My Memcal, the Race chip adapter is at the top.

The Lotus Esprit uses a GM Multipoint Fuel Injection System, and the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) has an Assembly Line Diagnostic (ALDL) connection (two, actually). Here, technicians plug-in a rather expensive device called a Tech-1 scanner which will tell you all about the engines activities. This project reads the data from this port and displays it in an in-dash display. The connector underneath the glove-box is used.

This project was started when I noticed one day that my car's exhaust was a little rich. After Checking the incredible Esprit Fact File, and shorting out two of the terminals (A and B) to cause the "Check Engine" light to flash fault-codes, I found the Oxygen sensor fault indicating a rich condition. Anyway, shorting out two wires and counting flashes is boring! Thanks to Andy Whittaker, an amazing program called Freescan was created, and thanks to this, my creative juices started flowing...

(For those who need to know... Turns out the Memcal program in my ECU was the "problem" of my running rich. No fault.. The race chip runs slightly rich, and ignores the O2 sensor!)

And then came the LCD....

This project runs a 40 character by 2 line display, mounted in the dash below the CD deck, and provides a scrolling display of engine parameters, events, and other goodies. The initial design is based on a 386 computer (guts of a very old laptop, about 3" X 10" X 1" in size, currently mounted in the base of the glove-box.) The final design (being completed now) uses a PIC controller mounted with the display, and only the ALDL cable to be connected for info and power!