Me too. Count me in for the cam plugs and covers. I won't need the mounting bracket at this point. Steve
Well, the XDI is *almost* in... but since mine is a USA model 308QV, there isn't room for the coil packs where Steve R. put his... the oil cooler location is different between USA and euro models. The conclusion after looking at all the options -- WADE's setup is the absolute cleanest and most practical for the USA 308 QVs. Looking at all the options, his really is brilliant. If someone has pics of a USA 308 QV XDI install (one that uses the newer, larger coil packs) with alternative coil pack location, I'd like to see it. I talked to Wade and he's making me a set of cam plugs and mounting plates like his (except without the engraved logo), and hopes to have them to my mechanic by the end of next week. I did talk to Nick Sciana (Nick's Forza) and he doesn't believe that it's going to be any kind of heat issue... in fact, he seemed to like Wade's location just as much as my mechanic did when he saw the pictures. Like Wade, my mechanic has put the "brain box" in the old digiplex location. He oriented it so that the serial cable for programming it can be easily accessed. I bought a serial to USB converter cable, so we could actually run an extension if we wanted to and have the passenger program it from a laptop while the car is being driven! Don't know why you would, but you could. Wade, you're the MAN!
Interesting. The oil cooler must be differently mounted than in a carb car too, right? Mine fit there. Birdman
I do that with the EFI. I drive and do my bst to hold constant rpm/load while the passenger reads the O2 and adjusts the fuel....I've found it's much safer than doing it myself
With the TEC3, I do data collection using your laptop while driving around, then pull over, read the data, make adjustments, then repeat the process. Great way to dial in the car plus it saves time when you go to the dyno for final tuning. However, I do not know if the XDI has that extensive data collection capability.
Dear Mr Birdman, Because i'm looking for a 77 308, and noticed you said Italian steel + water( rain) = rust, I'm scared. Can these cars be rustproofed , at least on the more vulnerable areas, say, the inner fenders? Thanks, Joe Papa
Hey guys, The cam plugs, coil mounting brakets, and end plates are all ready for those who need them. send me a confirmation email to [email protected] Also, if anyone needs anything else we can fabricate just about anything, Thanks Wade and MikeC thank you so much for the kind words
Here are the pieces I got from Wade... notice the contoured shape on the plates. He also included tips on installing it. By the way, this setup gets rid of the separate ground wire requirement for the coil packs -- nice! Barring incident, I should have it installed and up and running tomorrow. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I'm curious why this thread was moved to this section after 8 months of being in Tech Q&A? Is this not a technical article? I don't really CARE, but I guess I'm confused about where threads of this nature should be. If all technical articles specific to a particular model are supposed to go in their respective forums, why do we have a Tech Q&A at all? Another question, for those of you who are putting these on injected cars. The injected cars already have a toothed flywheel and sensors. Anyone figured out a clever way to trigger the XDI off an existing sensor? THAT would make the installation really easy! How many teeth are on the stock flywheel? Birdman
It's SOMEWHAT random and no firm rule... it could go either place. I selfishly moved it since it's clearly 308-only related and I've been frequenting it and I figured that the 308 forum doesn't have quite as many postings as TECH and it would stay higher on the list more easily. However, you started the thread, and I'll put it back if you prefer.[/quote] THAT would have been sweet, but the XDI is expecting certain specific electronic input off their own magnetic sensor...
THAT would have been sweet, but the XDI is expecting certain specific electronic input off their own magnetic sensor...[/QUOTE] Mike, you can leave it here. No biggie. The sensor for the XDI is nothing but a standard magnetic coil pickup which is the same as the sensors on the injected cars. If the number of teeth on the flywheel is right, it can be made to work. Birdman
I think electromotive uses a 60-2 wheel...that means it has missing teeth for the home location. You wouldn't want to be knocking teeth off theflywheel Haltech or Motec (maybe others) ECUs will read the stock ingition triggers, but you'd need to keep the distributor because there wouldn't be a home signal. You still might want to run hotter coils, but you could have every bid as good a spark as the multi-coil set-up. The advantage of coil on plug (COP)or multiple coil waste spark set-ups is less maintenence. The OEMs now need to have no emmisions effecting maintenence for 100,000 miles, COP is how they get there. But if you can change your cap/rotor/wires every 5 years or 50k miles, it will work just fine.....once you have eliminated the points that is, there is just nothing good that can be said about points.
