A newbies guide to getting the MAFTPro to work with TunerProRT on a TR

I bought this set up from Full Throttle back in May of 2006. I consider myself an internet savvy person as it seems to be a big focus point in my life. Anyways, I searched and searched, asked on forums, and got little to nothing in response to my questions I had about this thing. For two months it sat in my garage in a box as some sort of ornament because I do not like to jump into stuff like this head first.

It seemed like people were using the MAFTPro and getting great results but this was all third person from what I could gather. Finally I got tired of it sitting in a box and headed over to Tom Shea's shop to get it installed. After getting it installed and getting actual readings on the unit itself I tried to hook up my laptop to it. This proved to be the pain point that I have heard from not only the voice in my head but from others new to this unit. This is the reason this page exists, if I can save just one person the hassle I went through to get the laptop and data logging capabilities working then I consider my work done.

So lets get started shall we? If you don't need the instructions and just want the files they are linked at the bottom of this page.

First you need the TunerProRT program that should have been supplied to you in the box the unit came in. If you do not have this disc or the one your running is not even starting then you can go HERE to get the latest build. The user manual and setup instructions that come with the unit are sufficient enough to get the car running. This article is not about setting up the actual unit and I do not trust myself with this yet enough to try and support it. If you need help with setting up the unit please go to Full Throttles TECH site, register, and ask your questions. For this part that site did help me out.

Once the program is installed on a laptop (you could use a desktop but I would really like to see how you set it up in your car) you will need some files that I was lucky enough to have someone find for me while sitting at a drag strip complaining. I will make it easy for you, at the bottom of this page there is a link containing the files set up in the directories they need to be in. More on that later.

From this point on I will assume your car is at least set to the ON position if not running. First thing you need to do is make sure the unit will communicate with the laptop. I have a relatively new laptop that does not have a serial port so I needed a gender changer that went from serial to USB. You can pick these up at any computer store and I have had zero problems connecting this way.

Once you have the cable connected click this button, to have TunerProRT automatically detect your hardware. If TunerPro is successful (and your sound is on) you should hear a beep and see that its connected at the bottom of the window. It would look like this, . If you see this then you know everything is hooked up and working properly. At this point I should add this article might get a little messy because I like to show pictures of what I am talking about.

Next on the agenda would be to get an XDF file imported, this is assuming you have downloaded the files already. Go to,

and

Select the xdf file and click Open.

Next would be to get an ADS stream file going. go to Tools > ALDL/Data Logging > Setup,

In the dialog that comes up click the Browse button under Definition File, then load up the file supplied.

Now you have the XDF file loaded and the ALDL file loaded. You now need to make sure the MAFTPro unit will communicate with the TunerProRT application. To do this, you need to make sure your set to the correct COM port and that TunerPro knows to look for the MAFTPro. The following show you what I am talking about.

Click Tools > Preferences to get to the Preferences dialog box. In this dialog click the ALDL/Emulation tab.

Choose your COM port, you can pretty much guess what port your using. It seems that once it has made the connection it will gray itself out and not allow you to change it. Like this,

As you see in the above image, the next step is clicking the drop down next to Interface Type and choosing Translator Pro. For me, this was at the bottom of the list,

Click OK and lets move on.

You should now be able to emulate your MAFTPro within TunerProRT. To do this click Tools > Emulation > Enable Emulation, like this,

If its working you should see this in the bottom left of the application window.

Now you can download the BIN from the unit to TunerProRT. To do this click Tools > Emulation > Download Bin From Emulator. This should import the data from your MAFTPro (the stuff you initally setup when hooking it up) to the TunerProRT application. You can then modify these values based on what tune your going with. I am not helping you with tuning, I am still learning my own tune as I write this.

The nice thing about this unit is that you can modify things (in Emulation mode) "on the fly" meaning you do not need to turn the car off and do a series of pedal pushes to get what you want. You can simply leave it running and do something like adjust your fuel for Tune Low and watch the car die if your pulling fuel. Then add a few numbers back to it until it stays running. If your at this point with the unit then you know, although this is cool, its slow because you need to do it for each range and its slow moving up or down through the values. This makes the TunerProRT program very nice to have even if your simply tuning the car. You can change one value or all values thorughout a range with a couple simple clicks.

Stuff like Vehicle Select or Number of cylinders do not require a range so setting them up on the unit or in TunerProRT are easy. The pain stuff like SparkWOT is where TunerProRT shines. It offers multiple ways to change a range. Double click something like SparkWOT and you will see the entire range displayed for you. From here you can click and change each cell on its own, like you would in MS Excel. You can also click on one cell, then hold down the SHIFT key (doesnt matter which one) and then click the end cell, now all ranges are selected and can be modified together.

