EFIE advice needed...

[bigjim56]

I've been using the fuel-savers.org website up to now because thats where I ended up buying my efie, thinking they know their product well and could answer any questions. They've got high praise from most everyone, not cheap though. I've been helped here much more than anywhere in getting the best results for my efforts so I wanted to give the people here a chance to weigh in on this situation.

I installed the efie and mistakenly used the map sensor at first, it threw an EWL (engine warning light) Mike said to not use it until the efie is fine tuned so its now off. Reset the EWL and set the efie to 200mv offset.
Car ran fine next day, so I increased to 250mv offset...fine next day, increased to 300mv offset, then decided to increase offsets by 100. When I got to the 500 -> 600 offset ramp up it quit increasing at 565. All this time it never set off the EWL again. I asked Rick (fuelsavers) and he questioned my install, thinking I didn't have the correct signal wire. After rechecking and retesting I do have the right wire. During this testing somehow the EWL tripped so I reset it.

As a last step last night, I decided to ramp up the efie while everything was running and hot...I ramped it up to 520mv and heard a click...reversed a couple turns and ramped up again and heard another click, so I stopped there and emailed the fuelsaver tech. I did ramp back the mv setting to 150, a point that they recomend as a good start point. During this whole last ramping up the EWL never tripped! The tech from fuelsavers says sometimes they don't.

I left the efie wires more easily accessable (shrink wrapped them before) figuring I may be going back to them. I'm gonna run some tests and see if the offset from the efie is being applied...I know it may be hard since the setting bounces around heartily, but an offset may be detectable.

You guys got any suggestions? I want to get this efie figured out before I go from the water4gas to the dry cell installation.

Lastly...I know some may think I was moving maybe too quickly in ramping up the offset (daily/after drive home for work). I realize the car "learns" from your driving habits the STFT/LTFT thinking. I had originally planned to ramp up consistantly until it tripped the EWL, then ramp down to an acceptable level...the higher the offset, the higher the mpg savings. Its at this setting that was gonna be the START point after the dry cell switchover. The HHO output from the dry cell is greater and much stronger than the brick in a bath design.

Any suggestions appreciated.

bigjim56

[bigjim56]

EGT? If thats the scan gauge, I don't put much faith in them. They will tell you your doing 50 - 60 mpg when its far from that. I prefer to do my mpg tests by the fill up method.

bigjim56

[bigjim56]

Shane,

Thanks for elaborating, short on the HHO lingo here sometimes. I guess with the EGT, I could more finely tune the efie/map sensor after all this and keep the exhaust gases at an acceptable level. Still don't care for those scan gauges though... the thought of snake oil comes to mind.

My off day today, I went and did the tests of the before/after voltage offsets and the voltage going to the efie were LESS than the voltage going to the computer!? I switched the wires/retested and the voltage coming from the O2 sensor was right at 1.002 and the reading after the efie going to the computer was 0.500, this was with a 0.500 offset. This makes much more sense. I may have had these 2 wires crossed, it looks that way for now. It still didn't trip a code even after going to max...approx. 520 mv.

I do remember a thread where you mentioned that the higher the offset, the greater gas savings. Why doesn't the efie shut down the engine at some point like the map sensor will do due to insufficient fuel?

bigjim56

[H2OPWR]

A scan gauge is a very useful tool as well (not snake oil). It's like this, you can put air in your tires by eye but without a pressure gauge you have no idea how much is in there....

I would tend to agree with this statement. I do not trust the MPG guage but have never even looked at the avg mpg part. Only the instant. MPG is not what the scangauge is most useful for. All the other things that can be monitored really give insight into what is going on.

Larry