anders44

your average flex-fuel car does not run very aggressive mapping though.

I'm agreeing that ems just isn't there yet that it can autoconfigure, but with technology always going forward, who knows in a few years? read the setup ont he new e92 m3 engine

when tuning you are cutting margins.

we now have a grand total of 3 stations with E85 in our country, but lots more are planned, this is no doubt very cheap racefuel all though it smells like my college buddies.

DanG

Chris, the hubby/wife DSR team that hosted my trip to PRI bought one of those ion-sensing ignitions. And I know I sound like a broken record, but ion-sensing ignition is one of the primary development projects for upcoming Megasquirt designs.

Read this thread by the "gurus" of MS to see what the almost released microsquirt can handle, as well as what's coming down the pipes. Some exciting stuff for sure.

http://www.msefi.com/viewtopic.php?t=24765

What I REALLY like about megasquirt is that the technology is rapidly evolving and improving, with a growing user and development base, and ZERO of this engineering "cost" is being passed on to the users. In a couple years, all of the functions of that $15k ignition system at PRI will be included, along with impressive datalogging and fuel/boost/auxillaries control, and with a price tag probably under the $1k mark.

DanG

This is the link to that $15k ignition system BTW...

http://www.woodward.com/engine/gaseng/smartfire/smart.cfm

DFASTEST951

Chris, thanks for your input, I have yet to talk with you. I keep hearing of this megasquirt system. Is there a professional who installs it and is very familiar with it? ?Also, it looks as if what I want isn't available yet. Does that mean I just get vitesse chips with any upgrades I go with and call it a day? If I'm going to throw more cash at my car, I have to justify doing it. This really sucks

AlexE

Dfast.

IMO considering the amount of money that is invested in that car I would go with a properly setup Tec3. Chris is your guy.
You need the flexibility of a stand alone system at this point.

When you think about it............ other guys are putting in Tec3 into cars that have 1/10 the cost of parts that you have in yours....... Engine management this deep into the game is not something you should go cheap on.

Just my 2 cents........

Raceboy

And I thought Joe had standalone long time ago.....

By todays standards, every seriously taken project should account for standalone as they became much cheaper and offer more.

Chips are ONLY justified on relatively new cars that have decent hardware and ONLY when chip is programmed on the dyno using emulator and ONLY for that one vehicle. Chips that are programmed for some "setup" behind the armchair is worth nothing as for driveability and loss of horsepower.
Even wear influences engine VE.

And as for auto-tune? It's possible to a certain degree but if human needs to know what happened in the combustion chamber couple of engine cycles ago, ECU needs to know what's happening in that moment there to make correct adjustments. This is done by OEMs all the time by monitooring cylinder pressures directly etc.
BTW, Did you know that on WB misfire due to unburnt fuel reads LEAN? And lack of fuel reads also LEAN

DFASTEST951

OK, point taken guys. I should go stand alone ems. Chris, your one of the few guys I haven't spoken to. If you could, email me your number and maybe I can call you and see what you offer and for how much. Thanks.

333pg333

Well maybe the actuality of the full auto sensing ems or whatever you want to call it is not available, but that would seem to be down to the sensors, not the possibility of the computers processing and acting on the information gathered a 1000 times per sec. It would seem that to do much of the tuning we are still relying on sensors anyway no? I've got nothing against Chris, or Motec or whoever making or selling a good system for our cars and becoming more popular through it's effectiveness and support. More, I am merely theorizing that this should not be as hard to have up and running in our cars as it seems to be?
Really this all stems from the fact that I'm not all that technical but I just want to go out and drive/race my car rather than data-log, download, dyno, and tune half the time and feel safe that it's not going to blow up basically.

DFASTEST951

I couldn't say it better Patrick...

Raceboy

333pg333, I understand your point very good but there's something most guys who are not familiar with standaolens do not understand too well. If you set up engine management, you basically have to do a job that OEMs do for months and even years: testing the setup in every weather condition and temperature. This is called development nd this is what makes Forumla 1 so expensive, not materials that it's made of.
And they have millions and billions to spend, and even then it takes a while.

