Roman

Woops... Better not do this again or I'll have some rods coming through the block to say Hi

I'm using it with a Link G4+ Essentially how it works with the Link. You set ignition timing to settings where it definitely isnt causing any knock. And then you measure how much "background noise" the knock sensor naturally makes at each rpm and load combo. Then you add about 20% on top of this as the knock threshold. This is a graph showing the knock threshold (in Red) and the knock sensor output levels on each cylinder in grey and purple at various rpm and load combos as the car drives. If one of the grey or purple lines goes up above the red line, that's how the ECU interprets knock happening and starts pulling timing out. (you can see two examples of this, middle of screen) Only problem is that if you have engine bay rattles or go over big bumps in the road, it can sometimes falsely register as knock. At some load/rpm combos though I find that either the background engine noise is too loud, or the knock sound is too quiet so its hard to distinguish one from the other. I've currently got mine set to run between 1500rpm and 5000rpm, mainly for purpose of advancing timing at cruise conditions for good economy. But still being able to pull timing back to a sensible level if something goes wrong. My understanding is that a 3S with standard crank etc has a "deadzone" where you cant measure knock due to natural block vibrations matching the knock signal somewhere around the 6krpm mark. If you set a maximum ignition retard for knock timing of say 10 degrees, then see that your ECU has pulled 10 degrees timing out at one point. then you know that you need to increase your knock threshold value rather than reduce ignition timing. Because there's no way that an engine would need that much timing pulled out to prevent knock. It's a work in progress for me, still trying to find the best values to work with. Currently running a Bosch style wideband sensor filtered by ECU to the 6khz range.

Yeah that could very well be it. As often I'll have the ECU turned on first, (and the wideband...) to upload an updated tune or whatever for a few minutes. Then crank the car on.

Hmmmm okay thanks. It's sounding more and more like I should have a dedicated relay and set a timer / engine temp conditions in the ECU to switch it on.

It's installed about a meter down stream from the head. The angle of the sensor in both cases is more than 10 degrees "up" as reccomended. I dont have an EGT probe but based on the measurements from the wideband controllers software, it isnt getting too hot. Every time it's failed it hasnt been related to WOT, it does seem more like first starts or cruising conditions. I've probably driven the car for all of 4-5 hours this time, and it's packed up. Lifespan has been getting shorter and shorter with each one. At this rate, soon they will have failed before they are even installed haha.

Soooooo I have tried two seperate mounting locations for the sensor (one exposed into flow, one with just the tip flush with edge of exhaust pipe) Two seperate controllers (Innovate LC-2 and Aim LCU-one) And just burned through my 4th wideband sensor. (1x Bosch 4.2 which lasted the longest, 3x Bosch 4.9) Getting pretty frustrating! The only thing left that I can think of that's causing issues is having the wideband switch on with ignition key rather than when motor starts. The Aim LCUone has some good feedback data about the sensor, it isnt the heater circuit failing, and at WOT, the sensor isnt overheating either. So I'm starting to think that thermal shock is the next likely suspect down the chain. I saw this site: http://wbo2.com/lsu/cases.htm Time to chop the casings off my dud sensors and see what's going on. Rather than crappy information from the WB controller companies I also found a spec sheet for the Bosch sensor from Bosch. Here it notes to never have the sensor running prior to engine starting, so that's probably where I've been going wrong. As another kick in the balls, I bought the analog version of the LCUone because I thought Link couldnt read the wideband through CAN. Then that same day it turns up I was watching an HPacademy webinar where Andre says CAN is way better because you dont get voltage offsets etc giving inaccuracies, and that it works great on Link. Blargh!

Beams motors have bigger valves

It was coming up to dinner time last night and I was mucking around on the laptop Girlfriend: "Hey, how much longer are you going to be drawing graphs in that program for?" Me: "About 20 years" Girlfriend: "Okay"

If you dry sumped it, could you lie a rotary engine over on its side? Seems like a good idea to have the inny/outy parts on the top of the engine rather than crammed around a steering column.

That's a given! Myself and Dad are both heading down from Auckland, most likely in two seperate cars (Carina + JZX90) Not exactly sure on our plans but you're welcome to tag along with us if you can knock off work early on the Thursday. (Leaving akl about 3pm) But not sure if I'll stay for a few days or drive back up (or catch bus home again lel)

Lack of mufflers was not ideal. Side pipes are great though. Keen to try catch up to your Taupo laptime, you've blitzed way past me now.

Says the guy who likes Cheviot Turbos

FD is such a beautiful car. I'm not saying that it's a "pity" that it has a rotary engine, but it's certainly a pity that some people dont like it just because it does.

I've been having a bit of a think about compensation tables lately and how to build them in a meaningful way. I'm not convinced that the default IAT compensation values necessarily suit my engine. But It seems quite dififcult to know how to change it and check the results. But I came up with a good plan. (maybe) Instead of mucking around with the IAT compensation table and randomly changing values. For now I've just turned it off, and all other comp tables. So I'll get the car as heat soaked and high temp as I possibly can, so that the temps of everything are already stable on the "high" side. Then run through my map and get fuel values spot on as best I can. Thennnn let the car cool down completely, start it up and start a datalog once the engine temp reaches say 85deg. The drive around for ages and build up a big datalog file of how the fuel changes over time on account of heatsoak etc. I can add a second fuel table that's an overlay of the main one, and that adds or subtracts from the main table. Buuuuutttttt the interesting part is that it doesnt need to share the same axes on the second table as the main one. So for example my main fuel table works based on rpm and MAP sensor. However on my secondary table I could have it working based on RPM and engine run time. or IAT and engine run time. Or RPM and intake manifold temp sensor readings (if I had one) Or whatever else. Instead of needing to figure out how to build this map. (and whether it makes any sense) I can load the datalog file and use the mixture map table to build the overlay map to fill the 2nd table in. If there's a genuine trend happening, you'll see it in the shape of that overlay map. If it's just random spikes up and down, then I'll try something different for the axes and rinse repeat until I find what it is that causes the trend, without having to run the car at all until I've convinced myself that I've made a worthwhile comp table. Then if this works, I can run the car with that comp table in place and do same thing again to build up the next comp table on top of that (if need be)

Their gas consumption was pretty high in the 1940s.

