My SAD 7m story

[teamslow]

So here’s my long sad story.

The saying goes people want three things when building a car
1. make it fast
2. make it reliable
3. do it cheap
but you can only pick two.

Well I chose option 1 and 2 knowing it would not be cheap. I bought the best stuff possible just to reach a small horsepower goal for 400 horsepower.

http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?124454-Teamslow-s-7m-SuperStreet-Build

I bought a fresh fully built motor from a very reputable person here on the forums.
I shipped my transmission to marlin crawler himself to have my transmission rebuilt.

I did the engine swap myself. Labeled everything on the harness, took many pictures. Labeled all the bolts and put it in individual plastics. If a sensor looked dirty, hose looked old, or bolts were dirty or missing. I bought it new from the dealer.
Basically, if anything looked dirty, I either had it powder coated, chrome plated or bought brand new.

I got the car running and tuned on an SAFC. Tuned by mike at E-shift performance. Car made 374 RWHP STD correction. 11.0 A/F at 16 psi. It held A/F at WOT very well.
But the air fuel was off at cruising and at idle intermittently. And car would die if I let off the gas too fast because of the BOV.

I spent all this money and the car was still not 100%. So I took my build a step further. I found on ebay what was said to be a brand new engine harness, I know he is a guy on the forums here. From my inspection of the harness. It appeared to be new. Plastic covers still on the clips. Clean!, no dirt on it what so ever.
Bought an AEM EMS v1, 3.5 Bar MAP sensor, IAT sensor.

I then brought my car to M&S performance in Queen, NY to have my engine harness installed, DH61 igniter installed, MAP sensor, IAT sensor, and AEM EMS.

Alpha from Induction Performance in Tampa, FL was coming to Queens to tune cars, which is why I bought my car to M&S performance. I didn’t want to hear any bullshit, which is why I bought a new harness and had them install everything and had Alpha tune the car.

Long story short, Alpha was unable to tune the car and diagnose what was wrong with the car. Mikey from M&S performance recheck CPS, put in new plugs. They went through the car over and over and no results.

Now the car is barely drivable, even cruising. So I took my car is Sean Ivey at Iveytuning in Linden NJ. Sean and his team rewired my MAP sensor, rewired my IAT sensor, checked everything they possibly could. But they were still unable to tune my car.

From my understanding of what was told to me. Ignition timing is jumping everywhere and air/fuel is everywhere at WOT.

Timing was synced. Tried using DH61 igniter following funkycheese’s thread. Tried again with stock igniter.

There really isn’t any shops in my area that is well versed with the 7M-GTE.
I have reached a dead end and am so close to leaving the car scene in general and never looking back. I wanted to be one of the high powered 7m’s in the northeast. And was eventually shooting for 550 to 600 rwhp.
But its not looking good. There is no supportability for 7m’s in my area and I am so ready to throw in the towel.

 

[IBoughtASupra]

Your ignition timing is jumping, it could be a bad CPS. Did you replace it with a new one from the dealer?

I am in Queens and not to discredit Mikey, he knows his stuff, but the 7M is not really his strong point.

Lastly, you really don't have a problem at all man. Call AEM, talk to their Techs. You can buy a cam and crank sensor kit. That way, all that is needed to run the cam and crank sensor on the 7M is mounting brackets, which can be made very easily.

Duane, UpgradedSupra on here, runs a setup like that. He is using Motec I believe BUT I am sure he will answer your PM if you send him one and so will AEM if you call him up.

If you have the standalone wired, map is a ground, 5V and a signal. It would only jump ignition timing like crazy based on what it is recieveing from it's sensors, in this case it is the CPS.

The AEM is not the TCCS, it won't try to make corrections for you, so if it is doing something on it's own, I would point to the sensor.

Example, TPS is faulty and says the car is at WOT. The AEM won't know any better and think the car is at wide open throttle and you will see 99% for the TPS reading.

