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Electronic Fuel Injection Tuning Forum
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MrDomino
Joined: 01 Oct 2009
Posts: 188
Location: Indianapolis, IN
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 Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 11:33 am Post subject: |
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Congratulations, Tomak on getting sam@tdi to leave the thread. He's one of the few really knowledgeable people on this forum and definitely knows what he's talking about.
You know, you bitch about people not being specific but then turn around and use this general statement about how ECUs that cost 10 times as much aren't any better than ones that are cheap without actually naming any ECUs where this is the case.
Just because two ECUs have the same inputs and outputs doesn't mean that they're the same. There's a reason why OEMs don't use MegaSquirt ECUs on their vehicles.
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Tomak
Joined: 20 Apr 2008
Posts: 429
Location: •Calgary •Alberta
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| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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| StantonWarrior wrote: | Ok, well, I don't know the algorithms as I didn't design or write the system; I'm merely an end user who knows what works and what doesn't....which at the end of the day is all that matters.
Anyway I was only sharing my experiences, I'm not trying to insight violence  |
lol....
I've been playing with efi for a very long time, and I can tell you, 99% of "ecu tuning problems" are tuner problems.
I cant even begin to count how many times I have got ecu's sold, installed or tuned at other shops, and the customer has some drivability complaint. So when they come to me, I try and find out why it isn't doing what it's supposed to. most the time, it's the tune, or poor install.
There is another local shop, that when he gets some issues like that, he blames the ecu, and is quick to sell the customer whatever his current favourite ecu is, and telling the customer his installed ecu is "junk'.
Once in a while, I do agree, it can be the ecu itself. Specific examples are very rare, perhaps 3 specifics that are related to particular ecu brands I can think of in 20+ years that were inherent flaws in the ecu.
One was a very old system, that just does not have enough breakpoints, and the ones it had could not be adjusted. In this instance, idle was finicky, there was no adjsutable "throttle saver/follower", and the car would sometimes stall on decel.... also very light tip in's would stumble. This one had no fix, it was simply too basic to "tune around". The problems were minor, and a higher base idle, and learning to drive around the very low throttle stumble are required, or something like a Haltech could be installed for a proper tune.
Two is a very common system for the V8 guys. It is very prevalent around here, but has a flaw in its decel fuel logic. Basically, if you trip decel fuelling strategy, you will get about a .20 second period of lean stumble if you mash the trottle immediately. Basically, no matter how you configure the decel/accel fuel set-up, a quick off the throttle/on the throttle will result in a long stumble period. I have a work around, and fix these tuned by others on a regular basis that have not figured it out....but it IS a flaw in the strategy itself.
Three was another common but older "plug and play" ecu I tuned a lot of, but one time, for a FSAE team. There was no hot restart spark or fuel, no matter what we tried (this was a motorcycle engine, oil cooled). Ran very hot, but as I recall, over 225 degrees, it would not restart no matter what you set the adjustable paramaters to, or the "failed temp" parameter, but it would rung just fine as long as you did not shut it off.
I also found a flaw in the older Holley Street avenger carbs, especially the 670 on over 350 ci engines, took a damn drill bit to fix that  But that's a different story. . But I was surprised, people gave up, and said "junk carb". I made a quick phone call to Holley, and they then started shipping free metering blocks as warranty to anyone with problems. Basic understanding and willingness to figure out your problem is usually all it takes.
Anyway, if the ecu in question has enough inputs and outputs for the job, MOST today's ecu's will get the job done just as well as a $10,000 ecu, unless you need some fringe or extreme speciality control or strategy that most people won't use on a "street strip" vehicle anyway. In fact, sometimes you just have to dig deeper. I was at PRI, and wandered by the Haltech booth, as coincidence, some guy was asking a similar question to what Apex asked about goofy rev limiter set-ups. I stuck around, and watched as Matt showed the guy one way it could be set-up in like 2 minutes.... so even though it's not a common function advertised by haltech, with some patience, understanding and ingenuity, it may be possible.
There is no magic.
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AEM Factory Trained, Accel EMIC, Haltech Trained, Advanced GM EFI, Diablo CMR Mopar Dealer, SCT TUner - Viper/SRT10, Delta Force Dealer.
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Last edited by Tomak on Fri Dec 09, 2011 12:29 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Tomak
Joined: 20 Apr 2008
Posts: 429
Location: •Calgary •Alberta
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| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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| MrDomino wrote: | Congratulations, Tomak on getting sam@tdi to leave the thread. He's one of the few really knowledgeable people on this forum and definitely knows what he's talking about.
