Put a Haltech on my ITB KA!

[PandaS14]

*this is also in the KA forum, but some of you guys don't go there often, so I'm posting it here too.

Well there haven't been any events worth going to in a while, so I figured I'd work on my car. I've gotten a lot of stuff done in the last couple months.

I've never seen any good write-ups on Haltech's stuff on here, so I figured I'd do it. Here goes...

As many of you know, I built a Megasquirt modified to control ignition also, and have had it on my car for a few months. It was a great setup, worked very well for what it was. Long story short I talked to haltech and after a lot of thinking, I decided to try it out. I went with an E8, with a flying lead harness, and LS1 (corvette) individual coil ignition.

The build Quality is incredible. One look at the board in the ecu was all it took to convince me. There are easily 10x the number of components in the haltech than the MegaSquirt. That's how many more functions it performs, easily. Dave at Haltech actually installed the harness for me, and let me tell you, it's incredible! He heat shrunk every inch of wire to seal it better than the stock harness, and covered about 90% of it in flame retardant material. It's amazing.

I decided I wanted to run the LS1 coils because they are about the most potent mass produced coils available. They are NUTS. Getting bit by them hurts like hell! They have built in ignitiors too, so no need for another ignition module to control them. Paired with the custom MSD 8.5mm super conductor wires I made, it's pretty much the most bad arse ignition system you can get. And the haltech runs all of it. The wires only have about 40 ohms per foot of resistance, so it's performs just about identical to a coil over plug setup. You don't need to make any kind of custom trigger wheel for the ignition either like I did for my MegaSquirt. It just takes the signal from the stock distirbutor, easy as pie.

My megasquirt had an internal map sensor (on the ecu itself) which is an ok design, but requires you to run a vacuum line into the cabin to the ecu. It's just a design prone to failure. The E8 uses an external sensor which is much better than the internal design, and response is better because the vacuum signal doesn't have to travel to the ecu. My map sensor line is no more than a foot long, really cool.

Alright, enough talking, pics now!

the haltech installed. where is it? haha hid all the wires!

ran the harness under the manifold. You can see the wires all heat shrunk.

The LS1 coils and wires and whatnot. Made a cool aluminum bracket for them too.

coils up close

another...

a closeup of the map sensor, harness in its heat wrap, and distribution block

while Dave did the engine harness, I relocated my battery, slimmed down the chassis harness, and fuse block

Where else would you put the ECU? hahaha I love it!



And for ****s and giggles...

Impressions: We got it running about a week ago and I've been tuning it since. It literally fired up the first try, and held a rock solid idle with the base map! I was amazed. It is technologically light years ahead of the MegaSquirt. I'm really glad I decided to try the Haltech out. Even with it fully tuned, the MegaSquirt couldn't hold the idle under 1krpms or it would fluctuate really bad and act up. The Haltech will hold it at 500 rpms if I want it to, and purr like a kitten. And this is with no idle control valves or anything! The tuning software is very straight forward, and easy to learn. The E8 tunes by every 250 rpms, versus the 500 with MegaSquirt. This allows much finer tuning, and extraction of extra hp.

And the best thing about the E8 on a four cylinder engine is that it has enough drivers to run the fuel injection fully sequentially and the ignition direct fire. This means each injector fires by itslef, not in pairs like the MegaSquirt, and each spark plug fires seperately, not batched like the MegaSqurit. And with the right tuning, you can get each injector to fire when the intake valve is closed, so when the fuel reaches the valve it is open. This is obviously far superior to two injectors firing at tdc. More hp and tq to be had with this setup. And having each plug fire independently is much better than firing in pairs, because one doesn't need to fire when the other does, which can create problems if you have any extra fuel in the cylinder that is not supposed to be firing.

The E8 does all kinds of other stuff too. boost control, fan control (which I'm running), tach output, wideband control, and about 10 other things I can't think of, it's crazy. You can also select the type of rev limiter you want. I did spark cut on all 4 cylinders at the same time, so it's gonna sound like all hell has broken loose, with complementary fireballs! rock on!

Cliffsnotes: the E8 ROCKS! I'm REALLY stoked I got one! If you want the most from your engine, there's nothing better. Period.

I also got some JWT cam! I can tell once I get it all tuned, they are gonna make it a whole new engine. Thanks to them. I'd suggest anyone who wants cams for their ka, get JWT. I should be getting on the dyno by the end of this week, so we'll see what the new setup makes. I'll be sure to post up the dyno!

