Well, I finally got all those wires soldered into the ECU wiring harness yesterday. Whew!! Talk about a long, drawn out process! I had begun the installation on Saturday and was only able to get about 6 out of the 20 wires soldered in before I had to button everything up to go to dinner. On Sunday I started up the car to go grab a bite to eat figuring that I had only soldered the wiring harness for the eManage into the existing wires so it shouldn't hurt anything, but the car ran like crap, and the SES, VDC OFF, and SLIP lights were all on. Also, I could not rev the engine higher than 2500 rpms!

After a few minutes I realized what the problem was. All but 1 of the wires are just soldered to the existing wires in the ECU wiring harness, but 1 (the MAF sensor wire) is actually cut and then each end are connected via snap connectors to 2 wires in the eManage harness (MAF in and MAF out). My dumb a$$ had not thought about that so I connected the original wires back together and the Z ran fine again. "Doh!!"

I had to wait until yesterday to have time to finish the install and luckily it went fairly smoothly the rest of the way. The hardest part of the process is trying to find the exact wire you need in the mass of tangled wires coming out of the harness. The other thing that took a while to realize is that the diagram of the ECU harness is actually a view from behind, not the front. After 5 out of 5 wires not matching the color they specified on the wiring diagram, I figured that out.

After all 20 wires were soldered in, I thought about where I wanted to mount the actual eManage unit. I thought about mounting it under the passenger side kick panel, but the space was pretty cramped, and it would be a pain to have to remove the panel each time you wanted to hook it to the laptop. I finally decided to mount it under the rear of the passenger seat. I routed the wiring harness under the carpet and then out under the seat (I have the brain unit of my Clarion VRX935VD under there already). I set the dials of the unit to 7-0-B which is supposedly the settings specific to the Z33 (fairlady) on the new firmware update. I Velcro’d it to the carpet and plugged it in. After reconnecting the negative terminal of the battery, I crossed my fingers and turned the ignition to "on".

Flashing Green light.

Woo Hoo! That means that it's hooked up properly! I had already installed the Support Tool software on my laptop so I turned off the ignition, hooked the cable from the laptop to the eManage unit and then turned the ignition back on. I went ahead and upgraded the firmware to the new version. It took about 3 minutes, but was successful. I then had to turn the car back off, then back on, and went ahead and started the engine. It ran just fine With the laptop connected, I could pull up real-time graphs and information. Now I just need to figure out what I need to do to fine tune the Fuel maps. I have read through the instructions briefly, but I now need to go back and thoroughly read and understand them.

There are I believe 5 dials on the front that I think are for adjusting the Air input +_20%, but right now I have everything zeroed out so that it's basically just running the stock ECU settings. It will be a little difficult to really tune it right now because I don't have an A/F gauge to log my info so at this point I am not sure if I can really adjust anything without risking some damage. Anyone have any hints or info that might help me?

Here are some pictures from the install.

Here is the huge, tangled mass of wires that is the ECU wiring harness. It's a very tight bundle with lots of duplicate colored wires to mess with your head:


Here is the way that I routed the eManage wiring harness down the inside of the passenger side kick panel. Near the top left of the picture you can see the GReddy RPM signal adapter (black square thing):


This is where the wires go under the carpet:


Here's a shot with everything all buttoned up and pretty. eManage? What eManage? :


Last picture is where the eManage main unit is installed under the passenger seat for relatively easy access to the USB port:


-Chris

 

Good job, hooking that stuff up is not easy to do!
I am glad to see other people using piggyback's to tune their Z's. The xede has worked great for me!

 

E-Manage works great! I usually get 8-10 whp just from tweaking it a bit on the dyno. Don't touch the dials on the front. You will use the software to adjust the AF using the airflow correction map. Make sure to calibrate your TPS sensor.

 

I have a question for you about the dials on the front. They all "appear" to be set to 0, but inside the program, it says "." for the first one, "-0" for the second one, and "0" for the remaining 3. Does that sound correct? I will get a screenshot of that screen and post it up tomorrow. Can they be turned while the unit is hooked up, or only with it off? I was wondering if you could change then while the unit was on because then you could see exactly what number the unit was using as opposed to relying on the numbers on the actual dials which are a bit small and not very exact.

Also, by adjusting the TPS, do you mean just perform the Throttle Position Learning sequence, per the Service Manual, or are you talking about a setting within the GReddy Support Tool?

-Chris

 

Awesome. This is exactly what I want to do, but I wanted to wait for others first Keep us posted on how things work out. By the way, did you get the timing harness too? I think that would be of some real benefit for a NA Z.

