of because they are causing DNFs. I sold a 1600 car with a switch pros... didn't have issues when I owned it, new owner was fighting issues, rewired the entire car only to find out the switch pros had an issue in the sealed box. 
Click to expand...
THIS ^^^

The other cars in our dune group have had too many instances with messing around with their stupid switch pros trying to get something to work, I am so over them. Our car is wired with a bank of toggle switches with relays and a Blue Sea fuse block, our car ALWAYS works when we need it to. I wired our car myself and nothing is daisy chained together, every switch and relay has it's own circuit to a buss bar fed with a 4ga battery cable, it can't be improved upon. 

For a while now we have used a Holley Terminator with a throttle body on our LS2, we use it in self tuning mode and have not had the need to do anything else with it. Everyone used to say it was an odd induction setup but interestingly enough, we have worked on our car zero times while at the dunes. Well that's actually not true, we had an O2 sensor fail on us 2 years ago while in the dunes, we unplugged it and let the engine run in open loop for the last few days but truth be told, it didn't run much different. We knew it's placement on the bottom of the header collector was not a good spot for it, morning exhaust condensation will kill on O2 sensor as we found out. We now carry a spare sensor. 

$30k for a Motec? There's no amount of debating that would convince me there were any benefits from spending that much. 

 
KLC said:
THIS ^^^

The other cars in our dune group have had too many instances with messing around with their stupid switch pros trying to get something to work, I am so over them. Our car is wired with a bank of toggle switches with relays and a Blue Sea fuse block, our car ALWAYS works when we need it to. I wired our car myself and nothing is daisy chained together, every switch and relay has it's own circuit to a buss bar fed with a 4ga battery cable, it can't be improved upon. 

For a while now we have used a Holley Terminator with a throttle body on our LS2, we use it in self tuning mode and have not had the need to do anything else with it. Everyone used to say it was an odd induction setup but interestingly enough, we have worked on our car zero times while at the dunes. Well that's actually not true, we had an O2 sensor fail on us 2 years ago while in the dunes, we unplugged it and let the engine run in open loop for the last few days but truth be told, it didn't run much different. We knew it's placement on the bottom of the header collector was not a good spot for it, morning exhaust condensation will kill on O2 sensor as we found out. We now carry a spare sensor. 

$30k for a Motec? There's no amount of debating that would convince me there were any benefits from spending that much. 
Click to expand...
Anything can be improved upon.

 
acefuture said:
Alright got it wrapped up and running. From start to finish it took me (with some help from my dad) 24 hours to get everything in from Friday to today. Very happy with the outcome. Since the Holleys are not weatherproof I looked at various options for mounting and decided to pick up an outdoor junction box from HD which will have a lid put on it and sealed as well. The trunk on the car was a good place to mount since the original mefi was just the other side of it. 
 

View attachment 92987
 

I rubber mounted the box to the trunk, and rubber mounted the Holley to the box. Drilled out a 2 1/2” hole and ran the harness out through the bottom with an offset so it makes it harder for debris to get up inside. I will also make some fittings to seal off any remaining space so it makes it more difficult for sand to get in. 
 

On the backside of the trunk I mounted my relays, fuse bus, and dash connectors. Pretty simple mounting solution that is decently well protected. 
 

View attachment 92988
View attachment 92989

Also replacing the Bosch 044 with the AEM replacement pump to weed out the potential pump failure 

View attachment 92991

Long term I’d like to put a cannon plug in place like the last harness had. I inspected the entire harness as I removed it and didn’t find any red flags. It was tightly loomed together so seeing any issues with wires internal was next to impossible. But the quality of workmanship from Redline on this harness was impressive. I can only assume the cause of the issue was a failing MEFI. Guess I won’t ever know forsure, but glad to have an ECU I actually trust now. I did some basic tuning tonight and got it idling with general sensor mapping done. I’ll hopefully get it on the dyno this week or early next and call it a wrap. Thanks for everyone’s input on this thread, that’s why I like forums more than Facebook. Hopefully someone else finds this thread helpful in the future 

View attachment 92990
Click to expand...
Looks great!  

From a programing standpoint, I strongly advise using the Pin Map to assign your fans to only come on after seeing 750RPM's or so.  It keeps them from trying to come on if you have heat soak when sitting for a break.  Makes it much easier on the car to start without fans running while cranking the starter.

 
r3meyer said:
Looks great!  

From a programing standpoint, I strongly advise using the Pin Map to assign your fans to only come on after seeing 750RPM's or so.  It keeps them from trying to come on if you have heat soak when sitting for a break.  Makes it much easier on the car to start without fans running while cranking the starter.
Click to expand...
Thanks, but my car will be set to idle around 1000rpm so I would need to set it quite a bit higher. The base tune is set for fan 1 at 190 and fan 2 at 205, I’ll drop that down to 180. I always let the fans yank the temp down to 170 before killing the car and rarely restart the car before temp drops below. But that is an interesting point I’ll look into 

 
r3meyer said:
Looks great!  

From a programing standpoint, I strongly advise using the Pin Map to assign your fans to only come on after seeing 750RPM's or so.  It keeps them from trying to come on if you have heat soak when sitting for a break.  Makes it much easier on the car to start without fans running while cranking the starter.
Click to expand...
Very easy to do and definitely a smart thing. Those fans kill a battery fast. 
 



 
10 minutes ago, Jtmoney714 said:

Very easy to do and definitely a smart thing. Those fans kill a battery fast. 
 

Click to expand...
Nice!  Exactly how I did mine.  Works great.  It also helpful for those that have intercooler fans, trans pumps, etc.  Any high load items beyond the fuel pump and starter.

