OBDII Products and Dataloggers

OBDII (on board diagnostic 2) was federally mandated for all 1996 and newer vehicles.  The main purpose of this federally mandated standard is to monitor the vehicles sensors for faults that could cause increased emissions.  The OBDII standard allows one type of protocol for all OBDII devices, independent of the automotive brand.  There are many brand specific (sometimes proprietary) OBDII parameters that may not be able to be read with all OBDII devices.  The SCT Xcalibrators are one of the only OBDII devices that can read nearly all of the Ford proprietary parameters and can also reflash the ECU with a custom tune. Click Here for info on the SCT flash tuners and dataloggers.  The good thing is that there are numerous generic OBDII parameters that are identical across all manufactures.  These generic parameters generally include things like engine coolant temp, intake air temp, throttle position, fuel trims (short and long), load, manifold absolute pressure (MAP) or mass air flow (MAF), RPM, Timing, MPH, and up and downstream O2 sensor voltages.  All of the ODBII devices on this page can also read and clear DTC (digital trouble codes) that cause the MIL (malfunction indicator lamp, or check engine light) to turn on.  This is a very useful function for troubleshooting which sensor is causing the fault.   Some OBDII products are geared toward saving gas and will give useful information like instantaneous mpg, and average mpg.