John McM

Aside from completing a final dyno tuning run, I have successfully fitted the Specialist Components Engine Management Kit. I'm starting this thread to share my experience and encourage others to contribute.

Car: 1990 C4 Singapore version - no O2 sensor. Primary Muffler Bypass and LWF

Mechanical experience: Given enough time I can do most things with help from others and Google.

Engine management experience: I fitted a Steve Wong chip a while back.

Time taken: Base install took 5 hours.

John McM

The kit was ordered online and shipped to New Zealand. It took about 10 working days from order to arrival. Here is what came.

The instructions weren't included. I got them by emailing Specialist Components.

John McM

I started with the air intake. I removed the filter first, then the air box, then the barn door air flow meter. As you can see the rubber mount holding the air box sheared off as the bolt was seized. I had to remove the ISV to get access to the screw clip holding the barn door on. Looking back at this, I'm not sure I had to disassemble so much, not that it was difficult.

John McM

All of the parts I took out on the right hand side.

John McM

Next step is to replace the injectors. As I was working with fuel I made sure I had an extinguisher close by and was working on a cold engine. Thanks to Racoguy with the help on the injectors.

John McM

The injectors are clamped between the fuel rail and the inlet. The first thing is to undo the two bolts holding the rail in. Theoretically a well judged pull on the unbolted rail will lift all three injectors out of their holes in one go. I went the disassembly path, as the level of force is too high with wedged in injectors and why risk breaking them?

First off undo the electrical connector on each injector. This is done by placing a screwdriver in the wire holder and twisting the screwdriver blade to force the wire clip away from the connector. The wire unclips and the connector comes off easily. Assume that the wire will fly off and have a tool to hold it or you will be pulling it out of whatever crevice it lands in.

Next thing is to take off the clip holding the injector to the rail. Same deal as the wire clip, use a screwdriver or pliers and have a strategy to hold it or retrieve it from wherever it lands.

With the connectors and clips removed you can lift the fuel rail off the top of the injectors. Have a towel ready as fuel will spill out. Take a 10 minute break to allow the fuel to evaporate.

John McM

When the rail comes off the injector tops, the injectors are only held in by the lower o rings, they were a push fit for mine, quite tight ones. Taking each one in turn, I twisted and pulled until the injector came out. The old ones were very dirty and obviously a different design to the new ones. Make sure the o-rings came out with the injectors and you don't allow grease or debris in the inlet hole.

John McM

Next is fitting the new injectors.

Use rubber grease or Vaseline to lubricate the o rings, push fit the top of the 3 injectors to the fuel rail, fit the clips so they grip the groove in the injector and the bell type flange fitting on the fuel rail (make sure they are holding the injectors as it's easy to get the clip outside the grooves - you do not want leaking fuel around a hot exhaust!), orient the injectors so they will fit into the holes, then gently push the rail down, seating each injector in its hole. Refit the two bolts (I don't know the torque setting) and the three connectors.

A tip with the connectors is to pre position the wire clip in the groove so a small push seats them in.

John McM

The next step is to replace the left hand bank of injectors. To access them you need to remove the heater fan. A few interesting bolt placements but not difficult. Then replace the injectors with the same method as the right hand side. You should be a lot faster this time.

John McM

With both sets of injectors replaced the job is close to complete. Next I fitted the intake tube and filter. I used a special oil for the filter. The hardest part of the intake install for me was identifying the pipe to cut for the T connector.

John McM

With the engine components sorted I fitted the ECU. My old ECU was fitted with one screw. This is the best I could do. I can't understand how the plug can fit any other way given the wiring loom.

John McM

After a check of the components I started the engine. It fired first time and settled into a steady idle.
Please note that I didn't refit the heater fan at this point as I wanted to check the injectors for leaks - safety first.

John McM

A test drive revealed one flaw. The ECU is set for a normal flywheel whereas mine is a light one. When I came to a stop the car stalled. Cleaning the ISV didn't help.

With help from AlexjC4 I resolved this by connecting the ECU to my laptop and changing the ISV idle proportional gain values to the following in the image.

They were copied from a Specialist Compenents map for a Rover engine idle.

Effectively this tells the ECU to react in a certain way when the revs drop to a level below the target rpm. The bigger the difference from the desired level the larger the reaction. My car no longer stalls.

The Steve Wong chip used to blip the throttle at idle achieving the same thing.

John McM

Next step is to take the car to the dyno for optimisation. This is where the benefits will be seen. Right now running the car around the suburbs it doesn't feel much different, because I'm not running 6,000 rpm in my own Neighbourhood.

Thoughts about the kit? It's 95% there. It feels like it was produced by engineers. I thought the kit was aimed at DIY? Maybe not. Instructions need to be more comprehensive and service more on the front foot e.g. A help line, maybe some interest in making sure all is well. Also one of the engine connectors needs a weather cover (I'm using heatshrink), a strange omission

StopLookGo

Awesome write up. Thanks for that. Looking forward to updates.