African Jeep specs: (RHD)
4.0 Sprintex Supercharged, AEM water injected
4'' Lift OME shocks, front ACOS system on 32'' tires
Bushwacker flat fenders
Re-geared to 4:11 with rear Yukon air locker
Upgraded chromoloy axles
Powerbrake conversion
Slip yoke eliminator
Airlift rear coil bags
Viair onboard compressor with custom receiver
Bestop Front high access bumper with winch, rear swing out bumper
Front end: heavy duty tie rod, synergy ball joints, dual shock steering stabiliser
Griffin aluminium radiator, triple electric fans
Engine Oil cooler radiator with single electric fan
Alpine double din Apple carplay radio conversion.
I have had my 2000 TJ for 8 years now and its been a project car, or hobby. i kind of fall in and out of love with it, but i still have it, over the years i have gained untold benefit skimming the various forums so i though i would share what i have learnt. My car is not a daily driver and has mainly been built to tow my small boat off road to various launch sites in South Africa, so its aimed at sand driving. Among other things i have onboard air from a Viair compressor, with a custom air receiver and Airlift rear coil bags installed to help the rear stop bottoming.
For my 50th birthday i decided to treat myself to a Sprintex supercharger, after much research and pondering and waiting 8 weeks it finally arrived. Well its been a long process of try and fail and some success. Firstly for those contemplating this type of install, if you have a pre 2003 TJ 4.0 the ECU's are harder to work with, as i understand the post 2003 can be reprogrammed the pre 2003 cannot. This means an ECU map adjusting programme/hardware of some sort is required, i have tried the so called Sprintex plug and play FTC1 piggyback and honestly its not plug and play, being in Africa i can tell you no one wants to try and tune an aftermarket TJ with a Supercharger and piggyback, maybe in the US there guys who know these things but i'm working with old technology and unknown software to them, so i'm pretty much on my own.
Firstly Gas or petrol as we call it is a major consideration when using forced induction, our pump gas says its 95 which should be fine but quality seems to play a major factor here, from the start after i installed the SC i tried the supplied tunes and none were anywhere near, fuel trims were off massively, with the supplied kit injectors, and detonation pinging was my main problem mainly at 2000-3000 rpm just before boost sets in at -4hg which is your main highway cruise speed just going up a slight hill, well after trying to tune in the
Splitsecond FTC1 for a month this where i am, i have installed an AEM water injection system, which i am really pleased with, i am using the smallest nozzle and start point for injection is 1psi, at the moment i'm not using any meth only distilled water to suppress detonation and it works really well, if only the start point could be set to -5hg all my problems would be solved, but after getting frustrated with the FTC1 i read that the TJ will run on the stock ECU with 30lb injectors so i gave it a try and yes it does to a point around town its fine the ECU keeps up well and runs better than i could ever get the FTC1 to run, but the 2000-3000 rpm -4hg cruise detonation problem still exists, the problem as i see it is the 4.0 is in closed loop i.e. working off the O2 sensor all the way up to 80% open throttle so the ECU is fighting to keep 14.7 AFR all the time the FTC1 doesn't seem to be able to adjust this section as its closed loop, my AEM injection is basically working as an enricher for my boost part of the map and i intend to switch to 50/50 meth to get my AFRs right at full boost this is easily done by adjusting the controller end point with 1 psi start and 6psi end i get full 100% injection the nozzle can do, if i adjust the end point to 12psi the the nozzle delivers 50% capacity at 6psi boost so its easy and quick and the injection stops all detonation and i don't seem to need to adjust timing, long term on the supercharger only time will tell and i know theres lots of for and against injecting into the supercharger.
Now the only problem i have now is the closed loop pre boost section, so i have left off the FTC1 for now and i'm going to try another Splitsecond box the ''Fuel Enricher'', this intercepts the O2 signal and basically shows a lean indication forcing more fuel in, if my 30lb injectors can handle it i think this is the solution, the only thing i see that may be problem is i would like a progressive fuel delivery from -5hg to 5psi i'm not sure if this will be able to do that but i'm hopeful i'm near the end of my SC trials. One other note i tried Octane booster additive to try and suppress detonation i would not recommend this apart from the long term cost, it seems to evaporate or cause the gas to evaporate in the fuel rail, i never used to have heat soak problems but using additive it caused hot start problems, even with the heat shield on the fuel lines and injectors.
