TEC II heat notes

[Jason_Leone at amat.com]

<<If this is a first FI install nad you plan to keep it a long time the most
important issues are service and support.  You will need help and
replacement parts.>>

Electromotive has decent support. Example: TEC II unit was heat soaked beyond
belief, and would not take a new program of communicate w/ the laptop at all.
Sent it back to Electro, and they didn't find anything wrong. Then, they heat
cycled it...and discovered that the solder around the EPROM was melting at temp.
Fixed the problem, unit sent back...all is well.

I really don't think you'll need any replacement parts for the TEC II (if you
don't heat soak it!). Most people don't balance the crank wheel well enough, so
at high rpm the magnetic pickup gets destroyed (by the out of round teeth of the
crank wheel). Most people run a little bit more of an air gap than Electromotive
recommends (let's say .025", instead of .015"...this helps eliminate the
"runout" problem). We aren't using a crank wheel (we tapped the factory engine
speed sensor signal), so I don't have to be concerned about that.


<<I think compared between the two, the TEC II is the leader.  Bolt it to your
firewall, and its done.>>

Keyword is "firewall". The heat soak problem I mentioned was due to the TEC II
being mounted to the side of an Aluminum cylinder head (where the distributor
used to be). The thermal conductivity of the mounting plate, combined with high
under hood temps...simply overwhelmed the TEC II unit, when the car was shut off
and left to sit for more than 30 minutes. We fabbed a SS heat shield, and
sandwiched some ceramic header tape between the TEC II and the cylinder head. No
problems at all. BUT...I highly recommend mounting the TEC II as far away from
the engine as possible. Get it in the battery tray, the airbox location, the
firewall...whatever. Just get it away from the engine. It can handle 180F air
temps, but it has it's limits (we found them). It's better to make custom plug
wires (in my case, we're talking custom length VW VR6 BERU plug boots w/ GM HEI
coil boots) that allow you to mount the TEC II anywhere...than to have it get
heat soaked. I think the car in question had something to do with it too. The VW
Corrado VR6 engine compartment was designed for a supercharged 1.8L four cyl.,
and not a 2.8L V6 engine. The VR6 is a high temp engine to start with, but in a
small engine compartment...things get hot under there. Very hot. Add a turbo,
and temps are even higher. I can't wait for that problem. =(

Jason
'93 SLC