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View Full Version : EcuFlash - Finally got some time with it today...



earlyapex
06-03-2006, 11:20 PM
Hey all,

So Mike was kind enough to let me borrow his lap top so I could finally get some time with EcuFlash today.

Unfortunatly I picked a really bad day to tune my car since it was about 90F+ on the Gruppe-S dyno. :shock: But, it was a good learning session to get myself more familar with EcuFlash. I spent about 3.5hrs and about 25 dyno pulls messing around with EcuFlash. Very cool piece of tech.

I zeroed out my EcuPlus piggyback. 0 timing changes, 0 fuel changes. Only thing I kept on was knock compensation for safety and I also used EcuPlus to log all my pulls.

First off, I tweaked the Injector scaling and also the injector battery voltage compensation since I run 720cc injectors.

I did about 4-5 runs to 4000-4500 RPM just to make sure AFRS where in check. I also monitored my fuel trims at idle and cruise to make sure the LTFT / STFT where in spec.

The car ran pretty lean the first 2 pulls with no fuel and timing changes. Around 11.7-12.4 AFR. This was to be expected since the stock fuel / timing settings are well, for a stock car. Mine isn't stock. ;)

First thing I noticed with the EcuFlash fuel tables is that the AFR numbers in the table do not match up with what the cars actual AFR output. These are meant for a bone stock EVO and even then I don't think the AFR numbers would match. This is a very important thing to know. You cannot go into the maps and input 11.1 AFR if that is your target AFR to tune. Your car will run bloody lean. Basically ignore the numbers and think of the whole map as a matrix that you can slide rich or slide lean. Smoothness counts here just like any other method of tuning.

So I basically richened it up globally and did a couple more pulls. I started to see that a Flash is ALOT more consistant run to run then a piggyback is. The car was still running a bit lean on spool and in the mid range then became pig rich up top. Sounds like what a stock evo does right? ;) I think my baseline after getting the AFRs in the safe range was approx 253whp/234trq. This was with about a 11.5-11.6 on spool and peak torque going to about 10.2 AFR up top.

Then I started doing full pulls and tuned for about 2hrs. :lol: Once I got my AFRs up to a nice strong and very consistant 11.1-11.2 I started messing with the timing tables. With the tables at stock I was running very very low timing, about -1 to 1 degree advance at peak torque and about 16-17 degrees up top.

I slowly added a degree of timing at various places in the RPM band and worked my way up to getting about 4 to 5 degrees advance at peak torque to about 18 to 19 degrees advance up top. At this point the car and the room was just way too hot and full of dirty air to continue tweaking. The car started knocking and the TQ and HP refused to advance and on some pulls even dropped. I decided to call it a day, or night at this point. :lol:

Here is where I left off... to be continued of course. ;) Please remember it was just reallly really hot (90F +) and the car refused to make any decent trq numbers because of it. Hell, I am suprised I made this much HP! The curves are really the thing to look at here.

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/dyno/dyno_ecuflash_06_03_06/dyno_chart01.jpg

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/dyno/dyno_ecuflash_06_03_06/dyno_chart01_AFR.jpg

Overall I am very very happy with this piece of tech. The car is much much smoother now then with the piggyback and I am sure alot of that has to do with properly scaled injectors. The car is also much more consistant pull to pull. Once I got my AFR locked in, the AFR and the plot of the AFR was rock solid pull after pull.

I still have a bunch of playing to do with this before I am 100% satisfied and I also want a day that isn't 90F on the dyno to really see what EcuFlash can do number wise. I think Andy showed this potential well in his findings.

One big thing I noticed on the drive home is the AFRs actually got leaner on the street, which is usually the opposite of what has happened to me before. The AFRs hit about 11.8-11.6 on 3rd and 4th gear pulls which leads me to believe the loads changed. So I need to continue tweaking the car to at least make it safer in my eyes.

