How has the interceptor gauge been treating you? Is it about as good as an ODBII scanner? I realize it doesn't graph and stuff...but it's more compact and nicer looking...

Just wondering what your thoughts were on it since you've had plenty of time to play with it.

I love it. I wish I would have gotten it a long time ago. I mostly monitor KR and intake air flow. I would highly suggest one. It does record 45 sec of info, but it only plays back on the unit, but it's still pretty cool. You can set it to record then go romp on it then look at what you did. There's a couple of things that are monitored that I don't know what they are or mean, but overall I love it.
The buttons are a little cheesy and touchy. You gotta push them in just the right place, but it's not causing me to hate it.
It's one of those things that after you get it you don't know how you managed without it.

I've been using mine since last fall, and its great! Definetly worth the money, and it looks awesome in the car
I used to monitor KR & coolant temp most of the time. Coolant temp because the stock gauge doesn't register anything below 160 really, and I like knowing how warmed up my engine is. I baby the crap out of it when its under 110ish. You probably already know you can only monitor two items at once.

Since I got my CSC kit, I've been watching things that pertain to my tuning. Now the unit has no doubt been extremely useful. I watch the O2's for 3/4+ throttle, and LTFT (long term fuel trims) for 0-1/3 throttle driving.
Now I wish I had a 2nd unit so I could monitor LTFT's, O2's, KR, and temp or engine load.

And yeah the buttons are kinda annoying. If you dont push them perfectly straight in or something, they don't work. Or you could push them at a big angle and they'll work. Its weird.

Bobby, what readings are you wondering about?

I have to add that the reading and clearing of engine codes has been a freakin' nice feature, too.
I threw my first code last month while it was really cold out. It threw a P0128 which is engine operating temp too low. Happens when it hangs under 175 for a while. So all I had to do was go to menu, and clear codes.

Also after starting my car for the first time with the CSC kit in and the injectors/rails/wiring changed, it threw a misfire cyl 6 code and injector circuit 6 code, which made troubleshooting EASY. I just had a lose wire on the injector. Now that saved me tons of time.
Then after running for a few minutes, it threw a code that meant it was running too lean, so thats when I started looking into where the fuel trims and O2's should be, and then I corrected those with the AFC based on what the scanner tells me.
must-have for any tuning!
Scanning with anything else and reviewing the scans later would be a PITA.
Buy, and enjoy.
-Bill

cool thanks for the advice zuul.

I was thinking a regular ODBII scanner must be better somehow, but it sounds like the gauge does all the important things for about the same price. I'll probably get one some day.

Bill,
I don't know what good or bad readings should be for the following:
Injector Pulse Width
Long Term Fuel Trim
Short Term Fuel Trim
Ignition Advance
Idle air Control Counts

...and yeah, I forgot about the sweetness of being able to read and clear DTC's.

Ignition advance is the amount of time/degrees the spark is moved before or after pistons are at TDC. I believe the higher that number, the more power you are getting out of it. Usually we cruise are around 30* advance, and when we really get on it that will go down (probably the computer learning to prevent KR).

Long term fuel trims are just the average of the short term fuel trims, so the LTFT's are really what you'd rather be looking at. Basically its how much your PCM is compensating your fuel(either adding fuel or subtracting it) to get nice 14.7 stoich a/f ratio. I think it learns this from the O2 sensor over a period of time. The PCM learns what values are nice at certain RPMs / engine loads and eventually sorta just chooses a LTFT based on what its learned. For instance it took my PCM a little while to figure out that it wants to idle at a -8.5 LTFT. That means its a bit rich, so its taking some fueling out, and I need to adjust my AFC to get that idle LTFT closer to 0. When I first put on my kit I was WAY lean, so the LTFT's were maxed out at around +16.x. So pretty much the goal is to have LTFTs closest to 0 as possible. I've got some work to do.

Injector pulse width is simply the duration of each squirt of gas. The larger the number, the more gas its squirting. I guess I was interested to learn when I first got the gauge was that the pulse width wasn't necessarily proportional to RPM, as I would have guessed, but proportional to RPM and engine load (for instance set your cruise so your RPM stays the same, and watch your IPW increase and decrease according to levelness of the road (engine load)). I have this website in my bookmarks... its a nifty little chart. http://www.ecanfix.com/~mdhamilton/dutycycle1.html
I think thats how you tell if your injectors are being maxed out and its time to upgrade.

IAC... I think it just controls your engine idle RPM. I need to learn more about that.

I'll stop babbling... hope I edumacated some people.

Bill

That's some useful info!
Thanks Bill!