Lith

Looks awesome man, look forward to seeing how this comes out once it's running - the VCT RB25/RB30 combo with a sensible turbo makes for a really really nice street setup too

Been many a moon since I've come onto OldSchool but I decided to come back and stalk the update posts for you and @sheepers because I knew big things had been going on Super super super stoked still to read over the build on this again with the antics of a couple of weeks ago pretty fresh in memory. Was just great to hear the noises this thing makes, the way it's presented and to get to go for a drive around and generally experience how brilliantly the whole thing has come together. It is ideal that you stuck with it and taken it to the point it is now, it was honestly a real happy time seeing Richy chuckles and stoked faces as it became clear that it all was working and was going to be a hilariously fun outcome. The trip was never going to be a chore, its always choice catching up and I love playing with cars like this but being able to add a tiny piece of the puzzle that has a tangible effect on the final package of this thing makes me warm inside. Awesome work with the build, man. Its such a great car and I think that as much as it looks great in pics, the thing needs to be seen or experienced in person to realise how bloody on point the whole thing is.

That is an excellent result sir! Impressed with the spool especially, wasn't sure if it was going to be able to push out to the left. As is obvious to all, that's gonna be a terrifying and hilarious experience to drive

Poor old Hypergear definitely earned its keep trying to feed the 2JZ! Be interesting to see how the G30 goes on it!

I've been aware of his shenanigans 4ages

That unicorn looks like it's seen some shit

I'm just been lurking this thread for ages, haven't felt like I've had too much to offer but there is something that I feel maybe relevant to this "off throttle" stuff is that the "off throttle" area of the map is diabolical to get tuning accurate for using a lot of the popular tuning methods when dealing with VE tuning. As such, most of the maps I see I feel are likely to be dumping excessive (like not just slightly too much, but massively) amounts of fuel in some of the very low load areas of the map and people may or may not be aware that their map is doing that, it kindof feels to me like that "over-run fuel cut" feature could almost be seen as a band aid to this kind of thing. I don't know if anyone has played with modern Ford ECUs or not, but they don't run conventional fuel maps/VE tables. Instead, they require a slope and offset to be defined for airflow vs pressure at each rpm and essentially assume that the airflow can overall be defined a increasing as a linear function vs manifold pressure. There are other corrections to "tidy up" things, but the basis of their mass airflow calculation centres on that. The interesting thing about it, is the offset is defined by "Manifold pressure at 0 airmass" - which is an interesting one. Essentially the assumption (or reality...) is that you will not get any fresh airflow through your engine below a given manifold pressure at any given rpm, and it probably goes without saying that the manifold pressure will not be the same for each rpm. If you do a scatter plot of rpm x map after a long session of driving you can see that even with the throttle closed the MAP will consistently stop at a minimum amount, and you get a clear shape through out the rpm range - that point may not be the zero airflow point, but it still paints an interesting picture. Any numbers >0 in the fuel map which are at the 0 airflow manifold pressure, or below that will be infinitely surplus to requirement. Any numbers in the area of the 0 airflow part of the map which are "close" to what the typical cruise load VE numbers are going to be way in excess of what they need to be, as you get close to the 0 airflow pressure the VE numbers should steeply drop off. Here's an example calculated by Paul Yaw for one of his rants on his company blog page: (reference : http://injectordynamics.com/articles/shelby-gt500/ - search for "just maths and physics" and btw, NSFW) Most VE maps I see don't end up looking anything like this, but that is usually not a problem thanks to overrun fuel cut - or the fact that the engine never drews enough of a vacuum to really be too much of a problem. I do try and do my best to get this kind of thing sorted out, and have actually played with just not running overrun fuel cut and instead having the fuel table drop away and zero out at the areas I determine are likely to be "0 airflow" - which granted relies on higher resolution map spacings than you normally see <40kpaA. Guys I've done it for have not complained about fuel consumption and I've actually had it reported back "this is better off/on throttle than stock?!?!"... like unprompted, maybe placebo stuff making to want to find ways of being nice to their tuner, but one way or another at least my fucking around with this has been interesting. What I don't like about the magical "injector off at x map" thing is that you have to tinker around to progressively phase timing in or out to try and alleviate any jerkiness if the injector off thing happens at an inconvenient point, and of course the pressure where shutting the injectors off at may be optimal at different pressures at different rpm - as above. Of course there is another thing, if you are at air speeds where wall wetting is a big factor and then you shut the injectors off, you lose your puddle... so when you turn them on again you need to rebuild that as well. Keeping this balance nice at air speeds could arguably make it nicer to drive and also save some fuel that could be wasted from the driver ending up driving around weird transient torque things. TL;DR? But just thoughts/observations/experiments I've played with and still ponder on, sorry if it's actually no new news - I was triggered by "fumes" and "big difference in fuel consumption"

