Traction Control

[MarkWebb]

Anybody use a traction control system on their car?
Am interested in this but am wary of engine damage.

[spatz]

why, once you have traction control, you must have a decent ECU and you can programm easily what is happening.
As I understand my ECU - once it detects a wheel spin, it will reduce the amount of fuel injected or if you have a fly
by wire setup then reduce this value with again the consequence of reducing fuel and therefore power, nothing will happen to your engine !
BUT THIS IS THE LAST THING I WOULD DO (-: Traction control is in your right foot, use it......

[pilbeam_mp62]

MarkWebb said:

Anybody use a traction control system on their car?
Am interested in this but am wary of engine damage.

I used a system from Racelogic on my single-seater racing car.....

http://www.racelogic.co.uk/

....and it worked very well, butI have not used it on a road car.

The software is highly configurable and several different "maps" can be stored in a laptop and loaded in easily. It is very important to get good quality wheel speed sensors, and ensure there is no chance of electrical "noise" from having the wires in close proximity to other electrical systems.

There is also a "Launch Control" facility that will override the loaded map for a certain, configurable, period of time, to allow an amount of wheelspin - important in the events I was running in (Hillclimb) but perhaps less important on a road car.


Regards

[Rusti Evo]

Kelvin, It seems like I shall be using the Motec TCMux as it will fit in with the M800.

Do you racers have any preference between Racelogic and Motec? Any other thoughts please?

[pilbeam_mp62]

Rusti Evo said:

Kelvin, It seems like I shall be using the Motec TCMux as it will fit in with the M800.

Do you racers have any preference between Racelogic and Motec? Any other thoughts please?

Hello Stuart,

I am sorry, but I am not familiar with the Motec set-up. The Racelogic system that I used was hooked in to the Cosworth ECU on the DFR engine - It can be set for "fuel cut" OR "spark cut" IIRC.

Fuel cut does not cut ALL the fuel, but enough to cause a mis-fire. Spark cut may not be appropriate on an engine with catalytic convertor, because I think the unburnt fuel can cause a problem with the convertor overheating.

Look here :- http://www.racelogic.co.uk/?show=Traction_Control-... and
you can dowload the software to see what it can do.

I think you can also download a user-manual if that helps.

I should just say that I have no connection with Racelogic, but I found it to be very effective, particularly in damp/wet conditions, but I also used it on bone-dry track with good results when booting the car out of a sharp corner (using different settings, of course !)

If you visit the hillclimb forum "Uphill Racers", you may be able to post a question on there to see if any of them are using Motec.

Regards

[MarkWebb]

pilbeam.
I am looking very hard at the racelogic system for my car. However I am very worried about detonation with my particular efi system which is not sequential and they no longer offer the ignition cut system due to lack of sales. I have a FAST EZ-EFI which is an advanced throttle body type injection system which is self learning from closed loop feedback. If I had known what I know now I would probably have bought a fully sequential system. I don't have any info on the Motec system but I assume that it is integrated into one of their very good and very expensive ecu's.

[pilbeam_mp62]

Mark,

I can't give you much technical help on the systems with regard to sequential and non-sequential -I am certainly not an expert - the system was already fitted to the race car when I bought it - my knowledge was mainly about the Racelogic software and how to produce some reasonable settings.

Maybe Racelogic were not selling the ignition cut system as prospective buyers had catalytic convertor engines ? (see my earlier post)

Good luck with whatever you decide.
Regards

[MarkWebb]

yes catalyst destruction would be the result. However I do not have them on my car so a ignition cut system would suit me down to the ground if I could find one.

[ROWDYRENAULT]

Rusti evo, I also have a Motec 800 on my LS motor and plan on enabling the traction control feature. I have done a little work in that direction. I see the front brackets as being the most difficult aspect of installing the system. If the Utimas speedo sensor on the rear axel could use a ring with perhaps 1/2 again more trigger points on it that would make the two rear sensors a piece of cake. Any thoughts. Lee

[Steve_D]

I believe Guy (Bluesatin) has the Racelogic on his GTR and has for many years.
He should be able to advise on sensors etc.

Steve

[GTRCLIVE]

Yes Motec and RaceLogic are good systems but.... Motec Costs more than most used cars and you have to pay for every upgrade, and they ain't cheap either.

Cant remember exactly but Think Guy said his Racelogic was close to £1000...

Well another option if you haven't got a ECU yet is a DTA S80pro ECU

Comes with TC and Launch control as std, and near as dam it does all a Motec unit does
for a 1/4 the price. The only extras are sensors etc you may need to run the unit.
The DTA is about £1200 all in.....
Quote :

Launch Control

Fully flexible first gear launch capability.
Extensively tunable to individual vehicles.