Here are my stock and tweaked Fuel and timing maps from today. Noticed that the target AFRs on the maps do not match the actual AFR output of the car like I noted above.

stock maps:

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/dyno/dyno_ecuflash_06_03_06/fuel_timing_stock.gif

Tweaked maps:

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/dyno/dyno_ecuflash_06_03_06/fuel_timing_modified.gif

Cheers, and a big thinks to Mike like always for the use of his laptop, getting me some dyno time in his busy schedule and also for some tips.

EV0LL
06-04-2006, 01:22 AM
One big thing I noticed on the drive home is the AFRs actually got leaner on the street, which is usually the opposite of what has happened to me before. The AFRs hit about 11.8-11.6 on 3rd and 4th gear pulls which leads me to believe the loads changed. So I need to continue tweaking the car to at least make it safer in my eyes.

Could it be that, by the time you were driving home, it was much cooler outside, certainly moreso than it was on the dyno, and that's wny you are seeing a leaner AFR on the street?

(I'd also wager you are getting better airflow to the engine. etc.)

EFIxMR
06-04-2006, 01:51 AM
Nice work! have you been able to correlate your ECU plus datalogs to the load axis to find out exactly how many hertz of MAF freq = what load % and approximately what boost?

I'm working on something right now that will possibly work, but im too tired to finish soldering and wiring it all. Still at the shop and its 1:51 am.

ace33joe
06-04-2006, 02:43 AM
Great article!

Matz
06-04-2006, 06:45 AM
Wow, nice work, Bryan! I guess this also answers my previous post's question about your laptop. I can help you out with that.

Care to divulge your injector settings? :) How much are you paying for dyno time?

whtrice
06-04-2006, 11:55 AM
Great job and super info...Hope to be able to dabble in it someday. Just still getting used to my flash and what its done. Since temp has gone up after the install..I know it runs* different ( all old school seat of pants, audible and visual ques). Sure temp was a factor for you* that day and the testing info gives you the info you need for the warmer climate we are going through. Heck, we drive all weather vehicles and the tunes should be "tested" at different* temps. Sure thats what WORKS* rd folks did*before they put their tunes out.
Thanxs again look forward to your continued tuning exploits!

GST
06-04-2006, 12:50 PM
Hey Bryan, check your wideband out mate. I remember it was a little odd at times on the dyno as well as I don't think it should have ran any leaner on the street than on the dyno.

Glad you had fun and let me know on those long term trims as the others we tested I can only assume don't check that stuff on a regular basis thus have nothing to update me with.

Mike

earlyapex
06-04-2006, 03:09 PM
Ok did some ECUplus logs today. Did a couple pulls with the exact same tune I rolled off the dyno with last night and a couple pulls after I adding some fuel via the ecuplus piggyback since:

A. I don't have a WinXP laptop to run EcuFlash on yet so reflashing with tweaked maps wasn't an option.
B. I wasn't comfortable running 11.5-11.8 AFRS on 91 octane.

So it's a bandaid for now until I can reflash the car again.

Here is a log overlay of before(same tune as last night) and after (adding 2 to 3 points of fuel via EcuPlus). Notice the timing is almost exactly the same on both runs but the AFR on the before is much higher.

(since NCE resizes the images, argh!, just right click and view in a new window to see them unmolested)

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/dyno/dyno_ecuflash_06_03_06/logs/day_after_ecuplus_tweaks/ecuplus_log_before_after.gif

Here is a log of just after

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/dyno/dyno_ecuflash_06_03_06/logs/day_after_ecuplus_tweaks/ecuplus_log_after.gif

Here is a street dyno comparison of before and after, again keep in mind the timing was almost exactly the same but the AFR is richer by about .2 to .3. I gained HP and TQ by just richening the car up a bit:

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/dyno/dyno_ecuflash_06_03_06/logs/day_after_ecuplus_tweaks/ecuplus_dyno_before_after_n.gif

