not the normal torque limiter question...
 

planning on supercharging my puma and while researching something else i stumbled across a thread about the torque limiter and read that it retards the timing in 1st gear. now ive got no interest in removing it, however, im wondering if its possible to have it engage it permanently, or semi permanently, in order retard the timing to allow me to safely run the boost pressure.

i know the function works by the ecu calculating rpm/speed so not sure its gonna be particularly straight forward but surely possible? somehow regulating the voltage the ecu sees.

anyone got any ideas?

You need a remap of your ecu - at least.
Otherwise the resuls will be far from satisfactory to out-right dangerous for the engine.

You may also need some new parts like injectors, fuel pump etc., etc.

not necessarily. one of the options im considering is keeping the std map and using an auxillary fuel pressure regulator to increase fuel pressure and therefore fueling. this seems to work and be reliable on low boost conversions, alot of mx5 conversions (one my mate did infact) run this way and are perfectly reliable, perhaps not perfectly tuned and optimised for fuel efficiency and power but safe. having done enough research on that im happy itd work but itd mean the car would only run std ignition advance which would limit the level of boost i could run, and to be a little bit safer i wondered if there was any way of manipulating the torque limiter function to add a little bit of ignition retard, hence my question.....

Good luck.

cheers :cry:

Depending on how much power you want to run, & how much boost, you won't need to retard timing. I ran 7psi on a turbo without retarding timing, & it worked fine. But this was on a lower compression ratio 8.5:1. But you don't need to retard timing as much with an SC as the EGT's and cylinder temps won't be as high as a turbo.

What you are suggesting is possible, however I believe there are simpler ways to retard timing, but its not advised. Firstly, you would need a pulse frequency modifying tool, that can take the frequency and adjust it, they are available from the Jaycar website as a kit. But the torque limiter is based on speed, so the signal you would have to modify is the speedo signal, and you would need to modify it to read below around 20mph. So you can build a voltage operated switch that will turn on at a preset voltage, then use a MAP sensor to give that voltage. You would just need to find the frequency of the VSS at low speed, and transfer the same signal to the ecu.

The simpler way would be to just use a megajolt & piggy back the standard ECU, and have it retard the timing on boost, then you have complete control over spark timing!

But, if you know how to tune an engine, you will know that the more you retard spark timing, the more fuel is required!! So the more you retard timing, the leaner the mixture becomes, not good on a high compression engine with boost.

So my advice would be either keep it below 5psi (5psi on an SC is more power then you might think), and use standard management, or go for a 5th injector & piggyback ecu to retard timing and give you the retard and extra fuel you need.