Decided to pay a visit to Dale at his workshop outside Telford to get the car mapped etc. As it turned out it was more etc than mapping...
On the way there the evening before the clutch slave cylinder started to leak, would have been fine if it hadn't been stop start traffic from
junction six all the way round to the M40, I reckon the heat did not help. Topping up the reservoir got it working again, but only for a dozen changes
or so, after filling up three times I decided to pull off and wait for the traffic to die down.
An hour later I tried again got to the M40, filled up with petrol and clutch fluid then drove all the way to the M54 Telford junction without changing
gear, two more gear changes to get the 8 miles to Broseley and two more to get parked at the Lion pub/b&b. The landlady was a star, I rocked up at
10pm and she offered to open up the kitchen and make me a hot dinner - no need to punch anyone then.
I'd already let Dale know I had a problem and arranged to get recovered to his workshop if the cylinder died on the way, so in the morning first
thing was to order up a new cylinder then get on with the real work.
Dale does not just throw a car on the rollers and start mapping, he likes to make sure everything looks right before starting that or there is little
point going further. So the first thing is that the ignition map looks wrong, not enough advance and yes the crank sensor position is 10 degrees out,
having a decent strobe that will trigger off the low voltage side of a coil pack helps. We get the Megasquirt code updated as well, I knew it would
need doing but thought it best to wait until I was there rather than do it at home then find the car would not run. Dale put a fuel pressure gauge in
the fuel line earlier and we run the car up and check that the pressure is rising with boost, all looking good. We get going then start to have some
fun with voltages, the MS is seeing less than the injectors and it gets worse as if we turn on the heater etc. Cue some rewiring so that the ecu is on
the same supply as the coils and injectors, not as simple as you would think because that supply is relay switched by the ecu. So an extra relay and
some crimping later and the old ecu supply now switches the ecu, coils and injectors on together on the same power feed.
So off we go and with occasional refills of the clutch reservoir we start to get a good map sorted for base boost. Then we check the boost control
valve works and start to turn things up at which point the car starts to misfire on full load. Dale is dubious about the CBR1000RR coil packs I am
using, in fact he does not like coil on plug at all really, we turn up the dwell on the coils and it helps a bit, but not much, a bit more dwell and
all that happens is the ecu voltage starts to drop again, voltage measured across the battery does not. Basically the supply from the front of the car
is not up to the job, the coils are also probably saturating making it worse.
Out come the crimpers and another relay, this time we take a feed off the starter solenoid switched from the ignition and the ecu, coils and injectors
get another new power feed. My new slave cylinder turns up around now. Off we go again, it is better, but at 14psi it is misfiring again and adding
any more dwell does not make any difference as the coils are clearly saturating. I should point out that we had a discussion about this and as I had a
spare set of cops with me I was happy to try pushing the dwell and accepted we could burn one or more of them out.
Now this is where Dale goes the extra mile, he digs out a Ford edis coil pack and some leads then lashes together some wiring to fire it from my coil
amplifier, we change the plugs, mine have the bike screw thread terminals, change the ecu settings and try again. Once sentence, does not do this
justice, lets just say it was not a five minute job and Dale was totally up for trying this.
The car is not misfiring anymore and Dale starts mapping at higher boost levels, we are discussing the best course of action on how to sort out my
ignition so i'll be able to use this part of the map. As higher levels of boost are reached something is not quite right he is having to increase
the fuel bins too much and the injector cycle is increasing rapidly, I keep an eye on the fuel pressure gauge as he does a run, we need to be hitting
over 60 psi on the fuel rail at this point, as the boost and revs rise I see the pressure pass 56 then suddenly drop below 40, I shout out and he
stops the run. We have reached the limit of what we can do for now, I always knew the pump could be an issue as it was just what was on the car when I
bought it.
The end of the day? No, not really.
We swap back to my ignition coils and find a safe boost level they can cope with then Dale sorts out the closed loop settings, should help with fuel
economy a bit, not that it was bad, but every little helps.
Oh, I swap the new slave cylinder onto the car.
Power? Something around 250 with the Ford coil packs before the fuel pump gave up, probably a bit over 200 with mine, more importantly Dale felt the
engine had a lot more to give, at the point we had to stop every boost increase was just giving more power and even with my rather useless intercooler
the inlet temps were still fine so the turbo is not struggling.
Overall I would describe the day not as a mapping session, rather a development session with someone who really knows his stuff. I might not have
gained a huge amount of power, but the car is running better and I know where to go next, importantly I know where to spend the time and money to do
this.
[Edited on 27/6/15 by Toltec]
Brilliant write up. Dale is a bit of a star...
Sound brilliant, nice write up.
What engine spec is it?
Steve.
quote:
Originally posted by coozer
Sound brilliant, nice write up.
What engine spec is it?
Steve.
Thanks for a great post!
Interesting days work, i enjoy getting to the bottom of any problems that may arise on the dyno, just mapping gets boring!
Engine shows promise - Looking forward to seeing some big BHP when the ignition and fuel system is sorted, I was impressed with how little lag the
turbo had, nice and smooth power.
Bosch 044 pump and MSD ignition 300bhp should be possible, should be quick enough in a light car.
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