Ok so the other day I was pretty much beating the shit out of my car and I thought the motor pretty much exploded from what it seemed. Heard a loud thud and saw something shoot out of the back of my car. Check engine light came on and the car lost most of its power. Smoke coming all over the place. I pull over and no fluids are leaking and it turned out the thud was actually my front lip ripping off and being run over. I think the head gasket blew but im not sure yet. Long story short I i dont know anyhting about tuning or ecu's. Right now the car runs but it sounds like a subaru so its probably running on 3 cylinders but the check engine light is not on anymore. How do I use the AEM pro to see what the check engine light was on for?

 

Check your spark plugs. Get a compression test and vacuum leak down test. Im still an amateur and that's as much as I can give.

My question: Do you have a speedometer? Mine reads 0mph while I drive.

 

Yeah I haven't started any mechanical tests yet. I just wanted to see if I could see old check engine lights to see what codes might have been thrown when it happened. I'm sure it would be a random miss fire code anyways.

 

I'll guess AEM 1052(u). In that case most tuners will make CEL output for over 210F. You probably overheated the car (throwing CEL), and blew the headgasket. Google how to check for blown head gasket signs and start there. There are no CEL codes stored on AEM.

 

OK thanks. The car didnt overheat. It literally only ran like 5 degrees hotter then normal. But probably would have gotten worse if I kept driving the car. The stored CEL codes was really my question.

 

Aem does not have nor store CEL codes

Check the logs and see why your water temp was like.

 

Bringing this thread back from the dead... so is the only way to check codes to plug my stock ECU back in?

 

correct, the AEM doesn't know anything about ODBII stuff

 

How do you guys usually keep an eye on engine health?

 

Take a log with your standalone, you can see everything the ECU sees and what it's outputting. It's way easier than reading OBD2 troublecodes and throwing parts at a problem. You do need to have half a clue as to what you're looking at when you open your calibration though.