Anyone who has any questions about their ecu's or capabilities, contact Dave at Haltech USA.

[email protected]

Regards,Scott
Modified by PandaS14 at 2:16 PM 12/13/2005

[Charlie240sxt]

thats sweet!!!!!! Plan on straping it to a dyno soon??

[GhostDriver]

Holy crap. That sounds like a fun setup. Nothing like a well tuned NA motor.

[drifter_for_life06]

pure sickness...cant wait for a graph and maybe soem fireball pics

[ORL240]

bAD ***!!Nice setup, very clean. Not alot of engine management posts. I always wanted to experiment with Haltech, they are the best engine management.So PandaS14 you are using haltech for fuel and ignition?Could be close to 200 whp on a KA with intake, header, cams, exhaust, itb's and tuned haltech.

Thanks for the write-up.

[drifter_for_life06]

im thinking of getting a haltech to get my SR dialed in nice, saw a few dyno's with them as the tuning paramater, and it was sick

[hannibal]

Looks great! Engine looks so clean with the dizzy, battery, and fuse box gone.

What kinda ITBs did you use? Suzuki?

[s13 240]

awesome, cant wait to see the dyno

[PandaS14]

yeah, there's nothing in the engine bay anymore.... well, save for the engine. haha I like it.

I don't think I'll hit 200, I'm guessing around 175. But the powerband will be BIG!

They are GSXR 1000 TB's.

Yeah, Haltech is top notch. You'll never regret getting one.

[shockload]

how much money in the setup including the ecu and coil packs. i would put hc forged pistons in it and run nitrous if u drag it. looks pretty clean

[PandaS14]

It's a drift car, so no nitrous for me.

The ECU and harness are about 13-1400 and the coil packs are about $60 each I think. Then add odds and ends. Under about $1800 total I believe.

[drifter_for_life06]

so its def. worth the money?

how much did the haltech alone cost you?

[j-z]

looking really good mang! see, this is why im going sr. the haltech setup cost about 1800, plus the cams are another 500. that right there is 2300, which is right about what a sr swap would cost. youre going to put down 175 which is what those motors do stock. add the upgrades to the sr that you have on the ka, and youre putting down 200 easy. plus you have the potential to put down even more power really easy on the sr because its forced induction. dont get me wrong... i know that power on a na motor will be really nice. but performance for the dollar, itll be much easier to achieve with a sr. thats why im swapping the ol' ka out for a fresh s14 sr. im not putting your decision down on which route you want to go. shlt.. i was already half way there. just saying why im switching. also, panda i finally got pics of my maf itb setup on here. i made a post and its about 5 or so pages back in this forum. we should gather some itb pics and start a gang. it is very impressive on what youve done to the ol' ka.

[drifter_for_life06]

ugh.....i hope you are doing the install yourself? and thats a relatively chepar price for an SR alone....

[574-240sx]

Looks good. Very clean too. I have had a megasquirt spark and extra sitting in my room for the past 6 months still deciding what I want to do with it.

[PandaS14]

J-Z: Thanks for the props!

However, I don't want an SR. Or Forced Induction for that matter. hp per dollar? meh.

And dispite that, the haltech will work on an SR, or a RB or a 13b or whatever else you want to throw at it. So that's not a fair comparison. I'm using the Haltech just as much to extract horsepower as I am to gain reliability, and protect my investment. piggybacks and all that other **** just create problems, the Haltech eliminates them (when installed and tuned correctly). And if we were looking at hp per dollar, kat owns SR any day.

[drifter_for_life06]

did you pay the 1800 that was previously stated?

[PandaS14]

To be honest they helped me out, but having one now, seeing it's capabilities, I'd sure as hell pay every penny.

You can do it for cheaper too, you can just splice into your stock harness, or if you have an SR, they have plug and play harnesses for them. It's an intermediary between the stock harness plug, and the Haltech ECU. So it's a plug and play system. Takes 15 minutes to install, and cheaper.

[574-240sx]

I didn't realize you were on ZipTied.

[drifter_for_life06]

yea i got my SR so i guess the harness you mention is what id get

im seriously looking into one

[PandaS14]

Cool. Like I said above in my original post, if you have any questions about it contact Dave.

[email protected]

Or if it's more pertaining to this type of setup, I can probably answer most of your questions.

[Dano]

That rocks! Give us a dyno graph!

Great job btw to both you and J-Z, these setups have always interested me.

-Dan