There are some stories of skullduggery which could explain some similarities in the software between Links and Emtrons, but like it or not the Emtron is a different product from a different brand and a definite level up from the Link... while Vipec being "very much a Link" is actually because they are Links.

I've been quietly lurking this thread for ages, haven't really had much to add but definitely have to agree with all this from what I've seen so far. I've not been able to convince anyone to be a modular ECU guinea pig so haven't had much need to do more than have a bit of a fiddle with the software as Andy sent me some things to look over with IMAP/EMAP data & mapping to aid with a convo we were having - in my limited time playing with it I managed to give his devs a couple of bugs to look over, one being a consistent crash I managed to bring up. I'd expect the firmware is more stable than that, but being a dev myself things like that do get my heckles up somewhat but they don't have a bad rep so I'm sure I just managed to catch it at a bad moment. There is some very cool stuff going on with the Modular ECUs, and the fuel modelling etc is much nicer than what a lot of people would be used to when using "popular" choices... I'd say certain aspects are much more like what you'd expect with Emtron/Motec than Link/Haltech stuff - if you've played with such things. It's definitely a thing I'd love to play with more. They don't seem to be an "entry level" ECU like some would imagine. Prices: https://adaptronicecu.com/collections/all-ecus Someone buy one and tell us how they go I don't have an appropriate car myself, so all I can offer this discussion is all care and no responsibility.

I wouldn't actually try and push it for 400kw personally, I guess I'm a pussy like that though I'm guessing it won't let you anyway. Best of luck for today, really hope it all goes smoothly and happy Sheepers noises emanate from somewhere in Auckland later today!

Man, I heard from Richy about what happened - so gutted! Epic how fast you got the show on the road again, though. Are you still running that turbo we discussed ages ago? Was only really expecting that to be used at about 20psi for a fairly responsive setup on a bone stock 1JZGTE, I wouldn't be aiming for 400kw on a hearty 2JZGTE setup with it... even if it somehow managed to actually made that power Hope you have better luck with this weeks tune, it was insane with the 1JZ - the 2JZ should be hilarious with any amount of power haha

I only use 4.9... last one I bought was last year from NZ Performance and at the time the price was very sharp relatively speaking and I often find if I order that kind of thing from them it arrives within 24 hours. I haven't checked current pricing though

I only use 4.9... last one I bought was last year from NZ Performance and at the time the price was very sharp relatively speaking and I often find if I order that kind of thing from them it arrives within 24 hours. I haven't checked current pricing though

PWM fuel pump controllers, enough pump for over 1000hp @ wheels, not more excessive fabrication than you'd normally need for a fuel system big enough to make that power and when normal driving you don't have to feel like you are in a dental surgery and your fuel doesn't end up needing it's own radiator.

Really interesting amount of variation... I think thats more than I got, maybe there could be the occasional outlier but it'd be easy to tell if it was a dodgy reading. Decent power, though - how did the drags go? Speaking of drags, the Torana with the Megasquirt I tuned a few months ago hit the strip a couple weekends ago and had a issues with a clutch not being up to it and being driven through but he did manage to get a 12.0 @ 118mph in the only run where it didn't COMPLETELY drive through the clutch, basically driving off the line. Should be able to go mid/low 11s with a good launch and all the torque getting through the transmission methinks

I don't have anything to enter, if I did I would have spoke up - I'd be interested in checking it out... but I'm guessing that's not what OP is talking about.

Was quietly watching this, I'm guessing it's not going to be a thing?