Single edit looks like this,

Click and type what you want in the field. Clicking Save will update what you just typed to the unit providing your in Emulation mode.

To edit an entire range it would look like this,

Notice how now all the ranges are blue meaning they are selected. Just type, it will update all ranges.

You can also click the View Graph button and modify the values for each range on a graph. It would look like this,

Click and drag any circle up or down to modify the value. TunerPro will show you the value as you drag so you can be as precise as you would be if you typed it.

Toolbox is another way to modify things. If you have used other tuning programs and are familiar with how things are then check out the Toolbox, for us new folks I would say leave well enough alone and don't mess with it.

Compare is another feature in the TunerProRT software. I am not entirely sure how it works yet but this is what it looks like, click Compare and you see this,

This can be used (I guess) as a way to compare different tunes for your car. Clicking OK just brought me back to the values, I will update this more when I figure it out more.

Now you can bring up the ALDL stuff by clicking the letters D V F M, all of them mean something different. D = Dash, V = Values, F = Flags, and M = Monitors. The Monitor is good for when you want to see up to four values in a scrolling graph. The Dash is good for seeing up to six values at once. The Values tab is good for seeing everything you can, its not the best for looking at while your driving down the track but it's a nice to have thing for checking out later. The Flags, well, I guess this would be good if you have a wideband setup, I am not currently running this so its useless to me (I will be soon!).

You can modify all fields of the Dash and and Monitor. Just right mouse click on the one you want to change and you will get a list of the values you can monitor. It looks like this,

Basic shots of the different fields look like this,

Dash,

Monitor,

Value,

Flag looks like Values but since I do not have a wideband it does not have any useful information. You can not modify stuff on this screen so I didn't bother capturing it since it looks just like the one above with less content.

To actually see stuff working you now need to connect the ALDL. To do this click Tools > ALDL/Data Logging > Connect.

If its working you should see this at the bottom of the program window.

If your car is running stuff should start working in the program for you. If not, go back to the top of this article and go to Full Throttles site to get technical help.

Now to record this stuff you need to do the following. Click Tools > ALDL/Data Logging > Setup.

Now click the Select Log File for Rec/Play button.

This is where things get tricky if your not really a computer person. Luckily, I am so I knew to do this automatically. In the Select File dialog just write something  in the in the File Name line, like this,

Obviously name this something you can use to associate to it later. Like the one on top in mine, I know this is a run I made on August 13th 2006 at Indianapolis Raceway Park. I just have "IAmANewFile" there so you can see where you are going to "make" your file. Once you have chosen a name click the Open button and get the following dialog,

Click Yes to have TunerProRT make this file for you. Simply making a new file outside of the program and making the extension .adl will not work, TunerProRT will complain that the file is corrupt. Doing it the way I show you here will ensure TunerProRT will like and use the file.After Clicking Yes, click OK to exit the ALDL Setup dialog.

Now you should be set to record your runs. You should see this toolbar at the top of the program window,

The record button should be red showing that it is ready to record. Click the Record button before your run. After your run click the Stop button, this will bring up a small dialog asking for a comment. This is not needed but I use it to better keep track of my stuff.

TunerProRT will keep using this same file adding a comment for each run recorded. You can then choose what session you wish to view by choosing the comments you left for it. If you want to keep each file separate then you will need to create a new file before each run with a different name.

This concludes the basic setup. Again, I am also still learning this, some of my information may be incorrect or outdated. Check out MAFTPro.com for all the latest information regarding the unit.

**DISCLAIMER!!**

I am not responsible for anything that may happen to your car, unit, yourself, your cat, dog, children, anything and everything. This article and the files below are here for reference, I offer no warranty or support if these instructions or files do not work for you. The files below have been checked for viruses on my machine and found to be clean, then uploaded to this site which does not have any spyware, adware, or viruses attached to it. These files are being offered AS IS with no implied guarantee that they will work for you. Please make a backup of any existing files within TunerProRT before downloading and opening these files into the program.

Now if I havent scared you away here are the files. Each directory on the following page simply mirrors the directory the file should go in to on your hard drive. The most typical place is C:\Program Files\TunerPro RT\ the directories on the site should be replicated by the directories on your hard drive. Just right click on the file and choose Save Target As. In the Save dialog browse to your TunerProRT directory and locate the folder the file goes in to and save the file to that directory.

Just go to, TunerPRoStuff to see the directories and get the files.

I hope this helps you and gets you up and running.

Author: Abe S. for the sole use on  MGNTA.COM

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