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Thanks for the nice note Joe! My wife is smitten over that little GTI and I can't help but be myself. We do have a bit of a color tendency in our house it turns out haha.
Working on setting up the ECU Masters Black this Saturday - I'll be sure to take some pics and post an update!
I FINALLY made some time to work on the SC and got started on installing the ECU Masters Black standalone. Preemptive work included - converting the cars stock twins to parallel (big fan lol), installing the drift motion DBW throttle body lock/delete plate, installing a new Bosch 4.9 wideband sensor, welding a bunch and installing the GM IAT sensor, and finally running a new vacuum line into the passenger footwell to give the ECU a boost reference for its built in MAP sensor. Some pinning/de pinning was required on the VVTI adapter for a few things as the adaptor is designed to use the DBW throttle body and stock MAF sensor etc.
Part of, if not the biggest reason for going to a stand-alone system is to replace the old proprietary sensors and ecu on the VVTI engine. Most of these parts are NLA new, and used parts are not only expensive but are risky due to age and mileage. The other benefit will be making some extra power, drive-ability improvements that come with dyno tuning, and of course the fun little stuff like launch control and other features.
I’ve already been driving the car with the twins set up in parallel, but the remainder of the work got done by my buddy and I in an afternoon. By the end of the day we had it up and idling! However, we are having some issues getting the locked throttle body and the ECU to jive. TPS reads perfectly, however, I believe we have to swap a few pins in the adaptor harness so that it doesn’t think the DBW function is still active.
We probably have a few hours of tinkering ahead of us, and I may have to set up an IACV, but I’d love to see this hit the dyno in the next few weeks! I’ll be sure to post up some numbers when the time comes.
Any way to just "turn off" DBW throttle body control via the ECU BLACK? And the pins would be dead then cause the ECU doesn't care about any information received.
Also, yeah without the IACV or electronic throttle adjustments to compensate for idle you will most likely have to just tune it out (higher idle when coolant temp sensor is cold); or just run a higher idle until you set one up. These are the reasons I went with the older 2jzgte non-vvti manifold but you could add on an aftermarket one. I think driftmotion sells the ford setup?
I'm stoked you guys! I didn't think we'd get it that far in an afternoon. My buddy Troy (pictured with the laptop lol) is quite familiar with their software and is a wiring guru. Without him helping on the wiring side things would have definitely taken a good bit longer. I reached out to ECU Masters and I think we have a solution. We can turn off the DBW function, run idle off of ignition, and should be able to get by without an IACV for the time being. However, I'll most likely have to install one soon and change the settings so that I can run AC without idling too low.
Worst case, an aftermarket or replacement mechanical throttle body may be the way to go at some point. In theory, however, this kit should allow us to use the existing TB as a mechanical unit as long as we can get the correct settings figured out lol.
I may not get to mess with it for a week or two, but I'll try and update ASAP!
Slowly but surely Nick! Glad to make such good progress on it. Hoping it will make a nice little chunk of power over what it did with the stock ECU. Time will tell!
I'm very happy for you Rudy!!! It was only a matter of time before you'd be able to get your SC tuned and back on the road again and now it's here!! I'm excited for the initial results and can't wait to see what you have to say about it after you and your tuner guy get everything dialed in! : D
Thanks Craig! I'm sure it goes without saying but I'm stoked! I'll be sure to keep you posted - hopefully we can find a few hours to dial some things in before we hit the dyno.
Got a few things figured out - despite having the Driftmotion TB delete plate installed for the VVTI throttle body, and using the plug and play harness, the car gets upset trying to idle correctly. Rather than rely on the harness adaptor and the existing wiring, we're going to wire the TPS from the VVTI throttle body a tad differently (just have to swap a pin or two). Right now due to the adaptor harness being plug and play the ECU Masters wants to see all of the DBW sensors reading just as the stock ECU would in normal form. However - that's exactly what we're trying to get away from!