At first I was like "Why the hell would you go to all of that effort to end up with a weird liveaxle/non liveaxle thing instead of proper IRS" But then realised it had a whole heap of scope for adjustment on all of the suspension links to adjust roll centre, traction from link angles etc that you probably couldnt do with a mac strut or whatever. I dunno, maybe it was still a well engineered stupid idea. But it was definitely something unusual that caught my eye.

Yeah the factory IRS isnt toooooo amazing in these cars. It would be nice to be able to adjust rear camber to keep tire temps even at trackdays though. But it comes with a whole other set of foibles due to lots of toe change through suspension travel etc. Although its less unsprung weight, it's heavier overall compared to live axle. There's a really interesting race car that I saw in NZPC ages ago, it was like a modern Mazda 6 or something converted to RWD. It had a solid beam rear end with a watts linkage, but the diff head was mounted to the body and it had CVs on the driveshafts which lead to the hubs mounted to the solid beam. It was like a live axle setup but with none of the unsprung weight of the diff head.

That side pipe wasnt ideal haha. Cool man, hope you can make it along!

Something interesting about driving with a live axle that I've noticed over the last while. I start going into a corner and the car will roll a bit. But then as roll increases I think the shock on the inside reaches its limit of travel and you can feel it start to pull the diff up off the ground. Something like this It feels like the cars rear roll centre is at the centre of the car to start with, then moves to the outside wheel once the inside wheel starts getting pulled up off the ground. But it's two very noticeable characteristics before the car will lift and inside wheel or start oversteering. You can feel when the car gets to that "wheel lift" point (and try keep the car below that point) well before its lost traction or anything like that. IRS is for quitters

Doooo eettttt Tow the AE86 with your Hilux, then when the hilux blows up on track tow it home with the AE86.

I'm heading to a Taupo trackday, full track on Friday September 2nd... Only $150 for a full day of hooning around! Generally only 25-30 cars total, so the tracktime you get is HEAPS compared to any other event I've ever been to. Anyone else keen to come along? Would be cool to have some other OS peeps there. See link below for details, you just need a car with wof/reg, overalls, and a helmet. It's not a drift day though. If your car lacks wof/reg because it's a dedicated track car or whatever, not necessarily an issue but just need to discuss with the guy running the event. (It's generally fine) http://www.gpforums....s-all-booked-in My old man is gonna bring his JZX90 down for a hoon around as well. Get amongst it!

The time difference of response is bugger all. As an example. A 2000cc 4cyl 4 stroke engine (if non turbo and 100% VE) inhales 1000 litres of air per 1000rpm. So 7000rpm = 7000litres per minute. 2 litre plenum = under 20 milliseconds to empty. A 20 litre plenum, which would be rediculous, (size of 10 milk bottles stuffed in your engine bay somewhere) would still only be 200 milliseconds. A 1.6 litre engine will be 0.8x the times listed above. Human reaction time if you're wired on coffee is just under 1/3rd of a second, (300 milliseconds). You're not going to notice any difference in sound, because all of the sound waves are happening between the plenum and turbo outlet rather than exposed to atmosphere with NA car. Single throttle will be easier to tune as you get a more stable MAP signal, personally if I was going ITB turbo I would fit a MAF Sensor if off boost drivability etc is of concern.

What was it previously?

I finally got my new wideband installed over the weekend. So switched over to modelled fuel. (This models the engine size, injector size, air mass, AFR goal etc etc as part of the fuel equation rather than just numbers on a table) First thing I notice is how stupidly fast I went from nothing to having a mostly sorted fuel map! I believe the numbers in the fuel table represent the engines volumetric efficiency at each rpm/load combination. Which makes it easy to make a base map because for an NA engine you set the WOT row to 100% efficiency and then just drop the numbers down the rest of the map and then interpolate it. Doing this, I had a drivable car that didnt buck or run crazy rich/lean even before I'd driven it. Some spots were quite different (Idle area 70% efficiency at high load, and the peak torque rpm area was about 115%) One thing that's cool that I noticed, is that there is a table with your goal AFR is part of the initial fuel equation. So once your numbers are correct, it's super easy to adjust AFR because you just raise or lower the AFR goal. Rather than, having to adjust an arbitrary number in a table up or down in every cell via 02 feedback, and checking what AFR that results in. Also the engine seems to run smoother for some reason, possibly that this is more accurate lambda readings from the sensor now? Maybe I was previously actually running leaner or something like that. Not sure but it feels really smooth and sounds good which is cool. Running only open loop and tuning just with the Mixture Map I very quickly managed to get a most of the low load cells to a stable 14.7 in a very short period of time. The fuel economy information is dissapointing though, it just gives cc per minute rather than l/100 or k/litre or MPG or whatever. But this still makes life a lot easier. I remember the first time I tried running on modelled fuel setup, it was a total disaster because I had so many of the background settings wrong. But its one of those things, when you've put in the groundwork ahead of time the rest just falls into place. Looking forward to some more tinkering this week!

Does this work for vacuum leaks though, or only boost leaks. Wouldnt the bubbles be happening on the inside, haha.