It could be your CPS is bad or you need a new one. Timing is controlled by only the CPS and, in this case, the standalone. It's not in the tuning, it's in a sensor. It's that simple

This would all change if you have a new CPS from the dealer. In that case, do what I said, call AEM and ask about their cam and crank setup for engines like the 7M.

 

[IBoughtASupra]

Google Search

http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?80190-Cam-position-sensor-(jumpy-ignition-timing)

The original poster of that thread is friends with Aaron on his friends list. Now, this is a shot, maybe they are friends in the real world or just thought, what the heck, it's cyberspace. Give Aaron a call and see if he has any suggestions as he does a lot of 7M builds.

 

[suprarx7nut]

The prerequisite for owning a Surpa is knowing how to do things yourself. IMO, if you have to rely on a shop or tuner do get your car running, then you've outspent yourself. Only install what you know and what you know how to install/tune/diagnose.

It doesn't sound like anyone is really to blame. Most tuner shops aren't that knowledgeable and especially by the time you've got a standalone.

Go do some reading and learn to diagnose all this stuff yourself. There's nobody in your area that knows it very well, so you say. It's time for you to become the person that knows it.

 

[MRSUPRA]

You should have fixed your Air/Fuel cruising problem before you installed the AEM EMS. The AEM is only complicating things now. Something had to be seriously wrong if your A/F was off at cruising with the stock ECU.

Also.. This is why I always give the advise on spending the extra $ on a good running, well kept supra instead of trying to completely rebuild a piece of junk.

 

[teamslow]

You should have fixed your Air/Fuel cruising problem before you installed the AEM EMS. The AEM is only complicating things now. Something had to be seriously wrong if your A/F was off at cruising with the stock ECU.

Also.. This is why I always give the advise on spending the extra $ on a good running, well kept supra instead of trying to completely rebuild a piece of junk.

Went to a supra meet and talked to a bunch of people. Having the A/F jumping at cruising is normal is what i was told. everyone's advice was a standalone will fix that issue. Another person suggested i may have a bad wiring harness. so i bought a new wiring harness. spend extra $ money on having it running good? what would you suggest i spend extra money on? buying a motec and shipping my car to john reed? what do i have that you believe to be a peice of junk? i guess my $4000 dollar motor is junk. my $2000 dollar transmission is junk. my $ 1700os giken clutch is junk. and my $1200 aem ems is junk.

---------- Post added at 12:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:32 AM ----------

Your ignition timing is jumping, it could be a bad CPS. Did you replace it with a new one from the dealer?

I am in Queens and not to discredit Mikey, he knows his stuff, but the 7M is not really his strong point.

Lastly, you really don't have a problem at all man. Call AEM, talk to their Techs. You can buy a cam and crank sensor kit. That way, all that is needed to run the cam and crank sensor on the 7M is mounting brackets, which can be made very easily.

Duane, UpgradedSupra on here, runs a setup like that. He is using Motec I believe BUT I am sure he will answer your PM if you send him one and so will AEM if you call him up.

If you have the standalone wired, map is a ground, 5V and a signal. It would only jump ignition timing like crazy based on what it is recieveing from it's sensors, in this case it is the CPS.

The AEM is not the TCCS, it won't try to make corrections for you, so if it is doing something on it's own, I would point to the sensor.

Example, TPS is faulty and says the car is at WOT. The AEM won't know any better and think the car is at wide open throttle and you will see 99% for the TPS reading.

It could be your CPS is bad or you need a new one. Timing is controlled by only the CPS and, in this case, the standalone. It's not in the tuning, it's in a sensor. It's that simple

This would all change if you have a new CPS from the dealer. In that case, do what I said, call AEM and ask about their cam and crank setup for engines like the 7M.

CPS was confirmed to be good by mikey. I sent them the link on tsrm how to check the cps. air gap was checked. mikey even swapped a CPS from another running car. result was still the same on my car.

 

[89gte]

Your ignition timing is jumping, it could be a bad CPS. Did you replace it with a new one from the dealer?

I am in Queens and not to discredit Mikey, he knows his stuff, but the 7M is not really his strong point.