 

nice job...let us know how it performs when you get it dialed in...are you going to dyno?

 

Well, after my last dyno run, I discovered that my mods had pushed me into a dangerous A/F range. I knew that a TS flash would fix the problem, but the price for a flash ($500) was a bit cost prohibitive and also I wanted to have more control over my A/F now and also in the future with other mods. I know that you can get a reflash for like $125, but that can add up.

I only bought the Injector harness because I was told that the Ignition harness was only necessary for F/I applications. Since I am N/A, I didn't need it. The only thing that I really need/want to do is adjust my A/F ratio and the Injector harness does that.

-Chris

 

just keeping tabs.......very interesting

-justin

 

awesome review chris, can't wait to hear more of your progress. I'm going this route as soon as I can.

 

Oh nice. I can imagine what a b!tch was it to hook up those wires just by looking at the picture. But hey, you are ready for some real tuning now! Squeezzzz out the horse power, squeeezzzz...

 

wow.. great idea.. how much does the e-manage run ?$$

 

Yeah. I can't wait to start tweaking the maps, but I need to wait until I get an A/F meter. I got a bung welded in a few weeks ago in preperation so all I really need to do is buy one and install it. Unfortunately the one I want (Dynojet Wide Band Commander) is pretty pricey ($500+). I was looking at getting the Zeitronics unit you have, but I'd really like either something that will hook up to my Clarion DVD screen, or a regular gauge that I can mount on my A-Pillar. I definitely don't want to play around with the maps until I get a good A/F gauge.

Suggestions anyone? (price unfortunately is a BIG concern)

-Chris

 

Here's the rundown:

eManage = $279
Injector Harness = $29
RPM Signal Adapter = $24
Clone cable = $50.00
Software Support Tool = Freebie

Total = $382

Here are the links to where I got the specific parts from:

eManage unit and Injector harness
RPM Signal Adapter
Clone cable (for connecting to laptop)

The Software Support Tool I found on the net somewhere after searching for a few hours. It's version 1.11. There is an upgrade to version 1.13, but I can't find it anywhere. Anyonw have it and feel generous?

THIS site sells everything listed above, but he doesn't have any RPM Signal Adapters and you have to buy the full version of the Software Support Tool for $119, but it is the newest 1.13 version and comes with the actual GReddy cable.

-Chris

 

This is really interesting stuff.
With the right tweeking how much HP do you think we will be able to extract out of existing mods (i.e. Plenum, Cats, Exhaust....)?

How much would a good speed shop know about Emanage and the Z33?

 

where can i go to research the capabilities of the emanage and possibly how to use/adjust it?

thanx,
-justin

 

Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I don't know. The main reason I got it was to get my A/F ratio into acceptable levels across the board. I am currently running pretty lean (in the mid to high 14's). If I gain some hp in the process... AwEsOmE! But if not, that's OK too.

I have not really checked into any speed shops since I was/am planning to do all my own tuning just as soon as I get an A/F gauge.

myz8a4re,

Here are links to the user manuals for both the eManage unit itself as well as the Software Support Tool. The manuals only go up to the 300ZX, but the GReddy TT install manual (the bottom 2 links) has the wiring harness diagram for the Z33.

GReddy EManage User Manual
GReddy eManage Support Tool User Manual
Z33 ECU wiring diagram (begins on last page)
Z33 ECU wiring diagram (first 2 pages)

-Chris

 

thanx for posting the links chris! im a little confused here on your statment:
in what ways is your a/f dangerous? are you running that much leaner? the MAF should read the extra air & add the needed fuel to keep you in a safe zone. i realize a slightly leaner a/f can be had but it shouldnt be that bad! please advise, i dont want any ill effects from my mods.........

thanx,
-justin

 

You are a trailblazer and I like your shift light ... but I always thought mid to high 14's was OK for an N/A? if you richen it, you'll lose power..

--mike

 

Well, when I did a base dyno I was about 232 hp and my A/F was right around 12.5ish. When I recently did my "after mods" dyno (with everything in my sig) I was only at 239 hp and my A/F was in the 14's! Everyone said that I was WAY lean and that if I got it back down to the 12.5 to 13 range, I would make up the missing hp (plus not detonate my engine).

Well, I think that the ECUcan adjust the A/F somewhat, but when you start putting on a lot of mods, it can't adjust enough. That is why people get their ECU's flashed, or go with a Piggy-back unit.

Here is a picture of my A/F ratios both stock (Blue) and after mods (Red). As you can see, it has the same basic shape, but is on average .6 higher now than before and mostly in the 14's.

 

Thanks for all the links