Replacement TPS sensors for this motor are still available and are part number 89452-30150 (these were used on other models of Toyota and Scion as well). However, things like the accelerator pedal sensor are NLA and nearly impossible to track down replacements for. Our theory - use my (now mechanically locked) stock TB, the Toyota TPS, and ditch every other input into the ECU. From here we should be able to adjust the idle a smidge as needed with the idle control screw on the throttle body and through ignition on the ECU (my awesome friend and tuner Troy is who is helping me dial all of this in, I didn't come up with half of this on my own LOL). A lot of guys will add an IACV to this motor when going this route, however, we think we might be able to get away without it. If idle is a tad sketchy (it may be when I turn my AC on) I may need to add this in the spring time (my AC isn't working right now anyway, but that's a problem for springtime Rudy lol).
We're going to put this all into action tomorrow night and see if we can get a nice idle and from there: a bit of street tuning! Fingers crossed things will go as planned and from there we can schedule a bit of dyno time to really dial things in.
The beauty of all of this work isn't more power (although, that will inherently come with a good tune), it's simplicity and serviceability. The BIGGEST and WORST downfall of doing a VVTI swap is parts availability, diagnosis, etc especially in regards to the proprietary JDM sensors. Going standalone has allowed us to completely remove the MAF, DBW throttle body function and associated sensors), and stock ECU from the equation completely. Not only are these parts hard to find, they are no longer available new, and quite frankly - are just getting old and tired.
Wish me luck - sorry for the drawn out post, I'm rather excited and hopefully this will help someone else on their VVTI swap sometime down the road.
I daily drove my SC for a while without an IACV on the stock ecu even, standalone you can use timing to help also as you noted.
Best advice I can give is to let it warm up completely and set your warm/hot idle as high as you can tolerate it via the TB screw (start around 900)
Cold start you will have to foot it for 20-30 seconds. Winter it may take a little longer to keep it idling until it can idle on its own, and more footwork to get it to fire off and start, usually around 1/4 throttle is a sweet spot for starting.
Once its warmed up its not really a huge issue, with the timing you should be able to swing it up and down 100 rpm either direction.
I had thought of a trick to get by without an IACV but never tried it since I went to an IACV setup eventually, but basically wire up a toyota vsv to a switch and use it for cold starts.
So when its on it lets in a little more air past the TB, when its off it cuts it off. Kind of like a choke you just use it for starting and have to turn it off when its warmed up, but it isn't doing the same thing at all.
You could even have the standalone turn it on and off based on temp. The only difference is you just get one setting it wont adjust, but the toyota IACV is generally in 1 spots anyways when its on.
I like your style Ali - the VSV might be a cool solution. I figure worst case I can always add an IACV later on to get things nice and simple. Going to mess around tonight and this weekend to see what I can make happen - thanks for the idea!
No Prob, sometimes I get some out there ideas. I originally thought that would be a slick replacement for a choke switch on older cars that had manual chokes on the console.
I totally forgot they also have remote IACV adapters, Ben freed makes a reasonably priced one. I made one once when I welded on a LS400 throttle body to the stock Y intake.
Search remote mount 2jz IACV its basically an IACV base with a -10 fitting on it so you can just run a hose to the intake.
^ Ali - I'll definitely look into that! We ran into some weird stuff this weekend, however, I believe we have things pretty dialed at this point! In essence the basemap and harness adaptor for the VVTI motor want to see signals from the TPS and the APS just like a stock ECU would. However, we also noticed the motor inside of the TB trying to fight with us a bit. We not only ran the OEM TPS signal in, but we ditched the APS signal and also removed the gear inside of the throttle body that connects the motor. We've got it idling very well but after messing around with it for a few hours and disassembling the throttle body a few times we ran out of time to get it out on the street and start tinkering with things like tip in and part throttle stuff before making time for the dyno.
Felt awesome to play around with it - and it may be a couple weeks before I circle back but I'll try and get an update soon!
08-02-23, 10:11 AM
I'm excited for the initial results and can't wait to see what you have to say about it after you and your tuner guy get everything dialed in! : D 
