Which cars can use a scanguage or super-mid?
 

I think I've finally gotten to the tipping point, where I want to consider buying/installing real time FE (and other car status info) feedback in the two cars we drive the most (i.e. mine and my wife's main "commuter cars"). However, I would hate to spend the money on a scanguage and/or super-mid, only to find it won't work in our case.

So how can you easily tell (before buying it and trying) if a given vehicle can take a scanguage and/or super-mid?

As I understand it, almost all newer vehicles (sold in the USA) can take a scanguage, as there is supposedly a law on the books that car makers have to provide the standard computer interface that the scanguage requires. Is this correct? If so, when was the cutoff date requiring the car makers to do this?

Also, even if that is the case, how can you tell if an older car has the correct interface to take a scanguage? Is it as simple as looking at the car, to see if it has a given shape interface jack present (and if so, what does the jack you are looking for look like)? If not, is there any other "easy way" to tell if a scanguage would work?

And what about the super-mid? My understanding (again, correct me if I'm wrong) is that the super-mid will work in some vehicles that the scanguage won't work in, but that it can be more of a PITA (than the scanguage) to install initially. However, if that's true, how do you tell if your car can take a super-mid (which would be especially important to those of us who have older cars that might not be able to take a scanguage)? Also, how can you tell how much work it will be to hook a super-mid up to your car (assuming your car can even take a super-mid)?

(almost all)1996 or newer can take a scangauge. I am not sure of the supermid compatability but i know it works on cars before 1996.

Thanks for the info. But that still leaves the question, how do you tell for older cars?

I would suspect that some cars built before 1996 (especially cars built just before 1996) might also have the correct interface, as some car makers would gear up for the new requirement quicker than others. Also, even if a car was built before that interface came out, it's always possible that some mechanic later added the needed computer/interface when working on the vehicle. So while 1996+ might tell you that you can use a scanguage, 1995- wouldn't necessarily mean you couldn't use a scanguage. So how do you tell (on your older cars) if you have the needed interface or not?

For example, I have a 1991 Honda CRX (although my "1991 model year car" was really built in 1992), and my wife has a 1995 Honda Civic. I'm assuming it's likely that my CRX is old enough that it wouldn't take a scanguage (but might take a super-mid?), but how would I tell for sure? And what about my wife's Civic? Apparently her car was built just before the 1996 cutoff you described, and so could easily go either way. How would I tell if her car could take a scanguage or not?

The 95 civic narrowly missed SG2 compatability
https://www.scangauge.com/support/Com...Vehicles.shtml

If the electronics are obdII it can use an SG. Very very few cars before 96 had obdII, I think the MID can be run one way or another on most FI cars.

For the SuperMid, you probably won't get good results unless you have MPFI. And even with MPFI, depending on the car, you may not get it to read out in a common unit of measure. It can handle Honda 4 cylinders, with 190 or 240cc injectors. In that case it can be calibrated for km/L and MPG by year end according to Yoshi. It works on the Prius and Im guessing all Toyota 4 cylinders as well.

Drat! At least it's good to know BEFORE spending the money on one...

Hmmm. If that's the case, how does it work? For example, does the super-mid work by intercepting the commands to the FIs themselves (bypassing the car's onboard computer), and use that info to calculate the gas being used at any point in time?

If so, the super-mid should (in theory) work on both of our commuter cars, as both cars are FI ("throttle body injection" in my CRX, and the more traditional "multi-port" style FI in my wife's Civic).

Now granted, a "throttle-body" injected car (like my CRX) looks a lot like a carberated car, as (unlike the more traditional "multi-port" FI), TBI cars don't inject fuel directly into the engine. Instead, with TBI you have a chamber that looks like (and performs essentially the same function as) a carburetor (and so the engine itself can be designed just as if you had a carberated car). However, TBI is still technically a FI technology, as (unlike a real carb) the TBI chamber has one or more computer controlled injectors measuring out any fuel you get. So as long as the super-mid works by intercepting the commands to the FIs, it shouldn't (at least in theory) matter that the injector(s) are part of a TBI chamber, instead of injecting fuel directly into the engine (because in either case, you should have a reasonably accurate reading of how much fuel you are using at any point in time)...

I guess that shoots my plans for adding FE instrumentation to my CRX. :(

My CRX is too old for a scanguage (unless I want to go to the time/trouble/expense of upgrading it to a newer model onboard computer). And my CRX is also TBI, not MPFI (so it looks like the super-mid isn't a good option either)...

Oh well, at least I can often get a rough idea for how much fuel the car is using, by paying attention to subtle differences in how the car "feels" and "sounds". And how much pressure I have to put on the gas pedal, is yet another clue as to how much fuel is being used. Granted, none of these clues (even taken together) are a great way of doing things (nor are they likely to be nearly as accurate as instrumentation), however they are still "better than nothing". After all, when my CRX is driving "fuel rich", it just sounds and feels subtly different from "lean burn". And once you get clued into these subtle differences, you can use those clues to help you drive in a more FE manor.

How about a vaccum gauge. Still better than nothin.

I know one pre-96 that is obdII. My new 95 mazda protege.:thumbup:

One of the other 95 obdII cars is the mustang I think.

Anyway, TBI might be tricky, but I think mark is running his MID with TBI on his geo metro, Darin will chime in on this point.

For the SuperMid you need two things, an electronic speed sensor and a signal going to one injector. It measures the pulses from the speed sensor to calculate distance traveled. It also measure the length that the injector pulses and then adds the pulses together to calculate fuel used. On MFPI, each injector pulses the same so you only need to measure one injector. The SuperMid then multiples by 4 to get all of the cylinders. IIRC SVOboy doesn't think that DFPI would work well because each injector can pulse different amounts. But since TBI only uses one injector, then it should work as long as the pulse is recognizeable by the SuperMID. In that case the fuel useage would be overstated by 4x because the MID assumes 4 cylinders. Hopefully Yoshi will comment on this.

