I was chatting to my brother about a megasquirt ecu earlier, explainined it to him and showed him Stu's technical articles (so bloody helpful stu, thanks again) and we were talking about making our own ecu, as he's a bit of an electronics whizz to say the least (gonna be a PhD the smart arse) and he began to understand what mapping is, he asked me if there was such a thing as a self adjusting map?
Something along the lines of:

1) it keeps the AFR to Lambda 1 all the time, or whatever you set it at, slightly rich, lean, whatever you want. (I thought this is what closed loop is for)
2) Using knock sensors, adjust the spark advance constantly to get an optimum power from the engine.
3) Our own launch control/anti lag

I'm fairly sure this is already done, as my car has knock sensors, so I assume this is what they're for?
Or it could be done, but isnt for some reason?

We were just thinking of something to do, from scratch, between us as a shared project, but I cant see us getting it to work perfectly first time round, and I'm not building new engines every week

Would be cool to design our own ecu though. I suspect its miles harder than we both imagine though.

 

a friend of mine used to have a clio 182 and bought a self learning chip/map for his ecu, think it was k-tec or something and about Ł250-Ł300, made quite an impact though

 

The point about "self learning" is loads do it but you have to tell the ecu in the first place, it is just a setting called target AFR, it can be made to hold this AFR no problem.
That however is NOT the problem, the whole point of mapping is each engine will be slightly different even with same components, so some will need a slight more ignition or less fuel etc than others.
Also max power amd max mpg do NOT occur at the same afr.
Closed loop is useful for protecting cats, but if mapped correctly NOT needed.
tabetha

 

MS does "Autotune", which is basically as you say, a self-learning map. You configure your target AFR table and it fine tunes the table (within the remit you specify) to get there. It's a bit crude but it kinda works. The table needs to be not a million miles out in the first place though.

 

as above. autotune is what this is.

but its only really designed to get a base map that will then need tweaking by an inteligent human being

 

Sorry Tabby but you are partially wrong there. !!

Target AFR can be used to keep a cat happy but its primary objective will either be to deliver power and/or economy.

Also closed loop is good for keep the engine correctly tuned for various loads to preserve fuel and to make final adjustments to take into account engine and components wear.

Maybe not essential but it is needed in this day and age !

 

Isnt what has been described in the first post, known as the 'standard factory ecu'? lol

 

Yes, albeit ones in cars made after around year 1993

 

Closed loop is not going to allow the max power or the max mpg, complete waste of space IMO, but others may need it as they can't map correctly, mine went in the bin, vastly better without it.
tabetha

 

Ha ha, another candidate for our "incorrect quote of the year" topic.

 

This is gonna be a good post.

 

A little light reading for you Tabetha.

Perhaps you should get up to speed with things that us whom dont know how to map actually deal with everyday.

 

I've seen you hint at this in many topics. Who are these 'Others'? Just come out and say it. Making people guess could give other companys a bad name.

Benni.

 

Very kind, thanks, your welcome.


"Closed loop" simply means that its a self correcting circuit that constantly monitors and corrects in a loop. IE: Read/correct/read/correct.

ALL ECU's of the past 16 years do this as standard and many use wideband to allow them to do it outside of stoich. (Even if Tabs doesnt believe me. lol) In fact, some even utilise EGT as well.


Around 65% of ECU's since 1998 have done this as standard. Its called adaptive spark lead. BMW/Siemens are about best at it IMO.


Even aftermarket stuff like Pectel T6 has such features.
Its old technology im afraid. Sorry.

 

tabetha, where do you get all this incorrect information from?

i mean you spend a lot of time with the guy who LITERALLY wrote the book on engine management and still come out with some utter rubbish

 

And for your next NEW invention:




The wheel!

 

You can lead a horse to water, but its quite hard work teaching one about the the trasient fuelling requirements of an engine, once you have though, and fancy a REAL challenge, explain it to tabby.

 

tabetha is hilarious!

he showed up here and tried to become Chip, but has failed miserabley because there isn't any pics of him looking really weird on the internet, and more importantly can't replicate Chips actual knowledge of cars, engines, ECU's, basic maths etc etc


Basically, over the last 2 years, tabetha has been discovered to be a total arse

tabetha, you should quit while you're only this far behind

 

All the Tabetha haters want to behave and keep this lads thread on topic? If his information is wrong, then state why he is wrong and lets have a sensible discussion about it rather than "your wrong, Im right".

I know fuck all on the subject so cant join in but so many threads are ruined on here now by bitching.

