Importance of ECU remaps: discussion and results

[JAMIE1131]

Quote: Originally Posted by roland2003 (original)

hi Guys, tbh Im not suprised that removing a DFIC and (presumably poorly set up) unichip gained so much power. I bet stock ecu prog and stock intercooler would be much better. Having said that it only takes a small leak on the intercooler bellows and thats 30 horsepower out the window which could easily be (incorrectly) awarded as 'a power increase' to the next lucky tuning part fitted that happens to 'unknowingly' sort the leak at the same time.
The consequences of a poor remap are huge, it will often result in a destroyed engine. Im quite happy to declare that we would not entertain any kind of warranty claim on engine internals/detonation damage if the customer has it remapped/unichip/bluefin etc etc after a GTT conversion. ...I say that as I want peoples engines to stay together.!
- You need to ask the person mapping if they will warranty your engine internals if detonation occurs, as theyre product has more effect on that than most.
Nearly every engine I know of thats gone bang has been running remaps/piggybacks.
Yes they can be very good, but think of it as ... ..your stock mapping being 97% as good as it can be with the various other tuning parts fitted..... Now if its a 50/50 chance of improving it the last 3% OR things going bang 2 months later ...Do you still want to risk that remap?
Im confident that with our mth remaps you will get '2% of that last 3%' partly because we can relay with mth accuratly what is required and we througherly test before the car goes out. -raising the rev limit gains a couple of bhp ,but do you realy want to?
There are various ways of adjusting the fuelling..
1) injector duration (remap of altering map sensor signal to ecu with unichip or Apexi)
2) injector size
3)fuel pressure.
We can offer any of these, we have various injector sizes, adjustable fuel pressure regulators, MTH remaps , or we can fit and programme the Apexi piggyback, using wideband sensor screwed in the exhaust actually on the road with actual air cooling ,on your actual car!....
We can do the same setup procedure with the new adjustable FPR also .....
It depends what your prepared to budget for,but whatever the budget reliability must not be compromised.
Finally one tuners idea of the 'correct' AF ratio can be very different to another tuners....so be careful guys
Best Regards Roland GTT

In my experience (Powertrain design engineering specialising in EFI) I can tell you that even the smallest change to anthing that affects mass air flow through the engine will require a remap to be optimised, sure the ECU will do a pretty good job in adapting to the changes but it wont be optimised. The ECU can optimise A/F ratios pretty easily but fuel phasing and igntion timing are a different story.
Despite all this I agree with Rolands comments, if a remap isn't done correctly it can be the quickest way to destroy and engine. If your'e going to get it done make sure its by someone very experienced who knows what there doing. I know of only one in the UK that I would trust my engine too!

[Paul@1320]

Whose that then Jamie?

[sam_a156]

Quote: Originally Posted by johnlondonw3 (original)

Whats MTH ?

MTH-POWERCHIP : MTH MOTORENTECHNIK

[JAMIE1131]

The team leader of the calibrations and emmissions department where I work, he is probably the most experienced calibration engineer in the UK, and probably in the top 20 in the world. Experience counts for so much in this field and his tunes are currently in use on around 200000 engines!

[sam_a156]

Quote: Originally Posted by JAMIE1131 (original)

:
Despite all this I agree with Rolands comments, if a remap isn't done correctly it can be the quickest way to destroy and engine. If your'e going to get it done make sure its by someone very experienced who knows what there doing.
:

Agree. That's why it took me up to 6 months to gain enough confidence to go for it. I have seen their work with my friends car, they seem to have a good reputation and had a fairly prudent attitude. But then, ask again in 6-12 months

[Paul@1320]

Congrats on the new found trq Sam

What octane rating petrol do you have out there?

Did they take the car to the rpm limiter on each run??

If they tuned the ecu they should be able to tell you what the timing was doing at each rpm point and what the intake temps were.

Looking at the plot it looks like the Intake air temps were to high and the timing was retarding, if they were staying on the throttle to the rpm limit that is one of the worst I've seen up the top end espically in comparison to the JCW dyno sheet, also notice that the trq is about 10 down at 2000as well in comparison to the JCW.

[Paul@1320]

Quote: Originally Posted by JAMIE1131 (original)

The team leader of the calibrations and emmissions department where I work, he is probably the most experienced calibration engineer in the UK, and probably in the top 20 in the world. Experience counts for so much in this field and his tunes are currently in use on around 200000 engines!

Can he move my rpm limit to infinity and beyond

[sam_a156]

Quote: Originally Posted by 1320autos (original)

Congrats on the new found trq Sam

What octane rating petrol do you have out there?

Did they take the car to the rpm limiter on each run??

If they tuned the ecu they should be able to tell you what the timing was doing at each rpm point and what the intake temps were.

Looking at the plot it looks like the Intake air temps were to high and the timing was retarding, if they were staying on the throttle to the rpm limit that is one of the worst I've seen up the top end espically in comparison to the JCW dyno sheet, also notice that the trq is about 10 down at 2000as well in comparison to the JCW.