Yeah, you might as well go MPFI, MPFI is fun anyway.

Everytime I drive I thank goodness Dan introduced me to the MID.

Makes sense. Any easy/cheap way to retrofit an electronic speed sensor onto a car that came with a mechanical speedometer cable? I ask, because when I last looked at my instrument panel, I noticed that the linkage to the speedometer was a spinning mechanical cable (not an electronic signal)...

That might mean I'm SOL then. I just checked, and my CRX's TBI system clearly labels itself as being of the "Dual Port" variety (i.e. presumably two FIs in the TBI system)...

Makes sense. I can certainly live with the readings being off by a factor of 4 (or off by a factor of 2, or...), as that would still give very "up to date" (relative) info on what the car is doing.

But that assumes I can usefully use the device at all (see problems with Dual Port FI and mechanical speed cable, above).

Isn't Yoshi the maker of the device? If so, I'm sure that any insights Yoshi could provide would be very helpful.

I will sell you my SuperMID. It comes attached to a 92 Civic VX, see my ad in the For Sale Forum. $3000 or best offer. Best offer is currently up to $2250.:)

I'm getting my SuperMID very soon, and looking forward to it :). My car is a 1987 CA18ET Bluebird/Stanza/Auster. I use units of 'miles per British gallon', but the SuperMID is km/l. It makes no real difference; I just have to remember that e.g. 10km/l is about 40mpg (UK).

My car also has a cable driven speedometer. However, looking at my service
manual, there is an electronic speed sensor mounted right in the speedometer,
and this sends a signal to the ECU. As it is the factory service manual, it tells how to test it as well (and therefore, how to interface the SuperMID to it!!).

What type/age of car is yours?. You may have a speed sensor built into the speedometer, if not, it may be possible to get a speed sensor from a car like mine, and put it in series of the speedometer cable (it would take some work, but would be worth it).

Even if you can't get speed sensor, one final option would be to get the SuperMID to show you the rate of fuel usage. You could make a chart for 30,40,50,60mph, showing certain usage rates e.g. 5litres/hour = 30mpg at a certain speed, and 10litres/hr = 15mpg. Then, stick the small chart in your car, and you can see what your economy is depending on the speed you go!

Hello all,

Thank you for your interest about my SuperMID.
Let me explain how it works.

Fuel usage:
It measurs the pulse period of fuel injection.
If a vehicle has the MPFI, it gets one of multi injector signals.
If a vehicle has the single injection of TBI, it gets the injector signal.
In this case (Dual Port TBI), it can't measure the correct fuel usage since my SuperMID has only one injector measurement capability.

Distance measurement:
It counts the pulse from the digital speed sensor, sometimes it is called "vehicle speed sensor" or VSS.
The traditional vehicle has mechanical cable to know the speed and the industry standard was 637 rev/km.
The SuperMID is designed for Prius and it suppies 4 pulses per the traditional cable rev, which means 4*637=2548 pulses per 1 km.
It looks Civic and Metro use the same standard, and SuperMID works fine.

If a vehicle does not have the digital VSS signal, I can supply a sensor shown picture below.
Please note that the connection thread is only fits most Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda and Daihatsu.
Honda uses a different thread standard and I can't find one yet.

Yoshi

https://image.www.rakuten.co.jp/iida/img1022181952.gif

I haven't been able to test this, even though I intended to, but the 88-91 Hondas (with a cable speed sensor) DO in fact have an electric signal output. On the back of the cluster there is a screw that outputs a digital pulse. I suspect that this can be used for the SuperMID.

Once again, it's suspected, not confirmed.

Yoshi : What happens if the speed sensor on the car only has 2 pulses per revolution? Can SuperMID be adjusted for this?

There is not enough adjustment in the distance parameter to give you an accurate distance reading. But if you don't mind a distance reading that is not in miles or kilometers, then it shouldn't be a problem. As long as you get an injector pulse and a speed signal pulse, you will get something that can be converted to MPG with a conversion factor. You will be able to calculate the conversion factor by dividing your actual MPG at fillup by the indicated FE on the SuperMID. It's really no different than what I do today. Since mine reads in km/L, I just know to multiply the reading by 2.35 to get MPG. So I target 30 km/L for 70 MPG.

I don't know what the signals look like but if the SuperMid can't accurately work with 2 pulses/rev, then couldn't you make an adapter that always doubles the number of pulses - like a dual-edge triggered one-shot that sends a pulse at both the positive going edge, and one at the negative going edge? Would that bring it into 'calibration' range? Just curious.

In that case, you'll see 1 km distance display when you drove actual 2 km and 10 km/L display for the actual 20 km/L.
SuperMID has adjustment capability, but it limits within a certain range to find out the value was not out of order caused by malfunction.

Since you're asking, do you mean your vehicle supplies 2 pulses per revolution?

Yoshi

My vehicle supplies 2 pulses per revolution. However, I will be remembering a conversion table from the units on the SuperMID, to UK MPG. So, it will make no real difference, and I will be able to see a 2km average distance instead of a 1km average (which will be useful for engine-off coasting around here (where you can do a few 100m up a hill, then a few hundred down).

I see. I think the software solution, modifying the program, will be the best.
Regarding to the fuel parameter, we have to adjust it to meet the actual fuel usage. We know a good number for the Prius, but I had no idea about your Bluebird. I did put a guess number to your SuperMID flying to UK.
So, I'm thinking I'll send you modified processor chip after you find out the correct fuel parameter including the distance pulse adjustment.

Yoshi