Quote:
Originally Posted by FC Zach
If it's not one thing, it's another  Go EFI they said, It'll be fun the said!
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I kind of wish I never went EFI, this has been a headache since day one. . Literally! Most have great results with standalone ECU/harness upgrades. Me, not so much. . I have the "Luck of the Irish" 
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Anyways, that's my sob story. I just wanted to vent a little since I'm reminded if this every single day as I walk past a dusty RX7. |
Zach,
I've had this discussion with a few friends before with their projects when they become frustrated; while i appreciate a good "venting" (and I legitimately feel for you in this situation) you have to present this in a realistic way, and not simply blame "EFI" as if the problems are inherent.
here is my understanding of the project:
1.
(complexity) you ordered a very custom harness for a unique project, including a milspec firewall connector, a custom fuse box, aftermarket injectors on an aftermarket carb-style intake manifold, an aftermarket crank trigger, a custom LS1 coil-on-plug setup, and a not-widely-used rotary ECU (most haltech people use the platinum series, and now the elite series) that has a different ECU connector than most others.
2.
(more complexity) this work was all done via mail order, which adds even more risk -- likelihood of things not working correctly. many small things can be left out of phone conversations and email - errors or things that may be easily caught if the car is right in front of the person building the harness.
3.
(more complexity as a result of complexity) your setup is so far from stock that you can't simply load a decent base map and drive the car, so even more tuning is required than usual. you have me and pauly available to help with this portion (as we both), and as I recall, we got things running quite well in many situations: full throttle at 12:1 AFR, cold start (minus the custom BAC valve and setup that we couldn't figure out) hot start, idle, cruising, ~2% o2 control activated (in our recent tuning session) in low load and idle.
4. I recall you being very happy with the setup and tuning prior to the harness/ground issue popping up. was this not the case?
big picture:
this is your first EFI project, and frankly, it could not be more complex.
furthermore, why did you go EFI in the first place? what drew you to it? was your carburetor working correctly and tuned nicely to run in all situations the car sees? if so, why not put a carb back on the car?
ultimately, you can't blame EFI for this. you have to blame the situation and the complexity of this project. you ordered a very custom mail order harness, and it had a couple errors (one of which apparently killed the ECU)
you didn't simply "go efi," which I would consider installing a stock T2 longblock and haltech into your car.
you went "very complex custom EFI harness via mail order to mate several different custom parts together" and you're seeing the product of the multiplied risk biting you in the ass.
I broke this down for JohnnyK recently with his "the most difficult custom FD project possible" when he was discouraged. he made a couple changes, got back on track, and now it's working out great. now you go do the same: bug the piss out of Ludwig, have some conversations with him and stay on him to fix the harness issue and replace the ECU, get the harness back, and the project is basically done, correct?