Traction Control

Fully adjustable from the dashboard.
Measured from all 4 wheels

Unquote...

For the rest of the Things it can do see here :-

http://www.dtafast.co.uk/S_80_PRO.htm

And no I'm nothing to do with DTA, and yes I have had 2 Motec units before fantastic but very Expensive

And if you need a Loom making up I have a man that can in the UK....

[MHunter]

This may be overkill, but I haven't seen anything with more programmability than AEM's EMS gadget.

http://www.aemelectronics.com/index.php?cPath=9_11

[ROWDYRENAULT]

I would only correct what Clive has said to this point. Almost everything that Motec offers in a 800 unit is available as it is delivered. The few things that are't enabled are well above what most of us will use. A Motec 800 costs in the mid $4000 range. A lot of money a lot of quality. Lee

[dandare1001]

These are also ok (relatively good value and have a lot of features). They have a set-up map for LS motors, and can read the GM crank position sensor (I may have been missinformed but I heard that some systems have problems with the funny GM crank pos. sensor)

http://www.emsnorthamerica.com/8860.htm

[spatz]

GTRCLIVE said:

Yes Motec and RaceLogic are good systems but.... Motec Costs more than most used cars and you have to pay for every upgrade, and they ain't cheap either.

Cant remember exactly but Think Guy said his Racelogic was close to £1000...

Well another option if you haven't got a ECU yet is a DTA S80pro ECU

Comes with TC and Launch control as std, and near as dam it does all a Motec unit does
for a 1/4 the price. The only extras are sensors etc you may need to run the unit.
The DTA is about £1200 all in.....
Quote :

Launch Control

Fully flexible first gear launch capability.
Extensively tunable to individual vehicles.

Traction Control

Fully adjustable from the dashboard.
Measured from all 4 wheels

Unquote...

For the rest of the Things it can do see here :-

http://www.dtafast.co.uk/S_80_PRO.htm

And no I'm nothing to do with DTA, and yes I have had 2 Motec units before fantastic but very Expensive

And if you need a Loom making up I have a man that can in the UK....

I am using this ecu and am very happy with it !

[Slinky]

MoTeC Launch Control...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBq25J9flQg

[mkoch1]

MarkWebb said:

pilbeam.
I am looking very hard at the racelogic system for my car. However I am very worried about detonation with my particular efi system which is not sequential and they no longer offer the ignition cut system due to lack of sales. I have a FAST EZ-EFI which is an advanced throttle body type injection system which is self learning from closed loop feedback. If I had known what I know now I would probably have bought a fully sequential system. I don't have any info on the Motec system but I assume that it is integrated into one of their very good and very expensive ecu's.

I was in the same boat as you, my tec3 is not sequentail and I wanted a racelogic unit. I talked to the tec3 guys and they said it was a no go. They explained it like this

In my phased sequential set up the injector fires twice delivering 50% of the fuel needed each time. If the race logic unit kicked in after the first spray and cut the fuel back to 10% I would really be getting 55% in the combustion chamber not the 10% the race logic unit was shoting for. 50% from the first spray plus 10% X 50% = 5% from the second. Instead of a miss fire I would get a lean burn which in a turbo application is no good.

mark

[MarkWebb]

Interesting. However I beleive that the racelogic can be set up to cut one or more injectors continuously when required so you would only get at the most 1 weak firing stroke at each end of the cut period. I am doing mucho work on this at the moment as my first step is to change my throttle body injection setup with 4 injectors to a intake manifold with 8 injectors set in the runners as is normal. The system will still run bank to bank however. I am told that many people use the racelogic system in this mode with great results. I am going to make damm sure though!!

[MarkWebb]

Edit last post removed due to it being rubbish of course a cam sensor or dual distributor is required to do full sequential injection!
However I had not seen the ignition system with individual (well nearly) coils and wasted spark before.

Edited by MarkWebb on Wednesday 27th January 22:04

[lpenn]

Hi Guys

The Motec has modes to run the standard LS1 through to the LS7 engines, you could then use the traction control as we do with all of the Mosler's, you have the choice of wether to cut the spark or fuel or both and you have the option to vary the amount of cut on fuel or ignition, you can also wire up a multi position switch for wet or dry to vary the amount of wheelspin it lets you have. I have done a few Ultim's now and this works really well

Edited by lpenn on Wednesday 3rd February 13:52