CalBoy101

I recently bought an SCT SF3 tuner from Bama at American Muscle.

I'm pretty happy with the tuning part of it, loading tunes onto the car has worked well and the car is running strong.

However I bought an AFR gauge to check the WOT fuel setting so now I'm trying to get data logging working reliably on it and have hit some issues.

First issue, when either just displaying data on the SF3 or with logging turned on so it also saves the data on the device, it will run for about a minute but then freeze, and then has to be repowered to recover.

I talked to SCT tech support on this and they said because I had an "older" vehicle (hey, 2002 is young to me) that there is a limited number of variables you can display or log or the unit will freeze.

This was disappointing but by limiting the number of logged parameters to 4 the device will run and log to the device without freezing.

However when I try to read the logs from the device into their LiveLink program on my laptop, the LiveLink program consistently crashes.

I know you can only make short logs to the device, for long ones you need to use a laptop and have the data passed directly to my laptop.

But I'd like to be able to make short logs directly to the unit sometimes, its a hassle to drag the laptop into the car if you just want to make a quick check on something. I paid $380. for it and it would be nice if it would work like its supposed to.

I've tried reading the log from the device into LiveLink to 3 different PC's, and its crashing on every one so its not a PC issue.

I don't know if something is wrong with my unit or these systems are just flakey and you have to live with it. SCT service is talking about first blowing out and reloading the unit over the internet (which will blow out the current tunes on it) and if that doesn't work sending it back to them to check (at my cost).

Has anybody had success in reading data log files from an SCT device?

AMDanBailer

This seems pretty odd, you should be able to view the logs from the device without them freezing. Logging directly from the device isn't the best way, logging from a laptop is definitely a much better option but it should still work for short logs!

We can definitely work with you to get you squared away and can help you troubleshoot to figure out what's going on with your device. Please shoot me a PM with your order number included and I'll have a bama tuning specialist contact you directly!

Hang in there, we'll have you squared away shortly!

-Dan

CalBoy101

Dan, thanks for the help, I just sent you a PM with my order info.

CalBoy101

Dan, I'm assuming that SCT must be dragging their heels in getting back to you on getting logging on my SCT working. This is unfortunately really holding me up now, I have a wideband AFR on the car now and need to log it to get back to your Bama tuning guys with a log to get the WOT AFR dialed in, I know its a little rich now.

I need to get this done before I head back to the strip and I'm running out of days that the strip is open before they close down for the winter.

When I first contacted SCT about this their tech admitted that the current version of the SCT firmware had known problems data logging with 2002 GT's. Unless they have a fix for this scheduled to come out very soon it doesn't look like it will be fixed very quickly and moving back to an earlier firmware version is not something I want to do as it will likely bring back older problems and also make the device unsupportable.

Generally the first question a tech guy will ask if you have problems is "do you have the latest firmware installed" so if I go back to any earlier firmware version and then have any additional problems with the unit I'll end up just going in circles.

The Bama tunes have worked well for me and I'd like to be able to keep using that service so at this point it looks like moving to a different device that also is supported by Bama (and has functioning data logging) is my only option, can you please contact me and let me know what I need to do to get that started?

cliffyk

The EECV PCM can only respond to 10 or 12 PID (Parameter ID, "datalog items") requests per second--after that it will respond erratically as it continues with higher priority issues--like running the engine--this often confuses data logging devices causing them to hang if it does receive responses to its requests.

I have also observed that sometimes the speedometer and tachometer will start fluttering all over the dial when the PCM gets overloaded with requests from a data logger; this as the PCM's messages to the instrument cluster are of a lower priority as well.

Innovate's original OT-1 data logger was notorious for hanging up during logging, and scrambling the speedometer and tach just before it hung...

CalBoy101

Cliff, thanks for that input on the PID count. Unfortunately mine would crash even just logging 3 or 4 PIDs.

But I finally chased down the problem. I wish they would have told me this earlier, like right when I bought the tester, it turns out that there is a known problem with SCT's most recent .155 firmware version and 99-04 GT's.

Both SCT and tuners that used SCT devices knew about this problem and the fix is to revert the unit back to the previous .154 firmware version.