Your contribution really makes the install look clean! But no, I'm not up and running yet, at least not on all 8 cylinders. One of the coil packs was bad, and we're waiting for the replacement. I found out from Nick that this is the first XDI-2 unit he's sold, and probably the first installed on a Ferrari 308 anywhere, so there's no ready-made tuned timing curve to load. We'll give Nick ours when we're done, so new purchasers can benefit from it. We may make two curves... one for street, and one for track... but maybe not. Also, the XDI-2 software had no documentation nor help files, and that slowed us down for a day or two. But we now do have the docs, and updated software. That stuff wasn't a Nick problem, but an Electromotive issue. We did have a part problem with the connectors for the spark plugs (didn't work well with the QV plug boots) but Nick got us replacements. BOTH Nick and the folks at Electromotive have been very helpful! But this is DEFINITELY taking a lot longer (and with more labor) than expected.
Mike, I have an ignition curve for the QV for the Electromotive Wintec3 which should be the same as what's needed for the XDI-2. PM with your email address and I'll send it over to you with some notes and instructions. -Paul
It's running (finally)! Still some tuning to do... I'm not often a "first adopter", and I shouldn't have been with the XDI-2. It's *not* just a simple upgrade from the XDI with which the Ferrari community has a lot of experience. According to Nick at Forza, and the folks at Electromotive, mine is probably the first Ferrari it's been installed in. My opinion: the hardware is great, but the software wasn't ready. They seem to be doing bug fixes very frequently, and some of the features that show up on screen don't do ANYTHING -- you can change them to bizarre settings and nothing changes as far as how the engine runs. I wish I had waited for Nick to have done a few installs, and for the software to "mature" both in its interface and functionality in communicating with the hardware. I *do* still like Wade's coil mount system -- it's a nice, clean install and if you didn't know these engines, it actually looks like it might have been a factory design. Like Wade, my mechanic also put the "brain unit" where the old digiplexes were, nicely out of sight. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I want to take advantage of the knock control capability of the XDI-2. Has anyone here with the more advanced control units added a knock sensor? If so, where did you put it that it wasn't "distracted" by all the other various noises and rattles around a 308 engine?
OK, after a lot of hair-pulling, special mount blocks from Wade Nunez, help from Nick at Forza, replacement of a bad coil pack from Electromotive, poor software documentation, and several bug-fix versions of the software released during the installation process, the verdict on my 308QV XDI-2 setup is in: I LOVE IT! Took the car out early this morning for its first spirited run after getting it all together and programmed. FANTASTIC. Pulls well and smooth from idle to redline. MUCH smoother in the low end than it was with the old points and distributors. This morning's drive was with temperatures in the 20's (cold for here!); the ES poly suspension bushings don't like the cold -- they complain audibly -- but the engine didn't mind it once it warmed up... the car ran GREAT. Here's the advance curve I put in (thanks, Paul D!). It has RPM across the top, MAP settings on the left axis. In my case, Nick didn't include a MAP sensor in the kit, so I don't know which part of the curve it's using without it. Now that it's finally running and the software works well, I plan to have one installed the next time it's in the shop. Also attached is the programmed .BIN file that the XDI-2 is currently using, so it's archived here for the next person who is just starting getting set up. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Many thanks. Looks close to the stock curve basically and nothing too tweaky. Plan to upgrade the XDI to XDI2, the Electromitve guys said the brain conector is the same and that i just need to sway 2 ground wires or some such.
Say what? I thought you had a QV? No points on there. Am I missing something? Anyway, Congratulations!! What was wrong with the coil pack? Not to hijack but what sound do the bushings make? I have never heard a peep out of mine. Birdman
OK, "distributor and rotor". The poly bushings squeek, but only when VERY cold. Maybe the original grease has dissipated over the several years since they were installed.