4.0 Sprintex Supercharged, AEM water injected
4'' Lift OME shocks, front ACOS system on 32'' tires
Bushwacker flat fenders
Re-geared to 4:11 with rear Yukon air locker
Upgraded chromoloy axles
Powerbrake conversion
Slip yoke eliminator
Airlift rear coil bags
Viair onboard compressor with custom receiver
Bestop Front high access bumper with winch, rear swing out bumper
Front end: heavy duty tie rod, synergy ball joints, dual shock steering stabiliser
Griffin aluminium radiator, triple electric fans
Engine Oil cooler radiator with single electric fan
Alpine double din Apple carplay radio conversion.
I have had my 2000 TJ for 8 years now and its been a project car, or hobby. i kind of fall in and out of love with it, but i still have it, over the years i have gained untold benefit skimming the various forums so i though i would share what i have learnt. My car is not a daily driver and has mainly been built to tow my small boat off road to various launch sites in South Africa, so its aimed at sand driving. Among other things i have onboard air from a Viair compressor, with a custom air receiver and Airlift rear coil bags installed to help the rear stop bottoming.
For my 50th birthday i decided to treat myself to a Sprintex supercharger, after much research and pondering and waiting 8 weeks it finally arrived. Well its been a long process of try and fail and some success. Firstly for those contemplating this type of install, if you have a pre 2003 TJ 4.0 the ECU's are harder to work with, as i understand the post 2003 can be reprogrammed the pre 2003 cannot. This means an ECU map adjusting programme/hardware of some sort is required, i have tried the so called Sprintex plug and play FTC1 piggyback and honestly its not plug and play, being in Africa i can tell you no one wants to try and tune an aftermarket TJ with a Supercharger and piggyback, maybe in the US there guys who know these things but i'm working with old technology and unknown software to them, so i'm pretty much on my own.
Firstly Gas or petrol as we call it is a major consideration when using forced induction, our pump gas says its 95 which should be fine but quality seems to play a major factor here, from the start after i installed the SC i tried the supplied tunes and none were anywhere near, fuel trims were off massively, with the supplied kit injectors, and detonation pinging was my main problem mainly at 2000-3000 rpm just before boost sets in at -4hg which is your main highway cruise speed just going up a slight hill, well after trying to tune in the
Splitsecond FTC1 for a month this where i am, i have installed an AEM water injection system, which i am really pleased with, i am using the smallest nozzle and start point for injection is 1psi, at the moment i'm not using any meth only distilled water to suppress detonation and it works really well, if only the start point could be set to -5hg all my problems would be solved, but after getting frustrated with the FTC1 i read that the TJ will run on the stock ECU with 30lb injectors so i gave it a try and yes it does to a point around town its fine the ECU keeps up well and runs better than i could ever get the FTC1 to run, but the 2000-3000 rpm -4hg cruise detonation problem still exists, the problem as i see it is the 4.0 is in closed loop i.e. working off the O2 sensor all the way up to 80% open throttle so the ECU is fighting to keep 14.7 AFR all the time the FTC1 doesn't seem to be able to adjust this section as its closed loop, my AEM injection is basically working as an enricher for my boost part of the map and i intend to switch to 50/50 meth to get my AFRs right at full boost this is easily done by adjusting the controller end point with 1 psi start and 6psi end i get full 100% injection the nozzle can do, if i adjust the end point to 12psi the the nozzle delivers 50% capacity at 6psi boost so its easy and quick and the injection stops all detonation and i don't seem to need to adjust timing, long term on the supercharger only time will tell and i know theres lots of for and against injecting into the supercharger.
Now the only problem i have now is the closed loop pre boost section, so i have left off the FTC1 for now and i'm going to try another Splitsecond box the ''Fuel Enricher'', this intercepts the O2 signal and basically shows a lean indication forcing more fuel in, if my 30lb injectors can handle it i think this is the solution, the only thing i see that may be problem is i would like a progressive fuel delivery from -5hg to 5psi i'm not sure if this will be able to do that but i'm hopeful i'm near the end of my SC trials. One other note i tried Octane booster additive to try and suppress detonation i would not recommend this apart from the long term cost, it seems to evaporate or cause the gas to evaporate in the fuel rail, i never used to have heat soak problems but using additive it caused hot start problems, even with the heat shield on the fuel lines and injectors.