If you buy a standalone and someone installs it, he probably can make a good WOT map in half an hour on dyno or road if hes experienced but all the little things take time. For example cold start and warmup: you only have one warmup and then you have to cool the car down.
We live in part of the world where is REAL winter. I'm talking -30 degrees Celsius and in summer theres 35+ degrees Celsius. It takes some time, nothing to do about it. But once you get it right, it works flawlessly. NO FAILURES so far on the tuning/ECU side, only some wiring glitches.

Geneqco

I guess we really need artificisl intelligence! Even then though, you could have all these nice algorithms to interpret sensors etc which would be a big thing development wise, you'd still need to develop at least base maps though to cover you for when there is no input from a sensor. I also think Chris is right when he says he doesn't want to rely on the knock sensor for tuning ignition... this is only be a failsafe.

Chris White

OK Joe – here is the most important question – what do you want your car to do that it doesn’t do now? It sounds like you have good power output and so far the longevity looks pretty good to. While I am big fan of standalone systems I am also a big fan of the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ theory.
Joe’s car is a special case – it is running right at the edge of the performance envelope and just a little mistune will trash the engine. In addition to that Joe wants to be the driver – not the technician (don’t take that the wrong way Joe – I just sense that you want to drive your car not play with a laptop).
This limits the choices a great deal – I feel that it eliminates the MS stuff – it is an enthusiast based system not a ‘turn key’ system. Joe needs a person/company that will install, setup and optimize his management system. If Joe was closer I would love to work with him but the distance is a problem (not insurmountable but it just adds o expense). As somebody pointed out tuning for max output does not take that long (as long as the person knows 944s!) tuning for drivability is a different matter - that can take a while.
“raceboy” is right – development of the full map takes a lot of work – I have been at it for five years and I still find a tweak or two that improves throttle response, cold start or some obscure setting ( I cold soaked a modified 951 down to 0f to get it to start with just the twist of the key)
Joe (or anybody else!) you can get me at 315-636-8716 if you want to chat about this stuff!

Tms951

the thing about devolopment is so true, I have had my Tec3r for a while most of the time was winter but i still got to drive it here and there. Scott Gomes of UPP gave me a great starting point but every time I go out I come back and make some tweeks. It has not been dyno tuned yet but hopefuly this week, so far I have been trying for a few weeks but do to weather and scheduling conflicts it hasn't happened yet, we are now shooting for this thursday so we will see what happens.

I think that even after it is dyno tuned I will continue be tweeking little things all the time, I don't think with a standalone on a street car you write a map and never touch it again. Playing with it is part of the fun.

The newer motronic 7 found on turbo DBW Audis, VWs, and Porsches is very adaptive, this is like auto tune. It takes info from the coolent temp, intake temp, map sensor, MAF, knock and O2s. With this info it adjusts boost, timing, and A/F. It ajusts to 20% +/-. It also does it very well. If it is over boosting it pullis it back, if intake temps are to hot it pulls a little boost and timing. It will make up for bad gas, or good gas. IMO it is much more advanced than my Tec3r, the only thing is you can't just go in and write a whole new base map like a stand alone. And the devopment must have taken months on an engine dyno, and then the make constant running changes.

Chris White

Here is another interesting tid bit on the use of sensors for A/F ratio control – there is a time lag introduce due to the location of the O2 sensor – especially a wide band sensor. If you put the wide band sensor in the proper location (after the turbo) there is a time lag from the point of combustion to the point that the o2 content is measured – this varies with RPM (gas velocity). This creates a hysteresis problem (OK, its not a true hysteresis issue but you get the idea).
In the right conditions this leads to a mixture oscillation where the EMS leans the mixture out until the sensor reads lean – by then the actual mixture is way past lean – and then auto corrects in the other direction. You can’t tune this out because it is time/rpm dependent. Fix it for high rpm and you will get a noticeable low rpm oscillation. Damp out the response and the system will not correct fast enough to be useful as a real auto correction system.

Just something to ponder…!

theedge

But in theory once youve got the mixture correct using your wideband sensor you can use the faster responding narrowband O2 which is also located preturbo.... Easy if you have two O2 sensor bungs.