Hadn't really thought about those advantages of e-throttle, that's really cool- at least for when tuning a naturally aspirated motor

Yeah as far as I know they had always been solid, I think there was a period a few years ago where they got lumped in with the XSPower turbos of the world if not actually had a cheaper knock off copy made of them but I haven't heard of anyone having any issues with the legit Brazilian ones. Their range used to just be T-series Garrett copies which meant nothing special performance wise but this thing with their own wheel designs seems good so far. It has already been running with it for a couple years or so and I know a few others running them without issue so guessing they must be ok

Yeah it's pretty hearty power, though not really anything too unheadrd of - the thing which really impressed me most is a cheap basic turbo like that being able to supply 200kw @ wheels as early as 3700rpm while also being able to make 368kw - with change. Not street legal so rolled straight off the dyno onto the trailer, and it's next track outing is next month so going to have to be patient

Nice work with the start up/idle stuff, can be some of the bigger headf*cks when tuning at times It's strangely rewarding tuning something that just runs and drives like a normal car, haha. Yay after this rant I ended up tuning a mate's Skyline which had a nicely setup fuel system (yay, ID1000s etc) so I was cautiously hopeful that things might go nicer than some of the recent outings I've had have gone. This tune was EASY, biggest stress was that it's a stock and already pretty well used RB25 and the owner wanted pretty serious solid power considering it's used exclusively for track racing. Everything went pretty smoothly and settled on 21psi on E85, and I'm pretty impressed with the power delivery: This is with a pretty cheap Masterpower R595 turbo with a .63a/r hotside on knock off intake and exhaust manifolds and the thing was still happily picking up more power with additional boost (17-21psi went from 326kw to 368kw), the gate was opening at ~.9bar at comfortably under 3500rpm and 21psi it was still opening by 4000rpm so very decent performance for the price - well impressed and would seriously consider these things as a viable budget option after this performance.

Have you tried adding pre-crank priming (if you have the option)? Freezing condition cold starts are always going to be a prick and there will be a point where it's impossible to make it start perfectly, but thought I'd throw that in there as it definitely helped those kinds of starts a lot for me.

Only got a moment so this might not be nicely worded, sorry... hopefully this is on track and gives something to ponder on in regards to warm up tuning (inc. target rpm). Wall wetting in general is substantially worse with a fully cold motor, I tend to think of it that the whole warm up process is generally less efficient as the fuel is pretty content to condense with far less provocation and the air/fuel mixture won't mix as evenly etc etc. Everything is far from ideal. I guess unless you want to get into it further, the way I tend to think of it to not get into a mindf*ck is that you have to generate a minimum amount of torque required to maintain a given stable idle speed. As your engine warms up it's BSFC (ie, ability to make a given amount of power from a given amount of fuel) is greatly reduced and typically this means you often also need more air to make a given power level. What you'll find with a colder motor is you'll need more input from your IACV (/ more airflow) to hold a stable 1000rpm - but you can technically still hold those rpm, which if you have an already nicely set up closed loop IACV setup may hide from you a bit the fact that you're actually using more air to make the same torque. The trick here is that you can probably make most warmed up engines idle smoothly and happily at 800rpm, but what if when they are operating at this reduced state of efficiency they don't actually have enough efficiency to generate the torque to maintain a nice happy idle at 800rpm? Like maybe it CAN idle at 800rpm but realistically you get to the point where you either add no more air and have an engine which is putting it's back into it to just manage 800rpm, or it will suddenly start revving higher. I tend to choose ALL of my idle conditions (including warm up) such that at all points the engine has a reasonable amount of "spare torque" (ie, will rev up cleanly from) those points at MBT and then have the timing control set up to having it idling at 90% of that, for sake of argument. What that means is the engine is moving more air than it actually needs to idle and warms up quicker (where relevant) but also if the throttle is leaned on then I can reintroduce the full timing for MBT and create the torque the engine CAN make there - results in a far more authoritative idle and also a very response/smooth to drive car. If you have it at max torque just to maintain an idle you can get a bit of a hesitant or generally not very nice car to drive. More rpm naturally get all the lubing stuff etc moving quicker too, I tend to think of a higher idle at warm up full of positives I am guessing the OEM are using similar logic, though 2000rpm seems excessive. Hope that makes sense, sorry it was a bit rushed so feel free to correct me if I've said something dumb or unclear or even not answered the right question!

Making flex fuel work nicely with a G4 Link is non-trivial, I'd only do it if you were fully prepared to go with all the bells and whistles (big pump, injectors, PTFE lines etc) and ready to do a whole pile of tuning work.... rewarding if you are down for that, but. I'd be tempted to go warning for fuel pressure if the thing is primarily a track car, pretty boring and maybe I am just in a paranoid kind of mood after fuel pressure night mares but in terms of something you are going to be caning hard and doing lots of g-force "boring" and "predictable" is exactly how you want your engine function to be.

