What have you done with your pulsar today?

Cathode

Active Member
In regards to beer, much prefer Peroni, Tiger and dare I say....... Budweiser ice cold. Dont judge me!!!!!
 

Eng1

Member
Budweiser!!! You have been judged and found wanting!!
Spent 5 years in Germany and tried the lot , very good beer , but nothing compares with proper draught Czech beer at 50p a pint .
So good I bought a house near Prague ,
Just next door is a pub , I remember going in but strangely never remember how I got home ,every time I go in
 

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
Awesome news mate, glad its made its 1st trip out.

My pistons have arrived and block will be going to the shop next week for the start of its rebuild!
Glad it's moving forward Andy, hopefully yours will take less time than mine to rebuild! Let me know if you need a hand. Getting on top of house projects so should start to have more time after we meet in Sept
 

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
Took car out yesterday after nearly a month off from other distractions and mapped fuelling up to 70mph cruise and smoothed everything from 30mph. I'm running grade 6 plugs as all it's doing is light load and the grade 8's were getting sooted up too quickly which was causing misfires which made the mapping tricky.

I'd forgotten how many rattles the car has. I'm trying to build confidence in the car after so long off the road. Will keep extending the distance, speed, load each time.

I'll have a couple more rounds of the "daily duties" map to smooth out the fuelling but already it's starting run much better. After that I'll dump the oil, change the plugs and start to look at more rev/load/boost mapping
 

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
It's getting a bit old now but still got the Apexi PowerFC pro installed. The PowerFC connect to the Apexi boost controller which is adequate up to 1.9bar. The datalogit also connects to an AEM wideband Lambda sensor which again is adequate.

The Datalogit collects all the data at one interface which I connect to a microsoft tablet over USB. I recently treated myself to this and it's much less cumbersome to manage in car mapping than with a laptop.

The data logs are collected in the datalogit software which I export to a custom excel file which references actual AFR to target across the log and recommends adjustments. I check they make sense, copy paste to the datalogit software and download to the ECU.

Repeat a few times and incrementally the fuelling map takes shape, smoothing out any lumps and bumps.

There are more modern ECU's out there that do all this for you and have better closed loop control but would need installing and setting up so for me it's better to stick with what I have which is good enough.
 

Jon Olds

Well-Known Member
Got a (rally/race) car to map soon with an Omex ECU, got the initial tweeks done so it starts, ticks over, revs unloaded and warms up properly.
Next is getting some on road mapping done, so interested in anybodies recomendations regarding data logging, as above.
I'm guessing I need rpm, AFR, throttle position plus one or two more as my starting point
Jon
 

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
Does the ECU come with a base map for the car. If the ignition map is not crazy then you can focus on tuning the AFR's though the fuel map.

Assuming you've still got the MAF sensor then load/rpm/fuel are the main indicators.

If in doubt, give the car to someone else who understands Omex. I've never used it but I'm sure it will do the job.
 

Jon Olds

Well-Known Member
Base map, yes, but the bottom end was quite far away, fuelling wise. Ignition wise, I can copy one of my other racers for a starting point, as VW's
don't seem quite as fussy. The intake system is all mix match, Jenvey's etc etc, so no MAF or MAP.
I wish to learn, and as a retired controls engineer should be in a reasonable position to work it all out
Jon
I have some experience, having mapped a standalone Lumenition system nearly 20 years ago, went well (on the rollers, old school way)
 

Cathode

Active Member
Thanks for that run-down Campell. It was interesting for me to read as you and i share the same ECU and data logging but i have yet to install the ECU. At the moment mine is running on a chipped ECU. After my rebuild and of course changing many aspects of the engine from its previous guise, it doesn't run quite as well as it did.

In your opinion, do you think i'd benefit anything by plugging in the Apexi ECU with the commander? In regards to the engine running better? i remember someone saying it has a base map.
 
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campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
Base map, yes, but the bottom end was quite far away, fuelling wise. Ignition wise, I can copy one of my other racers for a starting point, as VW's
don't seem quite as fussy. The intake system is all mix match, Jenvey's etc etc, so no MAF or MAP.
I wish to learn, and as a retired controls engineer should be in a reasonable position to work it all out
Jon
I have some experience, having mapped a standalone Lumenition system nearly 20 years ago, went well (on the rollers, old school way)
Probably need to map with safe afr targets as mapping off the throttle only will be quite coarse. Should be fun though, take your time, start rich and lean off
 

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
Thanks for that run-down Campell. It was interesting for me to read as you and i share the same ECU and data logging but i have yet to install the ECU. At the moment mine is running on a chipped ECU. After my rebuild and of course changing many aspects of the engine from its previous guise, it doesn't run quite as well as it did.

