Installation of Switching Adapter board and High Boost EEPROM in Lotus Elan
Instructions
- Disconnect the battery
- Locate the and remove the ECU. The position depends on the type of Elan:
- Right hand drive
The ECU position varies slightly depending on whether the car is equipped with air conditioning but the procedure is essentially the same.
ECU position RHD no air-con
RHD, with air conditioning
Access to the ECU can be easily gained by flexing the top of the glove-box to defeat the catch and fully dropping the glove-box as shown:
Remove the two multipole plugs at the right hand side. These can be quite hard to get out - be patient and don’t pull by the wires.
The ECU is held in a bracket by two studs at the bottom. Loosen the two 10mm nuts and withdraw the ECU (pivot the loose side clear of the bracket and pull clear).
- Left Hand Drive
ECU position LHD
- (Instructions from Doug a.k.a. av8ndoc)
- Look up there and see what's what -- find the two 10mm nuts on the side brackets -- the other side has rubber bungs and pops right out
- With driver's door open, sit on floor right next to the car and reach right hand in and find the ecu by feel and the 2 nuts. (This is actually a very comfortable normal sitting position)
- put 10mm ratchet spanner on the two nuts to loosen them a bit only
- undo the nuts carefully by hand -- don't drop and lose them!
- pull ECU out and fold it down on the harness
- Remove the two multipole plugs. These can be quite hard to get out - be patient and don’t pull by the wires.
- Right hand drive
- Ensure you are earthed to prevent damage to either the ECU or the upgrade. The ECU has a lid held on by two ¼" head screws. Undo these screws and remove the lid.
The blue-lidded MEMCAL and the retaining clips at each end can be clearly seen. - Push the clips at each end outwards to remove the MEMCAL from the ECU.
Notice the chip inside the MEMCAL can be seen through the opening on the left and the limp home circuitry through the window on the right in the picture above. - Take the MEMCAL and plug it into the Moates adapter card (a V4 card is shown but the principle is the same):
The side of the MEMCAL with the limp-home circuitry should be connected to the adapter board. In the picture above the chips of the MEMCAL and adapter can be seen to be on the same side. - The V5 Assembly is shown below:
The two jumpers at the top left are shown in the wrong position they should be like this:
In the 29F040 position (which is the chip I use in the board). I should have already positioned them correctly but check and make sure.
- The unit can be used without the remote control by selecting the desired program with the integrated switch. However if the remote control is to be used the switch MUST be in the zero position (as below)
Again I will endeavour to pre-position the switch in position 0. - The ECU casing can be opened up a little by taking the top and bottom edges of the casing at the open side and pushing them apart. This gives more room to insert the MEMCAL/adapter assembly. The adapter should be held with the adapter board horizontal and the MEMCAL pushed into the opening in the ECU case (again forgive the V4 illustrations):
Move the assembly in to the case until the plug on the bottom of the adapter board is over the MEMCAL socket in the ECU. Don’t use force, if the assembly is positioned correctly and the case is opened sufficiently it goes in quite easily. - Ensure the adapter card is correctly situated over the socket. Then push it home by applying pressure to both ends of the adapter board assembly. The catches will pop up to a vertical position when it is fully home.
- Plug in the switcher cable lead.
- Replace the plastic end piece,
then the lid. The switcher cable plug protrudes a little and so the lid, while it will fit, is slightly bowed upwards. This is quite useful as it provides an opening through which the cable can exit the case. Replace the lid screws - Remount in car, reconnect the two ECU plugs and finally the battery.
- Position the remote in the glove box or somewhere more accessible.
Testing
Turn on the ignition. The check engine light (CEL) should blink and stay on as normal. On starting the car should behave entirely normally. If the CEL remains on then you should disconnect the battery for a minute or two and retry. If the problem persists remove the ECU, check your handywork and if necessary remove the upgrade.
If the CEL remains off and the car is running normally then test drive the car. Allow the engine to reach operating temperature before attempting any boost testing – the ECU will limit boost until the engine is warm. Once operating temperature has been reached, and the road conditions allow, use full throttle. The boost observed depends on the program you have selected:
- KilimanjaroThe boost will increase rapidly with RPM until reaching 0.8bar from around 3600RPM.
- Everest The boost will increase rapidly with RPM until reaching 0.9bar from around 4000 RPM.
- Elysium The boost will increase rapidly with RPM until reaching 0.95bar at around 4400RPM and falling back to 0.9bar at 6000rpm
Catalyst equipped cars may experience a later peak and even lower peak boost depending on the state of the catalysts and the resultant backpressure.
If the boost goes off the scale, where boost creep was not present before and the boost gauge was working normally, then an FCD may be present – I’d recommend removal of the upgrade until the cause is identified and corrected.
Troubleshooting
If the boost does not reach the target value under full throttle and high revs thenIf a BOV is installed it may be opening early preventing full boost (see checklist section)
- The TPS may be faulty maladjusted
- The throttle cable may be maladjusted
- Exhaust back-pressure
- A leak in the intake track
- Bad spark plugs (gap to big, fouled or otherwise faulty)
- Another pre-existing fault
Let me know if you have problems and I’ll do my best to help.