Rant over

 

+1

comment on what he says if its wrong, but no point going off chatting about him generally in such a specifically technical thread IMHO

 

Do you really think I lose sleep over rip off cossie tuners, or the opinions of people on here, think you have a few reality checks coming.
I have used msd, and found it to be utter shite, for my car, but give them thier due they did do all they could do to sort it out, but evetually gave a refund with no problems at all.
Sorry unlike 99% of the arse licking pratts on here, I don't have my head shoved up msd's arse.
NMS have just sorted out a recent car that had closed loop done by msd, as IT WOULD NOT EVEN PASS THE EMISSIONS TEST, QUALITY ?
Mind you I am not suckered into paying exorbitant prices at msd either.
Trust me people, I WILL sleep soundly tonight.
Do you really think that anyone who DOES know what they are doing comes on here, get real.
YOU ARE ALL MISSING THE WHOLE POINT, THIS IS A PUBLIC FORUM, not a MSD sales line, and so opinions right or wrong will differ, but tell me when the experts disagree as they do which one is right and more expert than the other ?
tabetha

 

For the record I am not a Tabby hater !!

I think you/me everyone maybe being confused by the term "closed loop".

If we are talking strictly narrow band sensors used for light load trim where max power inst what we are after then you are wrong !
We use it for mpg.

On modern cars that use wideband closed loop .I.E. Target AFR then the loop is used to ensure proper AFR as required by the target map which could be for economy or power as dictated by the tuner's strategy.

Sounds like you dont understand the way ecu's work and/or proper mapping procedures.
You set up an engine TOTALLY without any form of closed loop
(I exclude auto tuning single cell point mapping in this argument)
Then once you are happy with everything, you enable closed loop to look after things.
Providing its mapped correctly in the first place, you wont see a difference except that fuel consumption may be optimised while the engine wears over its life.

 

Have you lot of people not guessed I only come on here sometimes to argue, I enjoy it immensly, your turn now.
tabetha
ps for the record I don't care who is a tabby hater, as I am happy doing what I want anytime I want.

 

I was trying to be neutral in this but if you dont care, why are you here ?

Sounds like you cant take being corrected mate

Also, perhaps you are talking about yourself when you say people on here dont know what they are doing

I can assure you, most on this thread know exactly what they are talking about.
May I suggest YOU listen and learn


As for the "MSD sales line" comment, who on this thread has promoted anything sold by MSD ??? ...... NO ONE

 

What?

 

Did I mention your name Martin ?
You are one of the few I respect, that is why business has been put your way from me, but I am not going to applogise for having an opinion, and don't expect anyone else to either, I welcome it, it would be so boring if we were all of the same opinion, just because someone held up to be a god says so.
tabetha

 

ouch

 

Dont belive that.

You seem to want to help and most of what you say on other threads is good advice.

However, if you say something wrong on a public forum you will get correctd as I have found out too myself

Get over it !

 

You didn't mention my name but I thought you meant Stu was a rip off tuner, I have to say I have found him to be exactly opposite.

 

Where is Chip when you need him LOL

 

Who do you mean? And what relevance have they to this thread that hasn't mentioned any tuners, or tuners products at all?


You have quoted this before, whats your last name so i can pull up the invoice and chip records because i do not recall the incident. Also, how is it relevant to this topic? Seems you jumped on a random topic to slag me off there!

Ok, it no longer seems it, id say its definitely a hate campaign. Poor sod who started this topic hasn't mentioned my company at all bar to say thanks for a fast ford article.


I have sorted out THOUSANDS of cars that wouldn't pass emissions. Does that Mean, Porsche, Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi are all crap? No.. it means they were all faulty. Ha Ha. If a car comes to me, it NEVER leaves with illegal emissions as it is illegal to send a car out on UK roads in such a condition. So Karl fixed a fault.. top man, isn't that his job?


Blimey, another slag stu off statement. I'm surprised!



Yes i do. Karl N, Martin H, Mark S, Simon N, Ahmed B, Harvey G, Rod B, the list goes on... one day i hope to add myself to that list too.


Bang, in he wallops with yet another dig at me for sod all.


Wow, a question, but a cryptic one, which fooking experts disagree and what on?

 

Prob sat on the thrown reading the sun. He'll be back in twenty.

 

I can't help but notice that we've deviated ever so slightly off-topic...

 

cracking thread gromit

 

I am not a Tabetha hater......

I was just pointing out he knows very little, but makes out he knows everytihng!! And on that point, people shouldn't really take in what he's saying.

Anyways. Back to sucking the hairy bumholes of all these rip off tuners

 

im going to get back on topic

i must be honest thats a project i wouldnt wanna undertake myself, im not bad at electronics and im sure with a little research i would have my head on to build one, but its a large project!

theres alot more than meets the eye when it comes to the finer workings of a ecu! calculating crank position is just one very small part, as the crank is never in a steady state

maybe it might be better to buy a megasquirt and re-engineer that for your liking? even though most of what you want is on there anyway!

 

you have no idea of the complexity thats involved mate lol

 

Actually the primary purpose is for emissions

 

LOL, I should have added emissions ASWELL

 

i can only imagine!