Some background first as I'm new here (registered last year when I purchased the car) and new to DSMs: I bought a 93 Talon November of last year that was wrecked. Owner lost control on ice and hit a curb and damaged the rear subframe. The owner hadn't owned it very long when he wrecked it, then he let it sit about a year before selling it. It was obvious he didn't know very much about it since I asked if there was anything done to it and he said it seemed to be stock. What I discovered after purchasing the car was a full 3" exhaust - downpipe, no cat, magnaflow muffler. Somehow noticed the stock boost gauge moved when the key was on so removed the ECU to find it had a chip installed. Just has a sticker on the chip that says "Stage III". Found the old style Apexi SAFC with the adjustable knobs installed in the glove box and it works. Also has a manual boost controller and a rewired fuel pump. Not sure on the pump but assuming stock as there is no AFPR.

Anyways, I've since fixed the car along with several other things that needed fixed or replaced. Also found out it has a 6 bolt swap and no balance shafts when I did the timing belt.
I could go on but my main point for this thread is to find out more about this chip. The car has a problem with boost creep I'm sure from the exhaust on it. I swapped to an AEM boost gauge fairly early on after getting the car drivable as the mechanical one that was installed was junky. The new gauge showed 10 psi then it would start creeping around 4500-5000 rpm up to 20 psi, sometimes as much as 22. I never did hold the car WOT in higher gears before this and after seeing this I made sure not to. A couple months ago I installed an AEM wideband and to my surprise it's not lean at all.

The car has stock blue top 450cc injectors and the SAFC is all zeroed out yet at WOT the AFR is 11.1-11.2 and when it starts creeping, the AFR actually richens to upper 10's all the way to 20 psi. I'm confused as to how the injectors can keep up with this? I also know nothing about the chip at all and any info would be awesome. How does it work for tuning? Does it just target an AFR? I've learned it has NLTS and launch control and have since moved the clutch wire to the top of the pedal travel instead of the bottom when I had to weld the assembly. Which reminds me, really stiff clutch pedal and I can see a yellow pressure plate in the window there the clutch fork is so I'm guessing ACT of some sort? Also I'm still careful with the car since I have no way of seeing knock. I just placed an order for ECMLink so I will have it soon. Is there a way to log with Link without installing the chip? Like, can I log with my current chip? I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff but I've been learning as much as I can.

There are a few options to log from your obd port. Have you gotten ECMlink? If you posted a picture of the chip that would help. Also, if you had a profile for the car it would be easier to see the big picture.

There really isnt a way to run 22 psi on stock injectors without fuel pressure through the roof. Yellow means ACT of some kind most likely.

I have never heard of a stage tuning chip for this platform

Possibly an old TMO chip:

http://www.technomotive.com/

I do ones in "stages" .It doesn't really mean much, but it helps keep groups of code modifications together. But to address the op's questions yes there is a map that targets different afr at different RPM, and load. I would assume that being a stage 3 it should have a 2g MAF, extended timing maps, launch control and nlts. Probably pk elimination, and the stock boost gauge is probably a knock gauge now.

And before anyone gets all huffy about ditching it for ecmlink, chips are a perfectly valid way to do things. It's a great way to save a lot of money on a stockish build.

bastarddsm said:

And before anyone gets all huffy about ditching it for ecmlink, chips are a perfectly valid way to do things. It's a great way to save a lot of money on a stockish build.

Click to expand...

Only losers use chips with the biggest loser being the one who makes the chip

Most likely, if you are creeping to 22 psi you have some version of a 16g turbo. If you want to eliminate creep, you need to port to wastegate channel and get a better O2 housing. The stock o2 housings flow like garbage.

Vegas smith said:

Only losers use chips with the biggest loser being the one who makes the chip

Click to expand...

I know right! And only losers run 9's on a chip!

Haha I'm not knocking the chip but I did swap to ECMLink since then so I could start learning it. Also upgraded to some PTE 680cc injectors then a 3G maf right after since the 1G couldn't keep up. Then I pulled the turbo to port the wastegate opening and as doubleclutch suggested, it's a big 16G turbo. It still had creep issues so I swapped to an O2 housing with a wastegate dump and at the same time swapped throttle body shaft seals and the biss screw since they were leaking like crazy. For the first time, I could hold wastegate pressure to redline. With larger injectors I could obviously just up the boost and not worry about creep but I was trying to tune the car and was battling knock at the same time. I couldn't go past around 12-15 psi without getting knock even on an EVO timing map. Last weekend I installed a FMIC and a new manifold (1G was cracked bad in several places) and now I can pull 25 PSI without knock.

Also, when swapping manifolds, I found a Forced Performance stamp on the turbo inlet. Does this have any significance?

Cool, looks like you've made a lot of good changes to the car. 25psi seems like a lot for 16g pumpgas. I imagine that 16g is one that fp sold a long time ago?

I feel like if you don't have knock, it's ok. It was more of a "let's see if this works". I'm still on a rather conservative timing map though. I'm not done by any means, I was just ecstatic to not see crazy knock like I was before as that makes it extremely difficult to tune.