 
1 hour ago, Jtmoney714 said:

Very easy to do and definitely a smart thing. Those fans kill a battery fast. 
 

Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing this - changes the fans to have an AND statement to come on...must be at a certain temp, AND car essentially running / RPM above 750...nice trick for sure.

 
lincster said:
Anything can be improved upon.
Click to expand...
Well ok let me rephrase. I can’t make what I use any more reliable without using genuine mil spec switches, relays, wire and terminations. I don’t believe that’s necessary for the application, but that is subject to opinion of course. My only desire while in the dunes is to have a good time, get back to camp under your own power and not have to stop to fix something that quit working.  

 
acefuture said:
Thanks, but my car will be set to idle around 1000rpm so I would need to set it quite a bit higher. The base tune is set for fan 1 at 190 and fan 2 at 205, I’ll drop that down to 180. I always let the fans yank the temp down to 170 before killing the car and rarely restart the car before temp drops below. But that is an interesting point I’ll look into 
Click to expand...
Starter probably only spins at 500rpm anyway, so it’s effectively started by then. You want it high enough that the engine is started, but not low enough that idle chop makes the fans cycle unnecessarily.

 
Switch-Pros said:
If you have any questions please feel free to ask. I will also have Mikey who is our tech support also monitor this thread. 
Click to expand...
Thank you for posting here. I will ask the owner of the car to contact you guys and potentially send the unit in for a functions test. 

Best,

RP

 
Following up on this thread. Took the car to Steve at Powertrain Dynamics today. He is very knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with. Thanks for the suggestions to him, and I highly suggest anyone who needs a tune to give him a call. 
 

After about 40 minutes of us talking about the history of the car, what I’ve done, and what I expect out of it, I explained how the car has never completely felt like it has the guts that I think it should. So he jumped in and started doing his thing. He noticed quickly as well the car was flat, the fuel tables were going out of wack and the computer was trying to make wild adjustments when in closed loop. So he hopped out and sprayed some water on the headers and 2 were cold. He pulled the plugs and they were firing, but no fuel. I kick myself because of all the things I checked and replaced, I didn’t check the injectors, and that’s a no brainer. He thinks that since the MEFI doesn’t have a “learning” capability that when it wasn’t seeing proper fuel flow, it was popping, sputtering, trying to make the adjustment, and just killing the motor. That would describe my condition to a tee. So while it could’ve just been a couple injectors and be on my merry way, I had to jump through the hoops to get here. The positive is that I now have a solid computer with the tune-ability and data logging that this car should have which is great. 
 

I’ll throw a new set of injectors in it and take it back to him hopefully next week and have him finish the tune. Will follow up with results 

 
acefuture said:
Following up on this thread. Took the car to Steve at Powertrain Dynamics today. He is very knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with. Thanks for the suggestions to him, and I highly suggest anyone who needs a tune to give him a call. 
 

After about 40 minutes of us talking about the history of the car, what I’ve done, and what I expect out of it, I explained how the car has never completely felt like it has the guts that I think it should. So he jumped in and started doing his thing. He noticed quickly as well the car was flat, the fuel tables were going out of wack and the computer was trying to make wild adjustments when in closed loop. So he hopped out and sprayed some water on the headers and 2 were cold. He pulled the plugs and they were firing, but no fuel. I kick myself because of all the things I checked and replaced, I didn’t check the injectors, and that’s a no brainer. He thinks that since the MEFI doesn’t have a “learning” capability that when it wasn’t seeing proper fuel flow, it was popping, sputtering, trying to make the adjustment, and just killing the motor. That would describe my condition to a tee. So while it could’ve just been a couple injectors and be on my merry way, I had to jump through the hoops to get here. The positive is that I now have a solid computer with the tune-ability and data logging that this car should have which is great. 
 

I’ll throw a new set of injectors in it and take it back to him hopefully next week and have him finish the tune. Will follow up with results 
Click to expand...
Glad you got it figured out. Dont stress about it too much as it happens to all of us. I replaced a 1K dollar fuel pump thinking it was bad when it was a torn diaphragm in a fuel pressure regulator. Now you will be dialed!

 
acefuture said:
Following up on this thread. Took the car to Steve at Powertrain Dynamics today. He is very knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with. Thanks for the suggestions to him, and I highly suggest anyone who needs a tune to give him a call. 
 

After about 40 minutes of us talking about the history of the car, what I’ve done, and what I expect out of it, I explained how the car has never completely felt like it has the guts that I think it should. So he jumped in and started doing his thing. He noticed quickly as well the car was flat, the fuel tables were going out of wack and the computer was trying to make wild adjustments when in closed loop. So he hopped out and sprayed some water on the headers and 2 were cold. He pulled the plugs and they were firing, but no fuel. I kick myself because of all the things I checked and replaced, I didn’t check the injectors, and that’s a no brainer. He thinks that since the MEFI doesn’t have a “learning” capability that when it wasn’t seeing proper fuel flow, it was popping, sputtering, trying to make the adjustment, and just killing the motor. That would describe my condition to a tee. So while it could’ve just been a couple injectors and be on my merry way, I had to jump through the hoops to get here. The positive is that I now have a solid computer with the tune-ability and data logging that this car should have which is great. 
 

I’ll throw a new set of injectors in it and take it back to him hopefully next week and have him finish the tune. Will follow up with results 
Click to expand...
Forgot to respond to this. I'm super glad you got it figured out. Means we are gonna shake 'n bake presidents weekend!

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top