KevOVIII
06-05-2006, 01:13 PM
Saturday was CRAZY hot in Hayward. Glad you finally had a chance to play with the software on a car.

trinydex
06-05-2006, 03:29 PM
efi mentioned in his tutorial that there are certain map regions and you "read tehm clockwise... i didn't get that part...

seems you don't touch the maps anywhere but around the diagonal line running from lower left to upper right (what is seen as the white region in your map) and the surrounding values.

can someone help me understand?

earlyapex
06-05-2006, 04:05 PM
efi mentioned in his tutorial that there are certain map regions and you "read tehm clockwise... i didn't get that part...

seems you don't touch the maps anywhere but around the diagonal line running from lower left to upper right (what is seen as the white region in your map) and the surrounding values.

can someone help me understand?


From what I was seeing from my logs, and my timing "curve" espically, here is roughly the curves I am imagining it is taking through the map cells, although the timing curve is a little more aggressive after 4500, I just don't feel like redrawing the line, imagine it curve in to the left more. ;)

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/dyno/dyno_ecuflash_06_03_06/ecuflash_cell_path.gif

trinydex
06-05-2006, 05:21 PM
so the load goes down after about 7500? is this due to boost taper?

vtluu
06-05-2006, 05:38 PM
Remember, "load" is boost. Or rather, it's absolute manifold pressure. So normal atmospheric pressure (1 atm) is 101 kPa (kilopascals, which is what the "Load" axis is in). Everything below (left of) 101 kPa is vacuum, above (right of) 101 kPa is boost. 260 kPa corresponds to 23.0 psi of boost. (I'm not sure what you do if you run more boost than that; change the load axis to cover a greater range?) So if you follow the line that Bryan's drawn, at about 3000 RPM pressure goes from vacuum to boost (turbo starts spooling) and full boost is achieved at 3500 RPM. (The drawn line is an approximate illustration, obviously.) Then boost tapers as you go towards redline which is why the plot curves to the left.

earlyapex
06-05-2006, 05:53 PM
It's actually more then just boost pressure, it is taking info from the MAF (which is pretty much related to air flow) map sensor, etc etc.

I'm not sure what all exactly the ECU is computing load from though. There is a conversation about this on EVOM and OpenEcu.org.

trinydex
06-05-2006, 06:41 PM
so what do you do if you run more boost? use a piggy back and do some tricky tricky?

EFIxMR
06-05-2006, 07:08 PM
i actually have mine rescaled higher. no problems so far i believe mine goes to 280+ off the top of my head.

KareBearPowa
06-13-2006, 11:58 PM
Figured I would add this before I get banned. Enjoy.

So I got my hands back on a WinXP laptop today to make some tweaks to my maps.

I basically smoothed out the Fuel Map, richened it up a bit since I was running a bit too lean for me to be comfortable and I also smoothed out my Timing maps:

Before (my tune from the dyno on 06-03-06):

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/evo_tunes/me/06_10_06/DynoTune_map06_03_06.gif

After (today 6-10-06):

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/evo_tunes/me/06_10_06/StreetTune_map06_10_06.gif

Street dyno comparison (looks like the changes made a difference):

http://www.norcalmotorsports.org/users/bryan/mods/EVO/evo_tunes/me/06_10_06/streetdyno_compare06_10_06.gif

I am getting back on the dyno again this weekend to do some fine tuning and retune for 100 octane.

Matz
06-14-2006, 06:58 AM
Wow, richening it up made a huge difference. Cool stuff.

KareBearPowa
06-14-2006, 10:44 AM
Thanks to whoever resized the images so they aren't all jacked anymore.

KareBearPowa
06-14-2006, 10:45 AM
Wow, richening it up made a huge difference.* Cool stuff.


More timing too. ;)

300kpa
06-16-2006, 12:33 AM
Nice work! FWIW, my car barely touches load 260 even at 25psi. And my car doesn't like timing at all! I could only get about 4deg of timing even with aids of 50/50 injection (at 25psi though).