Lastly, you really don't have a problem at all man. Call AEM, talk to their Techs. You can buy a cam and crank sensor kit. That way, all that is needed to run the cam and crank sensor on the 7M is mounting brackets, which can be made very easily.

Duane, UpgradedSupra on here, runs a setup like that. He is using Motec I believe BUT I am sure he will answer your PM if you send him one and so will AEM if you call him up.

If you have the standalone wired, map is a ground, 5V and a signal. It would only jump ignition timing like crazy based on what it is recieveing from it's sensors, in this case it is the CPS.

The AEM is not the TCCS, it won't try to make corrections for you, so if it is doing something on it's own, I would point to the sensor.

Example, TPS is faulty and says the car is at WOT. The AEM won't know any better and think the car is at wide open throttle and you will see 99% for the TPS reading.

It could be your CPS is bad or you need a new one. Timing is controlled by only the CPS and, in this case, the standalone. It's not in the tuning, it's in a sensor. It's that simple

This would all change if you have a new CPS from the dealer. In that case, do what I said, call AEM and ask about their cam and crank setup for engines like the 7M.

 

[destrux]

The a/f will be off at cruise and idle running with alot of mods on a stock ECU. The fuel maps in the ECU are set for a completely stock car. They might work OK for a car that's got basic mods, but once you start making serious mods (cams, porting, manifolds, compression ratios, displacement changes) you will end up with the stock maps being lean in some spots and rich in others, with similar trends on the timing maps. The ECU will use the feedback system to apply corrections to the long term fuel trims, but it can't add fuel in some spots and lean it out in others, it's a blanket correction value that's applied to all RPM and load points, even WOT open loop fueling. Once the long term trim finds a happy place (it never settles completely on a modded car, it's always moving, depending on what load cells you're using the most that particular drive, and how far from the stock ECU tune you are at those given cells)... then the closed loop short term fuel trim adjustments try to keep the AFR close, but they were designed to operate up and down a few percent to move "trends" over to the long term trims. They tend to "freak out" on very modded cars, leaving you with random lean and rich spots that make no sense and aren't predictable.

Luckily, our cars fare better with the stock ECU when modded than most cars do, but it seems like once you get to +100hp over stock you need to move on to standalone.

So anyway, I agree with the OP's choice to go with a standalone.

If the AEM sensors or a new CPS don't fix it, did you possibly get a bad ECU?

I just bought data-logging equipment that was defective brand new (from Innovate). I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out what was messed up with the install.

 

[suprarx7nut]

He's talking about the rest of the car. You can have all the $$$ in the world and buy all the best parts, but a simple bad tps, iacv, throttle body, etc... Could make it all worthless.

You really need to diagnose your issues yourself and stop blindly throwing money at it based off random suggestuons from people who clearly haven't been able to nail down the issue.

Good luck, it sounds like you've got some good parts, just gotta make it come together.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[teamslow]

The prerequisite for owning a Surpa is knowing how to do things yourself. IMO, if you have to rely on a shop or tuner do get your car running, then you've outspent yourself. Only install what you know and what you know how to install/tune/diagnose.

It doesn't sound like anyone is really to blame. Most tuner shops aren't that knowledgeable and especially by the time you've got a standalone.

Go do some reading and learn to diagnose all this stuff yourself. There's nobody in your area that knows it very well, so you say. It's time for you to become the person that knows it.

I do most of the work on the car myself. I am not a tuner. I dont want to risk blowing my engine by experimenting and learning how to tune. i have done a lot of reading. I dont usually post on the forums because 90% of the time i am able to find the information i need by simply searching.

 

[teamslow]

He's talking about the rest of the car. You can have all the $$$ in the world and buy all the best parts, but a simple bad tps, iacv, throttle body, etc... Could make it all worthless.

You really need to diagnose your issues yourself and stop blindly throwing money at it based off random suggestuons from people who clearly haven't been able to nail down the issue.