You know, you bitch about people not being specific but then turn around and use this general statement about how ECUs that cost 10 times as much aren't any better than ones that are cheap without actually naming any ECUs where this is the case.
Just because two ECUs have the same inputs and outputs doesn't mean that they're the same. There's a reason why OEMs don't use MegaSquirt ECUs on their vehicles. |
Yeah, having someone claim "it work's better", and when I ask WHY, the answer is "It's more expensive, it just does", doesn't fly with me.... especially when someone else adds "we don't need to prove it, if you don't realize it, your head is burried in the sand."....
Does this fly with the engineering crowd these days?
I'm out too
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www.Dynomotive.ca
AEM Factory Trained, Accel EMIC, Haltech Trained, Advanced GM EFI, Diablo CMR Mopar Dealer, SCT TUner - Viper/SRT10, Delta Force Dealer.
Analog DD 450
Mustang MD250 - gone but not forgotten. |
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StantonWarrior
Joined: 10 Dec 2010
Posts: 188
Location: UK
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| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 12:28 pm Post subject: |
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 weather isn't great here either  |
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rvengineering
Joined: 28 Feb 2010
Posts: 57
Location: Holland
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| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Tomak wrote: | | MrDomino wrote: | Congratulations, Tomak on getting sam@tdi to leave the thread. He's one of the few really knowledgeable people on this forum and definitely knows what he's talking about.
You know, you bitch about people not being specific but then turn around and use this general statement about how ECUs that cost 10 times as much aren't any better than ones that are cheap without actually naming any ECUs where this is the case.
Just because two ECUs have the same inputs and outputs doesn't mean that they're the same. There's a reason why OEMs don't use MegaSquirt ECUs on their vehicles. |
Yeah, having someone claim "it work's better", and when I ask WHY, the answer is "It's more expensive, it just does", doesn't fly with me.... especially when someone else adds "we don't need to prove it, if you don't realize it, your head is burried in the sand."....
Does this fly with the engineering crowd these days?
I'm out too |
No not really it’s more like you know what to use and tell me the cost and what it can do for me. Some customers ask me to compare ECU’s and what can you say? They all do the same?
Most customers are going for the tuner and not the brand name of an ECU.
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baldur
Joined: 12 Oct 2007
Posts: 430
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| Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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Junk ECUs absolutely do exist.
In my opinion a good ECU must have these things:
Stable, reliable hardware.
Stable, reliable firmware.
PC interface software with datalogging capabilities, capable of exporting logs in a generic format for processing with any software of my choice but shipping with a decent log viewer/processor is a plus. The PC software must also be easily navigatable and having the documentation for all of the options embedded really helps.
Absolutely bomb proof documentation. If a tuner is to make an ECU work properly the tuner absolutely has to know how the ECU works, what the configurable options do and at what rate the parameters work. This is probably the most important part. I have tuned too many systems where there are tunable parameters with no units associated with them and obscure settings where the name really does not give a good clue about what they do exactly.
Pectel has all of the above and I have not yet seen much cheaper systems that do. |
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APEX Speed Technology
Joined: 13 Nov 2004
Posts: 726
Location: Venice, CA
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| Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:21 pm Post subject: Systems |
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This is not about cheap versus expensive systems, this is about sophistication, and there's a price correlation.
| Quote: | | I've been playing with efi for a very long time, and I can tell you, 99% of "ecu tuning problems" are tuner problems. |
We believe in educating our customers and the community, and not blaming the tuners for issues, but rather seeing these as opportunities for learning. I firmly believe that if over-simplified functionality or reliance on calculated values that don't let you access the underlying correction, etc makes a calibration harder to perfect, its not fair to put all the blame on the tuner. This may be different if you're paying an expert, but many of our customers are car owners/builders/hobbiest first and tuners second.
| Quote: |
Stable, reliable hardware.
Stable, reliable firmware.
..... Pectel has all of the above and I have not yet seen much cheaper systems that do. |
That's how we choose our products. And we are always interested in more that meet that criteria. We are constantly tuning different systems. - in the last week I've worked on projects with Bosch Motorsports, MOTEC, Pectel, Vi-PEC ECUs and a Life Racing Gearbox Controller. On Thursday Tim (a tech who's been with us for 2 years now) put a Haltech Platinum Plug & Play ECU on his own car, an EVO9 which was just running on a Vi-PEC. He's had more than 150 miles of highway/city driving around LA so far, and shares his experience with our other employees, who've been sharing suggestions. We are supposed to have three new ECUs from other manufacturers in our evaluation fleet in the next week, and I've got new MOTEC & RacePak products in our "test fleet."
