Project-T: AEM FIC Install

The kit has been sorted as well as the ancillary equipment! Before installing and running the turbo, it's a good idea to sort out the AEM FIC first to capture 'stock' data for comparison and tuning purposes!

I'll be mounting the AEM FIC in the glove box for easy access. At the rear of the FIC there are three connectors, two for the wiring loom and one port for the MAP sensor. To make sure it mounts flush against the back of the glove box, I cut a hole at the back! Mounting is pretty straigth forward, just a four holes matching the FIC's bolt pattern and four mini bolts and nuts. Easy!

Here's where I wanna mount the AEM FIC, the glove box!

To accommodate the AEM FIC connectors, I cut a recess at the rear of the glove box using a Dremel!

 
I bought the AEM FIC with a generic harness as some of those pre-made harnesses cost so much! It's really not that difficult to cut or tap wires (and clean up the mess afterwards).

As for wiring, I am following a combination of the Scion XA/XB ECU (almost equivalent to the Echo/Vitz ECU, but totally different to the newer Yaris ECU) wiring found in the AEM Electronics Forums and the Echo service manual. The service manual provides the exact pin-outs (and even colours) to what each pin does while the AEM pin-outs shows which wire we need to intercept or cut. Nice!

Remember, when intercepting you need to cut the wire and the wire end coming from the sensor (to the ECU) needs to connect to the AEM FIC sensor input and the wire end going to the ECU (from the sensor) needs to connect to the AEM FIC sensor output. Intercept the signal!

When tapping, just strip the wire to be tapped and solder the tapping wire to it! No need to cut!

Did I say solder? Yes!! Solder! As much as I love the ease of use of crimping, crimping is a cold weld and is highly dependent on how well the two surfaces lock together. A lot of 'standard' crimps aren't that good and you'll find them wearing out and falling off! Also, if you crush the crimp too tightly, you can actually break and cut the wire! So to ensure a reliable connection, just solder it!

When you solder wires together, remember to always create a mechanical hold first. You can do this by twisting the two wires to be bonded together or intertwining the cores, as long as the wires hold together. Solder creates the electrical bond, but solder is brittle and is not designed to hold a mechanical joint. So please don't rely on putting wires together and just putting solder between them...

After soldering, don't forget to insulate! If you have it, rub a bit of quality isopro over the soldered connection to wipe off any excess flux and ensure a good bond to your electrical tape or heat-shrink.

Wiring looks scary, but once you get your head around things, it's a breeze!

You can also hook up a switch to the AEM FIC so once set to ground, the FIC will either be in logger mode or not. But a cooler feature (once enabled in the software) is to have the switch switch between two different tunes (dual calibration mode)! So I went ahead and mounted a switch (with dust cap) on the center shift console! The switch simply switches between open circuit and ground.

Drill a hole, file to match the switch, then mount her up!

Hooray all done! Before cleaning up all the wiring, the first thing to do is recheck your wiring then connect up the AEM FIC bypass harness and start the car. This is to check that all the intercepted wires are correctly done. If she starts all well then that's a great sign!

Once all connections have been verified and the car starts as per normal, time to clean up the wiring!

If everything looks good, then it's time to make everything look good! I cleaned up the wiring by using cable ties and electrical tape. Keeping your wires nice and neat helps out when problems occur in the future by making your life easier to identify connections!

Cool! Wiring cleaned up and now all that's left is to put everything back together!

Nice! Notice that I mounted the FIC such that the USB connector is in easy reach! The FIC is now ready to be calibrated and software setup!

But wait! What about the vacuum line!? The AEM FIC requires a manifold vacuum source for its inbuilt MAP sensor. I'll explain where I got the vacuum line in my next post as I've been installing other things along with the AEM FIC as well!