Hey guys,

I recently became a TL owner having purchased a 2005 TL A/T in Abyss Blue Pearl, and the mod bug hit me hard, so I've been planning ahead and have come to a bit of an impasse.

The question: I've done some digging through the wonderful forums here and I have yet to figure out what the best option to tuning the 05 A/T TL would be - the J&R ecu is hard to find and I know very little about it, the Hondata only works on the M/T (as far as I can tell), and I'm not sure about the utility of the AEM F/IC. My eventual goal is a CT supercharger, and I've begun wondering whether I'll even need to tune, or if I can just stick to the CT ACM (I know its been called a piece of junk on here).

I'd love a definitive answer on this one, as I've got most of my build for my TL sorted.

Thanks in advance!

 

You are on the right track.

Sadly for you, the only option you have is the MS3. Hondata wont work for the 04-06 autos. Yes, you will need some type of tuning if you plan on supercharging your TL.

I'm sure other experience members will agree or give out a better response.

 

im in a similar boat. 05 TL but 6 spd. Im running the ACM but picked up the AEM FIC and also picked up the J&R ecu. don't know which to use when I save the money for tuning. will prob go the J&R route since its a stand alone

 

How much is JnR

 

There is a cat selling a JNR in the BM right now for $350. He said the harness only works on the auto or I would have bought it just to explore.

 

Honestly, IMO do the 07-08 ecu swap and get the hondata. More suppport if you go that route.

 

^^

+1

 

My one concern with the JnR is there is pretty much no info out there on it, at least not that I can find easily. Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough?

As for the MS3, is it complementary to the JnR or is it a standalone?

 

The Mega Squirt 3 is a standalone that is used to control a few functions and leaves the stock ecu to deal with everything else. It was sold by JandR next level performance, a company that no longer exists. I think they just made a harness and some minor tweaking to make it work with the TL. There are some threads on it and a tutorial on using Tuner Studio to tune.

 

+2

 

All JNR really offered was a harness, configuration of the MS3X and the base tune to get it running.

There are more options, but they're going to be very expensive, boomslang makes harnesses for the auto TL's for a lot of different ECUs.

I'm sure if you spoke to them they'd be able to make a harness to work with an ECU that has boost control for the supercharger kit and could probably handle your water meth injection too if you put it on the car.

Be prepared to shell out some money though, their prices are just for the harness and it's not cheap. Even for just the FIC the harness is $270. Depending on the ECM option you chose a boomslang harness could run upwards of about $600 for just the harness.

The benefit is making a tuning option about as plug and play as it's going to get, so you don't have to cut your factory harness or try to figure out how to wire up your own harness.

Here's a link:

http://boomslang.us/list-cars.php?ma...&submit=Search

With an '05 AT you won't be able to do the ECU conversion and run hondata. Simply not an option. Swap is only for the MTs.

 

Just saying thank you mzilvar, I own a 04 TL auto and I've been searching for the longest for a way to tune it, thanks for the link hopefully boomslang has what I need..

 

Mzilvar I'm a little late on the thank you, but like RD_04TL, I'm pretty stoked - I've done some investigating on Boomslang's site and have notices quite a few options that look like they might work out.

That being said, are there any options that people have explored for tuning a naturally aspirated TL other than the JnR? I assume the JnR isn't really an option for me at this point short of me finding one on the BM, correct?

 

Definitely some good harnesses on boomslang, but the tuning solutions will cost at least $1000

 

Hmmm, right now its looking like an MS3 Pro with a Boomslang harness is going to be my best bet. Expensive, yes, but probably the only way I'll actually get all the bases covered if I go FI on an 05 AT

 

Definitely expensive, really have to question if it's going to be worth it with the automatic. I think Noober was selling a MS3X in the BM for an auto-TL, even if its for an '06 it should be pretty easy to adapt the harness over to the 05 and A LOT cheaper than the boomslang route. He has the AT harness, I can tell because the AT uses the C connector and the MT does not use it whatsoever. The C connector on it will just be straight-through anyhow you could run a MT JNR on an AT and simply plug the OEM C connector directly into the stock ECU instead of going through the harness adapter at all. The C connector has all the auto trans solenoids, sensors and such on it none of which are used by any of the aftermarket tuning options.

A really simple way to convert his JNR to run an 04-05 is to add the hondata adapter that converts all the pins between the model years.

An alternative is to wire it up yourself, grab the CSV file that can be imported into excel, libre office or open office spreadsheet applications and has the entire pin-out for the 04-05 JNR harness with the added external knock module. It's in this thread:

https://acurazine.com/forums/perform...l-help-918310/

Can probably even get someone to e-mail you a base tune, I used to have them but I got rid of the files someone else probably has them on their computer still.

 

He's actually fairly local to me so I shot him a message about it - A little scared of the adaptation process but I suppose that's what these forums are for
I was looking at the somewhat more "serious" tuning solutions and when I saw the Motec pricing I was like "ok, and I thought the JNR was expensive lol"

 

So I have an 06 5AT and I am at the point I need tuning solutions. I have been looking at MS3 (cant find any) and AEM FIC.

Who does the tuning? on either system? shops in my area (oregon) seem to be idiots about it or to afraid to tackle the task. so, what are my options? I read above someone mentioned the 07 - 08 ECU swap however I heard that they have different trans than the 04-06 there is a extra solenoid or something so you cant just swap ECU's?

Thanks for the help!

 

That's correct the auto trans is different between 07-08 and 04-06 which is why the hondata conversion was only for MT cars as the PCM controls an extra solenoid & clutch pack in the newer AT. The PCM in the 04-06 doesn't have the CAN lines that are needed for Hondata's programming of the PCM while it's running, the 04-06 uses K-line which prevented Hondata from making a tuning solution for the 04-06 ECM for the MTs or PCM for the ATs.

That doesn't mean tuning an 04-06 AT car is impossible, it just means you need something like the MS3X and a harness to wire it in. Either by learning a lot about EFI and setting up your own harness and having it tuned or by getting something like JNR's integration of the MS3X or paying a lot of money and having Boomslang make your harness for your needs.

Gerzand may be able to help with tuning and there's a big group buy thread from when JNR was making the harnesses for the ECU's that has some info in there. I think they had mostly sorted out the problems and the last few posts has a picture that looked like someone had the idle RPM and AFR sorted out.

Swoosh is another good source, I think he may still be using his MS3.

Finding a shop that can dyno tune it might be another question, one that may be familiar with tunerstudioMS.

DIYautotune has a page setup with some info:

MegaSquirt Dyno Tuning Information Page

 

 

Disclaimer; I am not an automatic TL owner.

The above detail out of the way, my understanding is if you source the J35A3 from an Odyssey and the transmission from a 2006-2007 Accord V6 (with a few swapped sensors), the two units together should be pretty much a plug in/bolt in swap.