Bummer, that's interesting that it's pretty common. What happens on Altezzas when it happens, do they throw a check light and/or go into some kind of limp mode? I have been having a complete nightmare of a time with tuning lately, so far over half of the cars I've tuned in recent months have had fuel delivery issues and I am getting over it. Two Skylines, one with Trademe "brand new flowtested high flow injectors" and one with an engine from another car - both with lean misses at idle with reasonable rich measured AFRs, check plugs and things seem off. I bailed on both tunes, both guys understandably unhappy and it's a hard call being a non-professional/mate doing it for the love of it and saying "I'm pretty sure this thing which shouldn't happen is happening but honestly I know what I'm doing k?" - one of them sent his injectors to get flow tested and cleaned and semi-frustratingly the company testing them stopped before doing the full set because apparently they were all over the show but we didn't get a full set of data because they just decided to clean them and say they were all good. Oh yeah, one of these Skylines it was my second attempt on the dyno at as the previous attempt was aborted due to the old fuel pump not keeping up. A WRX that someone played around with a split fuel rail setup did basically the same symptoms, both running stock FPRs but one had a kink in the return line causing a creeping fuel pressure on one bank. All sounds like it wasn't stressful when I announce what the issue is, it's not fun when you have f-all time to get the car tuned and ready for an event and at the time you are trying to tune it you don't know that's what is going on, but you need to know and obvious end up working it out. Another Skyline which I have been helping for ages now and have systematically found ALL the problems you could think of with it, none engine related (yet? :/) due to shit parts and dodgy workmanship. Most recently it seemed like everything was finally sorted so did a check over, set base pressure to 45psi and did a road tune on it to make sure it was driveable and all systems seemed go - was happy with that so set aside another session to get it dialled in with a soft road tune at full boost to make sure everything looked good to book a dyno and get the damn thing out of my hair. Yesterday was the follow up session, was excited that it was going to be it - hooked up the laptop and didn't really do a full check over because the car supposedly hadn't been touched since last time I was there.... car hard started then idled lean and the more I looked into it the clearer it was that the whole map was out of whack in a lean sense. WTF? Checked the fuel pressure, it was ~6psi lower than the last time I was there - apparently nothing had been touched, everything seemed tight. WTF. Trademe-spec FPR, not sure what the cause is but threw my toys politely and have left him to work out why it's changed or replace everything or maybe gtfo and find a professional who gets paid good money for this kind of thing. THEN a Silvia (flex-fuel, yay!) which I have done tuning duties for from the point it was put together in 2011 and I had recently been happily celebrating the fact it has been running reliably for several years on a stock motor and probably one of the first (if not the first?) aftermarket flexfuel cars in NZ and it's been so long since I've touched the fuel tables etc that I hardly remember how they all look - decided to set up closed loop boost control to experiment with as I've never bothered with it before and we thought there could be some benefit, he took it out for a thrash with my changes and the boost control experiment seemed to work but the thing was running ~13.4:1 at WOT. Wtf???? Checked the logs, injector duty cycle was where it should be for the boost, rpm and ethanol content - something mechanical has changed. Great. Checked base pressure, that was also where it should be. Greeeeeat. He pulled a bunch of stuff apart and checked over things and everything seemed fine, replaced fuel filter etc then took it for a test run and still lean. Grrr. Decided to replace the vacuum hose to the FPR just because with all other things eliminated the symptoms pointed to fuel pressure but we had no means of checking it on boost at this stage, took it for another run and BOOM! all is mint again, though there was no obvious signs on the piece of hose that there should be an issue. Apologies for the rant, but bloody hell...wtf have I done to ask for this? People, don't skimp on fuel system parts. Buy "genuine" injectors and ideally make sure they all flow evenly, same goes for good fuel pressure regs, use suitable hoses and whatever else you have involved in fuel transportation, if you can get a fuel pressure sensor and wire it into your ECU for logging/warning lights, and make sure the fuel system you have chosen is suited to the application. If there is ANYTHING you spend the money on with a build you want to not have problems with, get the fuel system sorted. <deep breath> Hope everything is going a bit better with everyone else!