In your opinion, do you think i'd benefit anything by plugging in the Apexi ECU with the commander? In regards to the engine running better? i remember someone saying it has a base map.
If you're running with a modified ECU you then you have a modified map. The apexi ECU you will have have a standardish basemap so would need adjusting or you could damage your car.

Do you have anyone to map your car? What ECU do they prefer to use?
 

Eng1

Member
As soon as you have a turbo car , detonation is the issue , as it can be an instant destruction.
Of course all the other parameters are important , AFR is a guide and not a given as it’s so complex , hence Dyno time as you get feedback and monitoring .
Apexi base map is really to allow starting the car and driving at low load until you get dyno time or on road adjustments done .
The basemap is based on 100 octane jap fuel , so there is the first issue
Det wise variations are many , how carboned up is the engine as this can induce det , what plugs heat range again moves det , the speed and mixing of intake air moves det , boost , oil temp , compression ratio and on and on all move the detonation point , very hard to monitor unless you are on a dyno .
Once you are in a safe map area , road mapping allows you time to study data , real world data , ie real airflow thru the intercooler is used , different ambient temps and pressures , real loads so it has its place .
Either way it can be tense and sometimes a trailer home is the result !
 

stugtir300

Active Member
Put some fuel in her so I can take it for a drive just for the fun of it to burn some fossil fuel,because the world is gonna run out and we're all gonna die,its amazing how many people believe the man on the TV.
 

Cathode

Active Member
Cathode said:
Thanks for that run-down Campell. It was interesting for me to read as you and i share the same ECU and data logging but i have yet to install the ECU. At the moment mine is running on a chipped ECU. After my rebuild and of course changing many aspects of the engine from its previous guise, it doesn't run quite as well as it did.

In your opinion, do you think i'd benefit anything by plugging in the Apexi ECU with the commander? In regards to the engine running
better? i remember someone saying it has a base map.
Campell said:
If you're running with a modified ECU you then you have a modified map. The apexi ECU you will have have a standardish basemap so would need adjusting or you could damage your car.

Do you have anyone to map your car? What ECU do they prefer to use?


Yes, i do have someone to map my car. Mark @ Abbey Motorsport. they have a history of mapping 350s, skylines and GTiR albeit not to frequently these days. I think he knows the Apexi. i'll have to confirm that but i might hook it up and just run it down there for him to have a muck about with.
Having said that, these days they prefer the Link series of ECUs. i'll have a word with him and see what he says.





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Eng1

Member
There are plenty of people who can map a car , the model of car makes little difference the same principles apply .
There are situations such as the car has a known issue , say the gearbox can shit itself , so some in gear torque limiting is needed .
The vast majority of time the engine is running in a cruise mode /part throttle so it’s only really a full throttle and high load map .
At the end of the day you can always leave some power on the table and just run safe ignition and fuel ratios - that’s what I did , left 10-15 hp just to keep away from det .
Even with the perfect map and everything optimised people fail to maintain their car , so much talk of mapping on the internet and yet people don’t change fuel filters or clean injectors , ensure egr is cleaned and working , clean oil out of intercoolers ,keep oil and water systems clean ,decarbonise engines and so on , these all create detonation .
The real value in a dyno is that it’s a health check , as it can show areas that are not 100% , wastegates not working correctly , weak ignition , boost leaks , spikes , oversized/undersized compressor, or intercooler , cam issues ,low compression and other things , that’s where a good mapper is worth the money and why remaps make more power as the stock map caters for wear and tear over the years
 

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
Drove the car the other day after changing the oil and plugs to something more appropriate for boost mapping. First time coming on boost (0.8bar, 3500rpm) and there was strange noise from the engine bay after which the car was running 10 AFR's and I was forced to limp home. Left it in the garage as needed to go on holiday

Came back at the weekend and after much testing, found an intercooler pipe had come away slightly and another pipe was also not fully tightened. Tightened everything back up and took it out for a drive and the map was now lean. I expect this pipe had been loosened during the engine replacement and was leaking air, putting some boost through found the fault. Since the rebuild, all my mapping efforts were just compensating for this air leak. I went back to the last map from before the rebuild and the car ran the best yet. The old map I installed wasn't bad considering there have been changes to the engine during the re-build.

I just bought a new AEM X type lambda to replace my 15 year old gauge/sensor which I fitted over the weekend.

Hopefully the map will just need minor tweaking which is what I had originally expected. on wards and upwards
 

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
@Cathode, I'm not surprised Abbey want to use something else, modern ECU's practically map the fuelling themselves.

In terms of your car's poor running, have you changed the injectors or MAF as part of the rebuild? Those are something you can check quite easily from the commander. Anything more than that and leave it to the expert.

However, as Eng1 said, it could be something else. After my first rebuild I spent forever trying to find a fault in the CAS which the standard ECU didn't worry about but the PFC faulted.
 
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