| Quote: | Anyway, if the ecu in question has enough inputs and outputs for the job, MOST today's ecu's will get the job done just as well as a $10,000 ecu
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In our experience, its not about "MOST todays ecu's" or the price. In fact, most ECUs on the market don't have the robustness or feature set to get the job done as well as a few outstanding ECUs, which is why we're discriminating about what we sell.
| Quote: | | No use recommending a $10 000 ECU with a $2000 budget. |
Couldn't agree more. But I'm really tired of the gimmicks ECU manufacturers use to try and promote their ECUs. A lot of this is happening at the low end of the market, because it won't get past more educated & experienced users.
| Quote: | I am curious what strategies these more advanced ecu's do that make the transients fueling 'better'. As far as I know, there are only 2 ways to add extra transient fuel. synchronous and asynchronous.
Curious to hear how one system implements the control of these things better than another?
Example? |
Okay:
I've used an ECU on 1500cc turbocharged, multi-throttle 4 cylinders that had a simple accel fuel table which defines additional fuel based on rate of change of throttle and RPM. The strategy never was consistent enough to eliminate flat spots or worse, hiccups, so the riders would just tolerate it.
We switched to another ECU which defined accel sensitivity & clamp as a function of RPM, then decay as a 3-D table as a function of throttle position, with a minimum required rate of change of throttle and lambda disable times, and a similar negative accel fuel reduction setup. Yes, is was more complex and not for every user. But the same exact bike was OEM+ in terms of its ridability, a lot of that credited with the transient fueling. In street riding, where thanks to the big turbo you'd have a tendency to whack the throttle open and roll off as boost came up, and you'd never get a hiccup. These bikes were prone to wheelspin which meant a lot of throttle movement to control it; with the second ECU the bike was so much more controllable; the first would load up the bike with every subsequent throttle movement. In fact, the negative transients were brilliant at making the bike smooth and consistent all the time.
If any of you are bike guys, I like to joke that turbo 'Busas on the street can be like CR500s. Sometimes the right grip just controls how much you shag the tire more than the actual forward progress of the bike. I appreciated the better control.
Both ECUs were in the same price range. The second were certainly more complex, but the software was intuitive to use and had very good documentation, plus recommended start points to make it as easy to use as possibly given all the options. I don't want my responses to be about specific ECUs any more than its becoming, so I'll leave the brand names out.
-Neel
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Apex Speed Technology
2947 S. Sepulveda Blvd
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Techsalvager
Joined: 21 Jun 2011
Posts: 140
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| Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2011 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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lots of posts and I appericate all the information everyone has throw in.
Been thinking and I noticed that the Evo 8 shares same crank\cam inputs as the old DSMs and miatas. Thinking I may go over to an evo 8 ecu, maf, map sensors and whatever else I may need.
I know I was talking about Megasquirt eariler, and to be fair a megasquirt is just a hardware box, its ms2extra thats more of my beef.
I know its still being worked on, not as much as before, but I should of known that its not the best before I dropped into it. Main reason I dropped money on it was because the stock ecu isn't really programble and I was going turbo and wanted to get the suff in better shape. Having gone though what I have now I wouldn't of gone with it. Live and learn. The megasquirt itself isn't that bad, though its actually a fuel controller that has a lot of hardware modifications to do various things, which another beef I have with it and another issue in itself with megasquirt.
Anyways I appericate all the great information, maybe one day I will be able to tune and work with one of the bigger EMS thats around. |
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Techsalvager
Joined: 21 Jun 2011
Posts: 140
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| Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry the bump of this old thread.
I'm looking to find a standalone ecu that supports maf.
Anyone seen such on the market? |
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stevieturbo
Joined: 29 Aug 2006
Posts: 845
Location: Northern Ireland
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| Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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I'd imagine Motec and some of the other big names could do it ok.
Of course whether it is needed or of any benefit is another matter.
Seen another one mentioned on a US Ford forum the other day that says it can use MAF, Pro M EFI.
Mind you, some of the BS they spout in the sales blurb would put be off it, simply because it's nonsense.
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Techsalvager
Joined: 21 Jun 2011
Posts: 140
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| Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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| stevieturbo wrote: | I'd imagine Motec and some of the other big names could do it ok.
Of course whether it is needed or of any benefit is another matter.
Seen another one mentioned on a US Ford forum the other day that says it can use MAF, Pro M EFI.
Mind you, some of the BS they spout in the sales blurb would put be off it, simply because it's nonsense. |
I've looked into proefi before but I didn't get much feedback on it.
