Someone pay for it and meet up with me somewhere, and I'll install the mod for you and take pics to post as an article.

This will probably soud gay, but, what is POTS? I've heard a lot of people talking about it and I've never understood what it is. People say for $30 or so it's the most efficient mod you can get. Can someone tell me what it is and if it's worth it? Thanks

And if it is worth it, you got yourself a deal, insta.

Ya what in the world its POTS?????

They are potentiometers. They are ran on the temp sensors to trick the car into thinking it is colder than it really is so it dumps fuel into the chamber

OOO ive remember now i know someone who did that to theres. Duhh...... :oops:

just remember that if you do the mod, running it all of the time on is very very bad for ur motor. over time that extra fuel being dumped while cause more harm than good

how exactly is pots wired though? like how d you do the mod. if i do this mod i would want to put the switch/s for it in the dash or center console. how hard is it to do this mod?

Very true. You can blow your motor by running rich (which is essentially what your doing). You could end up burning a piston or your valves.

how long does pots have to be on for it to start damaging things?

its a very simple, and very effective mod to do. its perhaps the biggest power gain for the buck that you can do. i was with bryan when he did some pots runs in his car, that thing HAULED!!! installation is a breeze and bryan is a great person to do the mod, he is pracitcally an expert at the pots mod. yes it can be mounted in your dash or cubby area to look clean and nice. check with bryan on price details and such.

basically you have two knobs that are turned from 0% to 100%. they of course determine how much you are trickign your pcm into thinking the engine is cold. too much will hurt performance and not enough will not give max resutls. you gotta play with it for the best results. only turn them on when you are racing or want the power, running with them on too long can harm your engine and your pcm will notice the mod and effectively make it useless by not adding the extra fuel anymore for the colder temps... for such a simple mod, it gets quite complicated, hit bryan up or CJW for further questions, i only know the basics :roll:

cool but confusing. :?

yep, thats electronics for ya! just be thankful our pcm's are dumb enough for the mod to work... and i am sure its not as confusing as i made it out to be. i just dont explain things very good...

sounded fine to me. but what if you changed out the pcm to like a cqw3 or what ever it is called. wouldn't that be smarter and make the mod useless.

Said it the same way I would've lol

I know how the mod is made and know how to use it but it will never touch my car. I do not believe in its cheap power. No offense is meant by this I just think engine life for power is not a good swap when I can buy sct for 300 and not need pots

I guess for a lot of people having control to make thier car go faster at a moments notice is cool

well its a good mod for those on a low budget... you cant knock that because most of us dont have gobs of money to throw into high perf engine parts... for them/us pots is a decent option.

ps josh- where can you get an sct for 300?!!! hook me up!

lol I was thinkin the same thing....

back when I started modding I had little to no money and still never felt the need to lower the engines life

Running too rich or too lean at any point even for short bursts lowers your engines life. You cannot argue it, it is the name of the game...hence tuning.

The fact is...this is my only car and will be for quite sometime...or until I figure out where my money is going(house, another car, family, etc) I need it to last for a long while. Nothing I have done has lowered the life of my car except me and my foot. To ensure the life of my car I am going to get it tuned on the dyno in a month or less(helps knowing mcnews) 8)

And no money is not growing on trees for me but I save for everything. I rarely spend money on anything besides my car(because I have nothing else) Some games and whatnots to keep me entertained, a knife once and again. Doing such since I got a job landed me with a pretty nice savings.

I do understand pots and its purpose. There are just 2 sides to pots. I think it should only be done in race situations and only be done if you cant afford real tuning. I dont think anyone will argue me in saying sct is better. Also I dont think anyone will argue that pots can be harmful. Its just how you wanna mod your car.

soooo.... where are you getting sct chips for 300? :lol:

175 for the chip 100 for the tuning...sorry 275. mcnews. Buy enough, hang out enough, talk enough, give them all your business you need taken somewhere...etc. It helps having your clutch done there, exhaust done there, prolly 4 hrs total of dyno time, and willing to experiment there and work with them...another big thing is trusting them and working through things as they come up. My stepdad also knows the owners personally(no real discount, just get to chill a lot and random shit comes up and its taken care of cheap, or when scheduling is a bitch if it is at all possible I am in)

But I will just be buying an x2 and dynoing it.

Typically you can get the chip tuned for about 325-350 mailorder, x2 350-400 mailorder. If you know someone or a dealer you may get it cheaper. Untuned chips go new for around 125-175 but tuning could screw you. I trust mailorder more than pots, but not as much as dyno time.


***and yes I know dynoing takes away your engine life...but no more than racing. And less than running rich or lean.

I believe I am getting the x2 for 375 dyno tuned

what are sct and x2 what do they do?

superchip custom tuning and the x2 is an excalibrator2 made by sct as well

When I say sct chip I mean a 4 position 4 bank 4 tune chip with a toggle.
When I say x2 I mean a programmer with 3 tunes and a datalogger.

dataloggers are great for reading you know...every sensor in your car at any point in time. 8)

and mcnews who has been working on zx2s for awhile now with a guy named jason up here has been tuning forever and apparently if you are deleted vct diablochip is horrible because you cannot completely remove the vct banks in the tning and it will evenually learn and throw the code. With sct it will completely shut down the vct and code and banks.

Basically out of all the tuning options excalibrator 1 and 2 and the sct custom chip are the only ways to go.

Question... I know when someone does the VCT delete that the CEL is engaged, now since tuning can ultimately eliminate the VCT will that disable the CEL for it. I wanna do both cam gears without the hassle of the CEL being on. Anyone know???

Why disable VCT? A heated debate sprang up on TeamZX2 (curtousey of me) about this, but the general consensus is that it would work with dyno time.

VCT can be moved forwards and backwards 30 degrees in each direction. Keep VCT, and have your SCT tuner put in an advance / retard curve that complements your powerband the whole way up the rev range. The actual process behind this will require a long time on the dyno, but it will get the most power out of your car. The procedure is as follows:

Dyno your car with the intake cam set to 0, and the exhaust cam held at 0 using SCT.
With the exhaust held at 0, adjust the intake until you find the powerband you like.
Then, have the SCT chip hold VCT at -2, and readjust the intake gear, finding the best powerband.
Do the same for -4, -6, +2, +4, and +6. Remember to find which intake gear degrees make the best power.
You will end up making 36 pulls to find this! They will be:



Using the dyno, fill in this chart. It will definitely help to cut a deal / get sponsored / something. I know it's expensive ...

Once you have the table filled in, look at which intake setting makes your favorite HP/TQ numbers. Torque is as important as peak horsepower, so try to pick one with a good blend. Since every intake setting will have been tested with every exhaust setting, look to see which exhaust degrees make the best power in different parts of the rev range. Then, have your SCT programmer fill those values in on the VCT table. A sample table might look like:



Those are completely pulled out of my ass, but you see my point. Using this method, you should be able to squeeze a fair amount of power out of that little Zetec, even if the adjustable cam is on the exhaust side. Getting the gasses out are as important as getting them in. :)

I understand and could do it...but I dont have the ???? dollars to rent the dyno for the day :lol:

Nice explaination..... and good advice for making use of the VCT but as Josh said loads of money for dyno runs. I was just curious if an SCT could cancel the CEL if you was to take it out. And the answer would be......

yes the sct OR X2 can cancel any CEL you might get

yea itll make it as though the vct tables were never there. Therefore removing any dumby light along with them.

Any more on the sct topic or chip topic or tuning in general I suppose we oughtta make a new post as this was about doing the pots tuning...