Good luck, it sounds like you've got some good parts, just gotta make it come together.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

TPS was good before i brought the car to M&S. check it as per tsrm. joliroger4 (guy i bought motor from) helped me set the TPS and ignition timing. this was before i brought the car to M&S. i believe joliroger4 checked the IACV and throttle body too. this was all before my car was brought to M&S. If you dont who he is. look him up. he knows his stuff very well. unfortunately he does not want to get involved with the mess i'm in right now, which is understandable IMO.

 

[ifyouaint1sturlast]

Timing jumping is usually an indication of bad ignition (in my experience at least).. have you checked your coils per the TSRM? Changed wires? Tried a different type of spark plug (sometimes the simplest things are overlooked) ..

 

[IBoughtASupra]

You are on a standalone right? Why not just run 1ZZ coils or the IS300 coils that every one runs instead of the stock coils?

 

[ifyouaint1sturlast]

+1

ESPECIALLY if you are on stock coils which are almost never in good shape.

---------- Post added at 02:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:20 AM ----------

When I had a 7M I ran the IS300 coils and got all three for $120 used on eBay.

 

[teamslow]

Timing jumping is usually an indication of bad ignition (in my experience at least).. have you checked your coils per the TSRM? Changed wires? Tried a different type of spark plug (sometimes the simplest things are overlooked) ..

wires are new ngk wires. plugs are new , NGK, gapped to .021. i have not yet check coils per TSRM. my problem now is getting the car home. i'm scheduled to be going on vacation tommorow. Car is still at Ivey's shop. My house is 2 hours away. Need to figure out where to put the car by the end of today.

---------- Post added at 06:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:38 AM ----------

The prerequisite for owning a Surpa is knowing how to do things yourself. IMO, if you have to rely on a shop or tuner do get your car running, then you've outspent yourself. Only install what you know and what you know how to install/tune/diagnose.

It doesn't sound like anyone is really to blame. Most tuner shops aren't that knowledgeable and especially by the time you've got a standalone.

Go do some reading and learn to diagnose all this stuff yourself. There's nobody in your area that knows it very well, so you say. It's time for you to become the person that knows it.

I did only install what i knew. I tried very hard to stay away from getting a standalone or a VPC. the lex AFM 550cc combo with SAFC wast getting the job done for me.

 

[mk3_7m]

Did you test it with another AEM EMS, incase it wasn't a faulty ecu?? because according to your story everything seemed to work ok until you put the kit in.

 

[teamslow]

Did you test it with another AEM EMS, incase it wasn't a faulty ecu?? because according to your story everything seemed to work ok until you put the kit in.

No. Dont know anyone with AEM EMS. I know Julio (Empera) had one. But he sold it. He has helped me in the past, but right now i am 2 hours away from him. Manny (Boosted Supra) has one. He's in queen's, dont know if it's worth his time to come to new jersey to help me right now. I know manny was at M&S performance when my car was there. not sure if they tried swapping AEM units when he was there. But i do know he did take a quick look at my car. I have had conversations with Lali (Put-it-in-your-Mouth) on the phone about my issues. He also has sold his AEM unit.

---------- Post added at 08:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:22 AM ----------

Does anyone have AAA? Can i sign up and use it instantly? how much is it? and how long until i can cancel?

 

[empera]

Mark bring it to our shop and we'll take care of it. I'm sure i can figure out the issue. If you need a ride back home i'm willing to do so. I still have my old maps for my 7m/AEM configuration if anything.

Give me a call or text me (if im at work)

 

[teamslow]

Thanks Julio i really appreciate the help. I will definitely give you compensation for your troubles if you can help me resolve my issues. just need to figure out how to get there.

 

[MRSUPRA]

Lol. I thought you meant the Air/fuels were off at cruising. It's definately normal for them to jump around a little. My car is very heavily modded on the stock ECU and the air/fuel jumps around, but it's always hovering around 14.3.

Good luck, I'm sure it's something simple. But I don't think throwing a standalone EMS is going to help your situation. Our cars run great with mods (even heavy mods) and stock ECU's if everything is working properly.