I talked to motec in person at pri, unfourntaly it doesn't support maf as I'm looking for, maf sensor, transfer function, etc. |
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Kurt
Joined: 11 May 2007
Posts: 30
Location: Ft Worth TX
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| Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 7:49 pm Post subject: |
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| I've used the stock MAF on my 2JZ engine with the Series 2 AEM. Worked great. The AEMTuner software comes with a workspace with a MAF tab setup with all the options and tables if you want to look at it. |
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Johnny_9
Joined: 17 May 2006
Posts: 212
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:40 am Post subject: |
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...the Title post is "thoughts on".....not emotions on......
interesting thread nonetheless..... |
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Techsalvager
Joined: 21 Jun 2011
Posts: 140
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Kurt wrote: | | I've used the stock MAF on my 2JZ engine with the Series 2 AEM. Worked great. The AEMTuner software comes with a workspace with a MAF tab setup with all the options and tables if you want to look at it. |
Using the series 2 from AEM how do you tune using the maf as an input?
Do you still have to edit a table of INJ PW\values? |
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Kurt
Joined: 11 May 2007
Posts: 30
Location: Ft Worth TX
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Yes, the MAF fuel table is 3D, rpm vs airflow (g/rev) vs inj pw. There is a MAF transfer function table, MAF volts vs airflow (g/sec). |
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Techsalvager
Joined: 21 Jun 2011
Posts: 140
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| Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:24 am Post subject: |
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| Kurt wrote: | | Yes, the MAF fuel table is 3D, rpm vs airflow (g/rev) vs inj pw. There is a MAF transfer function table, MAF volts vs airflow (g/sec). |
why is there a transfer function needed if you have to still tune it based of inj pw? |
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Kurt
Joined: 11 May 2007
Posts: 30
Location: Ft Worth TX
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| Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 10:09 am Post subject: |
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I guess that's just how it works with that system. It would be a pretty simple procedure to populate that maf table if you know the flow of your injectors and have accurate offset data. Instead of it being a VE table and target table for fuel calc, you just have to build in your desired AFR when putting that main fuel table together. I changed to speed-density, but when I was using the maf, it worked extremely well.
Another thing that might look strange is the ignition table is based on rpm vs load (manifold pressure) vs timing. AEM uses some calculation to derive that load value when using a maf and, reviewing my logs, it matches up pretty close to what my map sensor value is now, so that seemed to work reliably too.
It's designed a little differently than other systems, but the Series 2 (and the original series) are able to use a MAF. |
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Tomak
Joined: 20 Apr 2008
Posts: 429
Location: •Calgary •Alberta
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| Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah. The aem is that kind of system. Its neither sd or maf. Straight pw.
What you are after requires a fuel calculation based on maf flow, with a load based timing and af target table.
Like say the the engine theoretically moves 40 lb/min at a certain point... the maf reads 30 pound per minute. Thats 75% load. Ecu would look at ur af target table at that load and rpm... say its 13:1. Then simply divide 30 lb/min maf flow by 13 to get target fuel mass....
Never done it..... but im pretty sure you could configure both haltech and motec to run that way even though they are not advertised that way.
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www.Dynomotive.ca
AEM Factory Trained, Accel EMIC, Haltech Trained, Advanced GM EFI, Diablo CMR Mopar Dealer, SCT TUner - Viper/SRT10, Delta Force Dealer.
Analog DD 450
Mustang MD250 - gone but not forgotten. |
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Techsalvager
Joined: 21 Jun 2011
Posts: 140
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| Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 3:50 pm Post subject: |
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I thought I had reposted but it looks like I didn't
I saw the AEM before but the minute I found out it was still inj pw tuning I decided aganist it as it negates the whole point of maf based tuning imo.
Tomak I went around to different EMS booths at PRI and talked to all that I could. Motec ended up being like the AEM in terms of maf support on their m84,400,600,800 ecu's. I talked to also a dealer and he was interested as well to find out and end up being like the AEM
Haltech supports maf but only on their PnP ecus for cars orginally with maf based setups, all their other systems I was told including their higher end standalones don't do it. I got irriated by the guy at the vipec booth for getting in an argument with me about maf usage and their product not supporting it despite it being a noted feature for load usage. It seems like
I keep coming on dead ends and may have to retrofit a tuneable stock ecu on. Maybe a chevy or ford ecu.
I was looking at the evo 8 ecu's since they use the same cas and spark outputs so it would require less parts but I found out they ( atleast that tuning package I was looking at ) didn't support changing the displacement load figure in the ecu. |
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stevieturbo
Joined: 29 Aug 2006
Posts: 845
Location: Northern Ireland
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