SCT did that for me yesterday over the internet by logging remotely into my PC and now the unit is finally data logging correctly. I'm going to test it some more to really verify its finally working right but so far it looks good. Yesterday I was even pushing it on the PID count and it was logging 10 or so PID's with no crash.

So its been a pain in the rear but it looks like I finally may be able to log with it, which is just in time because I just got my wideband AFR installed and I'm going to use it to get my WOT AFR dialed in.

cliffyk

They were trying to read them too fast, I have been forward, back and sideways over this issue when developing an OBD2 logging system for the EEC-V ("eek-5") PCM. The EEC-V uses the J1850 protocol at a bus speed of 41.6 kbaud (roughly bits per second) which is not especially quick. It's fine for running the engine and instrument cluster but was never intended for the sort of real time data logging needed for tuning--OBD = On Board Diagnostic, not on board data logging for performance tuning.

To be honest I have never found OBD2 data logging from the EEC-V to be worth a whole lot, other than as another piece to a puzzle. The PCM tune will do what you tell it to through the tune, use the WB O2 system and your ears for the rest...

CalBoy101

Cliff, I see what you mean about the limitations of logging with OBD2, at this slower implementation of it. Now that its working I did some full throttle logging runs.

I was logging 8 PID's and at high RPM the data sample rate dropped down to around .4 secs, not so hot. There were also some clear errors in the logs, spikes that probably happened because of perfomance issues.

Although the logging is at least basically working, the SCT LiveLink software acts flakey sometimes, it will successfully do a log but sometimes hangs when you try to start a second one, requiring closing it and disconnecting and reconnecting the SCT to both the car and the PC.

I was able see some interesting things in the PID's.

On this "Bama" tune which is a "high performance" one targeting 91 octane gas, at WOT they vary the spark timing from 18.5 at 3500 RPM up to 22.5 at 6000 RPM.

The WOT short term fuel trim is 0.85, which by my calculations says they are trying to acheive a WOT AFR of 12.5 to 1. I don't have my wideband AFR sensor in yet, I'm going to try to get it in later this week, it will be interesting to see what the AFR really is.

This tune is doing the 1 to 2 shift at 6000 RPM, which on my auto is dropping the RPM down to 3890 after the shift.

One thing surprising, my CAI sucks (hot air that is). I had read on the Kenne-Bell site that most of the CAI's marketed actually suck a lot of the air from the engine compartment and that was happening with mine.

Its an Airaid one and comes with baffle that is supposed to block off the engine compartment air. But at prolonged idle, such as when pulling up through the staging lanes, its pulling lot of hot air from the engine compartment.

In the log after long idleing the IAT starts at 100 degrees and doesn't drop back down close to ambient until well into the second gear change. I think at that point the moving air finally flushes out the hot air in the engine compartment. Not so good.

I'm going to try to modify their baffle, which is totally open in the front, to only pull air from the fenderwell. So at least the logging did let me see this problem.

CalBoy101

Whoops I spoke to soon on the Bama/SCT device working well enough to do data logging, even after rolling it back to the previous firmware version.

I was able to get one log done yesterday but after that first one its consistently freezing up again, either when I try to log to a PC or log directly to the unit.

Its worked well for programming the car with the Bama tunes but trying to log with it has been a nightmare, even when I'm just trying to log 3 PID's it will freeze up, I'm going to look for a different solution.

cliffyk

Buy one of the cheap ELM327 clone devices advertised on eBay, there are a bunch of free and inexpensive programs that will work with them and log OBD2 data. ELM did a great job with the '327 firmware, including timing adjustments based on the communication protocol and adaptively learned parameters. The Chinese clones are all rip-offs of the ELM version 1.2a firmware. If you can find one using a real ELM chip look for at least v1.3a which has further improved timing algorithms. v1.4 is available and v2.0 is the latest however they offer no improvements for the J1850 protocol used in "our" cars.

For the wideband system just mount the gauge where you can see it from the "corner" of your eye, and keep an eye on it--there is no real need to log it. Also get an analog gauge as the needle ballistics and "hovering" range will tell you things that are invisible with a digital display...