How to UN-FUBAR an ECU, by TTP-Engineering!

TTP Engineering · Oct 5, 2009, 06:53 PM

T_Russ from Connecticut came in with his undisclosed vendor turbokit because of a concern he had with the way the car was running. He was already well aware of our name as an expert tuner with the stock ECU by our reputation on evom as well as having ridden in his buddy Chris's 500whp+ stock block TS35R Evo IX.

T_Russ's car was equipped with a prehistoric dinosaur-like turbokit of the cast manifold T3 design and was probably one of the first units made back in 04-05 for the car. The car had idle issues, fuel trim issues and was just plain annoying to drive.

After pulling the existing ECU mapping, it was fairly clear that there were some major contributing factors involved.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the injectors of the 680cc variety were not scaled correctly, the fuel map left much to be desired, and the ignition timing was far too advanced in the map pulled from the ECU.

The customer stated that he "beats on the car all of the time" so we figured, what the hell. If it has not blown up yet, lets run a baseline pull and see what happens. Here is the datalog from the pull:

Code:

TPS RPM Knock Timing 47 2094 0 20 52 2125 0 18 100 2188 0 18 100 2219 0 18 100 2281 0 19 100 2313 0 19 100 2375 0 19 100 2438 0 19 100 2500 0 19 100 2531 0 19 100 2594 0 19 100 2625 0 20 100 2656 0 20 100 2719 0 20 100 2750 0 21 100 2781 0 21 100 2844 0 20 100 2906 1 20 100 2938 1 21 100 3000 0 20 100 3063 1 18 100 3094 1 20 100 3156 2 18 100 3188 2 19 100 3281 1 17 100 3344 1 17 100 3406 1 17 100 3469 0 18 100 3531 0 17 100 3594 0 15 100 3656 0 14 100 3750 0 13 100 3844 0 12 100 3906 0 11 100 4031 0 10 100 4125 0 9 100 4219 0 9 100 4281 0 9 100 4375 0 9 100 4500 0 9 100 4594 0 9 100 4688 0 9 100 4781 0 9 100 4938 0 9 100 5063 0 8 100 5156 0 9 100 5219 0 9 100 5313 0 9 100 5375 1 9 100 5500 1 9 100 5563 1 9 100 5656 1 10 100 5719 6 8 100 5813 6 9 100 5875 6 9 100 5969 5 10 100 6063 5 10 100 6125 10 9 100 6188 10 9 100 6281 9 11 100 6375 9 11 100 6438 9 12 100 6563 14 10 100 6594 17 9 100 6656 17 9 100 6719 16 10 100 6781 22 11 100 6844 22 9 100 6906 21 9 100 6938 21 10 100 7000 21 10 100 7031 20 11 100 7094 20 11 100 7156 20 11 100 7188 20 11 100 7250 19 11 100 7313 19 11 100 7344 19 11 100 7406 18 12

Yeah, so up to 22 counts of knock on the existing tune with the ECU dumping fuel, we decided that would be the last of the punishment the poor engine would have to endure. With some swift changes to the ecu, proper scaling of the injectors, mapping the fuel and ignition tables, idle, idle bypass valve etc, we had the car by the reins and within 0-3 counts which is our acceptable range of normal engine noise.

Considering much less ignition timing and a prehistoric turbokit, here are the before and after overlays:

97TSiAWD · Oct 5, 2009, 09:45 PM

Wow. Those are some, um, "interesting" fuel and timing maps. Glad to see that things got sorted out with the car.

PeteyTurbo · Oct 5, 2009, 09:53 PM

Lol thats classic, scaling injectors via open loop fuel tables, I must say I have seen that before as well.

Jk's03EVO · Oct 5, 2009, 09:53 PM

Graphs not showing Scott.

97TSiAWD · Oct 5, 2009, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jk's03EVO

Graphs not showing Scott.

For whatever reason, TTP's dyno graph images from the Photobucket account don't show up properly in Internet Explorer (at least they don't work for me either). Try viewing this thread in Firefox or Google Chrome, and the images should be viewable.

TTP Engineering · Oct 5, 2009, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 97TSiAWD

For whatever reason, TTP's dyno graph images from the Photobucket account don't show up properly in Internet Explorer (at least they don't work for me either). Try viewing this thread in Firefox or Google Chrome, and the images should be viewable.

Thanks for the tip. I have been trying to figure out why some people cannot see pics while others can.

BLKCarbonEVO · Oct 5, 2009, 10:09 PM

wow, nice knock!

4G63Rules · Oct 6, 2009, 03:12 AM

Cant see it either.

RAbishi · Oct 6, 2009, 07:37 AM

Those original fuel & timing maps are scary!

l2r99gst · Oct 6, 2009, 08:08 AM

Nice work, Scott. It's scary what some people pay for and how others call themselves tuners. I'm pretty sure I know who 'tuned' that as well from looking at the maps.

I just got done 'arguing' with someone else about their 'tuner'. Take this thread as a good example...just because someone is charging you a ton of money to 'tune' your car, that doesn't mean they know what they are doing...even if they have 'tuned' x amount of 800whp cars.

Save your car and take it to a reputable tuner like Scott or do yourself a favor and start learning how to tune yourself. You would be surprised at how bad some known tuners are/were and quickly learn who the good tuners are.

matt55 · Oct 6, 2009, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TTP Engineering

22 counts of knock on the existing tune

I just spit up my Bojangles sweet tea on my work lap top

Thank god for knock sensors ........

Scott , when you "qoute" the 1st post you can see another "tuner" name in the quote .
(Cough 8888888 )

DBallz · Oct 6, 2009, 09:06 AM

Holy Hell 22 counts of knock. Wow good to know the motor held up. I wonder Scott was the high and low ignition map exactly the same? What I just noticed why is the fuel that lean it's almost set to stoich

l2r99gst · Oct 6, 2009, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DBallz

Holy Hell 22 counts of knock. Wow good to know the motor held up. I wonder Scott was the high and low ignition map exactly the same? What I just noticed why is the fuel that lean it's almost set to stoich

Because that 'tuner' didn't know how to scale and tune injectors properly.

scheides · Oct 6, 2009, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by l2r99gst

Because that 'tuner' didn't know how to scale and tune injectors properly.

Maybe its a tune from back in the day before ecuflash? I know this has been discussed add-nausium. Remember it wasn't so long ago when we were not very lucky to have unraveled all of the secrets of the stock ECU

22 counts of knock is inexcusable though. The owner obviously hasn't checked up on their tune in WAY too long. Periodic logging should be part of regular maintenance. This is why tephra's KnockCEL is awesome, you'd know if the car was knocking all the time w/o even hooking up a logger.

gsrboi80 · Oct 6, 2009, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DBallz

Holy Hell 22 counts of knock. Wow good to know the motor held up. I wonder Scott was the high and low ignition map exactly the same? What I just noticed why is the fuel that lean it's almost set to stoich

The fuel is that lean because the original tuner did not scale the Injectors instead leaned out the fuel map to make up for the added fuel and obtain the desired AFR's. You can do it that way and get results it's just not optimal and way more of a PITA