I'm BACK...but NOW as a VENDOR

[Gar Willis]

Hey maties, (and the rest of the diy resident "stoidi")

Garfield here, reporting in from the Black Forest. Me & the elves have
been working on some WORDS you might have heard in the past: EGOR & ION.
Now that we're FINALLY moving into our new corp. facilities, I've just
re-enlisted to begin the rollout of some products we'll be offering
relating to these two probly long-lost threads. To wit:

EGOR-the-module
EGOR-the-meter
IONeyes

EGOR-the-module is the interface between a Honda/NTK 5-wire current-pump
UEGO2 sensor (has also been tested on the new Toyota 4-wire current-pump
sensor, but those are still toooo spendy), and EGOR-the-meter is a
Precision AFRmeter built around same. IONeyes is of course that slinky
technology (but now with a new design that's non-infringing on the SAAB
patents :) for measuring pre/post-IGN ionization, for use in accurate
misfire & detonation detection, as well as potentially in the future
(nobody appears to have it quite worked out yet for field deployment; we
sure don't), measurement of cylinder AFR.

Sadly, ION is still only working on the "bench" (a 1.8L boxer), since
we've had to concentrate on EGOR first (installing them neck-bolts isn't
easy :) and somewhat neglect her, but she IS working quite nicely; she's
just in an ungainly underhood mess at the moment. Shortly she'll be all
dressed up for her debut; mostly what remains is for her to just get
dressed anyway. Packaging is a highly under-appreciated art, ya know.

Meanwhile, her stout companion EGOR has become a world traveller, after
trips to Tempsylvania, Boostville, and other NAsty places, in order to
disprove rumors of his possible inability to handle the rigors of
'travel'. We'll be providing some nice graphs of our test results, to
demonstrate his INdependence from these environmental influences.

The meter is actually being made by another company (an international
mfg. company based near Seattle), and we're being allowed to sell the
modules and reference design plans into the hobbyist market (which they
are loath to have to deal with), as long as we don't compete with their
Proformance precision AFRmeter products. The meter, BTW, is expected to
kick major butt in that market, since it's price-point is aimed in the
$$hundreds, not the $$thousands of 'competitor' products.

Since there are significant differences between the module and the
meter, I thot to briefly describe them below:

EGOR-the-module works just like an NTK "interface", in that it's outputs
are a curve [which is NOT linearized thru stoich, but nearly linear on
either side of it; if you've read the NTK SAE paper, you know
whadamean]. The meter OTOH hand, will have a fully linearized output,
stoich-switching O2 sensor simulation (complete with a trick ECU
level/impedance matching ability, to satisfy pretty much any ECU's
expectations during cold-start and failure diagnostic tests), a basic
datalogging serial output, and on-the-fly AFR tuning capability. There
will almost certainly be fancier follow-on models that emphasize the
logging features, and alternate fueling support.

PLANS for various circuitry you can license on a PERSONAL USE ONLY basis
from us (AirSIG), will allow you to layer any number of features on top
of your EGOR module, whether you're building instrumentation OR an
engine management system. This includes the simulation stuff and the ECU
matching circuitry. The module and the plans licenses will be separately
priced, and altho the module contains a trick programmable analog part
you WON'T be able to clone (just pointing this out to any resident
pirates), you WILL be required to sign a non-disclosure and licensing
agreement. Those of you who were with us before, know the reason for
this, given the public threats made to build EGORs for profit, once the
design was handed out freely. Well, as a result of that, it's no longer
gonna be freely handed out, but to those of yous guys on the nice side
of my naughtyNnice list, it's gonna be next to nuthin anyway, so
not-to-worry. If you should damage your EGOR module and need to have it
replaced/repaired, I will know from the signature programmed into it,
who it's licensed to, so I hope with these measures, we can flip off the
pirates and go on our merry way without them. Time will tell. Plans for
building ION-based IGN systems will also be offered, once we can work
out with our mfg. arm/host what/how they wanna offer their own built
products in this area. So it will probly be late this year before that
stuff becomes available to hobbyists.

Lastly, EGOR-the-module pricing and availability have NOT been set
(well, we know what they are, but we're not tellin just yet), since the
meter company hasn't announced when nor how much $$ THEIR product will
actually roll out (I expect it will be late 2nd quarter, or early 3rd),
and WE have just begun the move, so it will probly realistically be
another month or two before we can start selling the modulesNplans to
ya. But she's FINALLY comin around the mountain.

Meanwhile, I'll monitor the list for any technical questions and feature
suggestions you might want me to pass along to the Precision AFRmeter
mfg. I'd also like to hear any discussion about what sorts of circuitry
PLANS y'all might think would be needed (and priorities, please) to
layer on the hobbyist type features.

Oh, and BTW, I'm STILL having to use those pricey Mitsubishi coils for
the ION proto, so the quest is still very much on for less expensive
4-terminal IGN coils. If anyone's run across other candidates during the
hiatus, do lemme know.

On a completely unrelated front (well, sorta), our eXperimental aircraft
corp. has had a fully functional KISS EFI (555-type based) S-D system
upNrunning for over a year, which we refer to as KEFI, awaiting the move
into our new facilities, to allow offering those to the eXperimental
Aviation crowd. License-able PLANS for that system, which includes a
programmable-slope linear advance curve for a companion DIS IGN system
we call KIGN (for KISS IGN, of course) will shortly be available. All it
takes to use it on boosted setups is one CAL resistor change, and a
diff. MAP sensor. ALL the parts are off-the-shelf or low-cost OEM. Be
happy to discuss that system with ya as well.

Garfield Willis   (*friends* call me Gar)
AirSIG, Inc.
Castle AFB/Airport
2810 Propeller Place
Atwater, CA 95301
209-385-9760