Thx! (though hard to celebrate as the absolute figures are still far off from the mark...)

Fuel: Shell V-Power Racing 99.

Rev limiter: to my knowledge, yes. But the 2nd higher run looks suspicious, it looks as if the rev limiter hit already at 6600 or thereabouts (or they did not stay on the throttle all the way) . Will talk to them about this next time when my rev limiter will be raised.

Note. If you look at the average HP and torque figures ("srednia moc/moment"), they were actually better in the JCW-only run last year than in the pre-ECU tune run yesterday!? With all the mods I have done after JCW... So there is def still something weird going on and it is not the ECU this time.

[roland2003]

Hi sam, a common error on RR's is calibration of the RPM to roller speed (mph ).
The best way is if the RR software is able to link to the cars ecu through OBD2 link , that way its bang on. The way alot of RR operators do it is to hold it at 3000rpm in whatever gear your using on the rollers and enter that. ....there is scope for error doing it this way. Power v rpm on the plot will then be wrong.
Are they correcting for ambient temp/ambient pressure and charge air temp. Or have they got a fan that replicates 'on the road' charge air temps?

[JAMIE1131]

Quote: Originally Posted by 1320autos (original)

Can he move my rpm limit to infinity and beyond

He could, but he couldn't stop your con-rods from exiting stage left the first time you tried it out!

[Aberdeen Al]

Interesting post - looks like I'm not the only one stuggling with their car!!

Never mind Sam_a156 at least your power curves etc are smooth & progressive - apart from the missing power it must be great to drive?

[sam_a156]

Quote: Originally Posted by Aberdeen Al (original)

Interesting post - looks like I'm not the only one stuggling with their car!!

Never mind Sam_a156 at least your power curves etc are smooth & progressive - apart from the missing power it must be great to drive?

Nope you are not!

The car was fine last summer after GTT visit. But then the clutch started to expire and after the clutch change job (under warranty at dealer) it started to get progressively worse. It was still quite ok at WOT and higher revs, but hesitation/stuttering at lower end. Bad fuel consumption (up to 15-16L/100km or 17.5-19mpg in heavy Warsaw traffic). Oh, and I forgot to mention: one of the symptoms is that it does not run well when cold right after starting the engine - needs plenty of revs to get going.

I was driving it yesterday in a torrential rain so can't really be so sure, but from what I could tell it felt much more responsive and smooth now. Another test drive planned for today

[sam_a156]

Quote: Originally Posted by roland2003 (original)

Hi sam, a common error on RR's is calibration of the RPM to roller speed (mph ).
The best way is if the RR software is able to link to the cars ecu through OBD2 link , that way its bang on. The way alot of RR operators do it is to hold it at 3000rpm in whatever gear your using on the rollers and enter that. ....there is scope for error doing it this way. Power v rpm on the plot will then be wrong.
Are they correcting for ambient temp/ambient pressure and charge air temp. Or have they got a fan that replicates 'on the road' charge air temps?

Oh, that must be it. In fact I saw him doing that before the actual run: revving the car to about 3-4k rpm. That explains the "shifting" of the curve on the 2nd run.

To my knowledge no ambient temp/ambient pressure corrections were applied. They naturally have a fan, but I seriously doubt it would adjust the air temp.

The thing is, that you have to appreciate that I have a little communication problem with the local folks as my Polish is limited to ordering in a restaurant...and their English (not to mention Finnish) is likewise often not very fluent. When tuning using the sign language things may get lost in translation.

[Dr Obnxs]

Roland mentioned some of this

RPM. Use a RPM pick-up as the OBD port is slow. While you can run diagnostics off it, it's slow so it's hard to get as many data points as you want.

IATs this is the largest indicator of repeatable runs. If this starts to climb, your power will drop. If it climbs a lot, you will loose tons of power, as eventually the ECU will dump fuel to cool combustion.

Timing. Watch the timing. On dynos, it's pretty easy to get some timing retard. While there are signatrues in the dyno curve, it's best to get this data so that you can SEE if you get some retardation in timing. The knock sensor loop will pull timing very agressively if it detects anything, and then your power will go down the toilette. Also, knowing total advance at red-line can be a way (even without pull) to look at car to car variations.

Manifold pressure. While not that importante per se, you should see about as much MAP pressure (boost plus atmostpheric pressure) on each run, and this can be a tell if your starting to leak or the bypass valve isn't closing fully.

Gear you run in. Different gears turn different parts of the drivetrain at different rates for a given RPM. This will lead to different effective masses. There is no right gear here, but you should do it in the same gear if you want to compare.

And lastly, depending on the dyno you use, the RPM ramp speed. If it's an inertial, you're just stuck with how fast the speed changes. But if it's a dynamic load dyno, a faster RPM ramp will show lower HP than a slower RPM ramp. This has to do with the energy in the rotating parts, and how much time it takes to get those parts to speed.

Matt

[sam_a156]

Ok, now let me first understand myself what Roland, 1320autos and DrObnxs said...and then translate all that into Polish...

More seriously, very interesting. I will be better equipped for my next visit.THX.