Ever think your factory tune stinks?
 

My 22re manual 94 pickup is my daily driver. I have been thinking of changing over to a micro squirt ecu to adjust the tune.

reason being is I did my first rebuild at 150k miles due to a carbon frozen ring that messed up cylinder 4. Few weekends back I had to do a head gasket due to a coolant leak that toasted things (fixed and running well)

issue I see is the tops of the cylinders were caked with carbon. As in prob about 1/16 of an inch worth. Enough to change the compression ratio I’m sure. Also I’m not sure if anyone else experiences this, my butt dyno says I have more power at 3/4 throttle than I do at full. The power curve is not very linear.

now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like it runs crappy, but I just think it’s not running near the way it would from factory. I had the original injectors rebuilt and tested when I did the rebuild, I do well with maintenance. About the only thing that isn’t stock is I’ve eliminated the egr on the back of the head and the exhaust block off plates that feed the cats? When they were on. Right now just running exhaust straight to a muffler (no emissions in SC).

To me it just seems like a bad tune. If I run Lucas in the fuel every fill up I feel it does better on idle just a bit but I think 40k since the rebuild is a lot of build up.

I understand your frustration, I hope you find a solution




Mini Militia App Lock

Mega/micro squirt has a STEEP learning curve. That said it probably wouldn't be too hard to do.

But before you go through that trouble I would have the capacitors in the factory ECU replaced and then go over the engine harness with a fine tooth comb. Maybe even scope the signals from all of the senors on the engine. You are going to need to do this anyway when you start troubleshooting your micro squirt install.

Out of curiosity what would the capacitors being replaced help, if they work they work, no? Is there anything replaceable in our ecu’s?

30+ year old electrolyte filled capacitors? The electrolyte dries up and then the capacitors no longer function as designed. They might be used as noise filters or as part of the power supply. All sorts of weird things happen with old dried up capacitors in these early ECUs.

Idk, my truck runs fine, it runs like a truck that is from the 90’s, a 5000lb underpowered 4cyl with probably 90 hp to the wheels, you can’t reinvent the wheel with these motors, best thing to do is a swap of your choosing.

I didn't say it would make it a barn stormer but it might solve some naggy driveability issues.

Swap you say.... You mean like a 7M-GTE swap? Yup it's a hoot!

what did the inside of the plenum look like? same junk buildup? i think that a lot of the junk comes from the egr, which you eliminated... maybe also look at putting a catch can downstream from the pcv, keep the oil residue out of the intake system.

there is at least one company that still sells a microsquirt system for the 22re? not cheap, but it would make things much simpler, plus run better, i wish that i could that out here in california.

that said, my last smog check was 14.6-14.7 a/f ratio, the smog guy called it as good as the newer cars are doing.