What are my options for RV8/Lucas remaps?

[900T-R]

Have nigh-on a thousand miles on my engine and I'm starting to fear the man who built it won't be available for final set up anytime soon (hope he's alright as he's has a real $hitter of a year healthwise and last time I got him on the phone he said things were looking up) - what are my options? Power, Trackcar, A.N.Other?

If it helps, it's a 4.3 that's rebuilt to an all-out spec (forged pistons, high compression, big valves and detailed porting/reshaping stuff, different crank on bigger bearings w/ different con rods etc) with minor intake mods on top (intake manifold port matched at the heads end, plenum insulator, self blended base, silicone elbow) and a 72 mm throttle plenum to go on.

With the standard plenum on it ran perfectly well on the OE fuel map during running in except the usual shunt when creeping about in a low gear at under 2,000 rpm on low throttle (if anything, it's less noticeable on the new engine).

[griffter]

My understanding (and I'm happy to be corrected) is that the only person with the where-with-all to do a bespoke remap is Mark Adams. Anyone else will swap a variety of chips in and out until the best is found.
Personally, if it runs OK on the standard chip and the mixture's OK at all load/speed conditions, I'd leave it.

[rev-erend]

Mark is the only person who I have heard can do this and he is mainly based in the south.

Not sure if TVR Power can do maps - anyone know for sure or do they just swap chips ?

Mark can also fit an omex ignition module to replace the dizzy which will help a lot.

You could always go the fully mapped route like many of use here but it's more expensive..

MS - about 500 all in (someone confirm) fitting extra

Emerald - about 900 all in .. fitting extra and professional map about another £250 on top..

[350Matt]

I think Trackcar can re-map the lucas stuff as well, although as Rev suggests your lucas kit will be holding you back, most people see about 10Bhp increase in ditching the airflow meter and using an alternative ECU

Matt

[900T-R]

350Matt said:

most people see about 10Bhp increase in ditching the airflow meter and using an alternative ECU

Matt

Given that an Emerald plus install will be £2K or thereabouts, that's not very good bang for bucks is it?

If I had wonky electrics or driveability problems, then it would be something to consider - for now, though I will act along the lines of 'if it's not broken...'

[350Matt]

Thing is Mark typically changes about 5-600 quid for a re-map so your own ECU which also controls sparks , give better economy, allows you to diagnose engine faults etc etc.

So if you are the type who keeps adding to the mods it makes sense to cahnge the ECU


Matt

[900T-R]

Hmmm, a rolling road session w/remapping of a MAF-based fuel-only system as needed typically costs me 2-300 euro here (90 EUR/hour plus 40 EUR for rolling road use, plus VAT)...

[GreenV8S]

900T-R said:

Given that an Emerald plus install will be £2K or thereabouts, that's not very good bang for bucks is it?

If I had wonky electrics or driveability problems, then it would be something to consider - for now, though I will act along the lines of 'if it's not broken...'

It may not be that black and white, since some form of remap will be required in any case. There are veruy few people able to do this for the hotwire setup, so you will face some inconvenience and expense. By comparison, there are far mre people able to map the aftermarket systems so it is likely to be easier and cheaper to do. I think you may find that if you're spending £2K on an emerald setup that probably covers the mapping work too.

[900T-R]

GreenV8S said:

It may not be that black and white, since some form of remap will be required in any case. There are veruy few people able to do this for the hotwire setup, so you will face some inconvenience and expense. By comparison, there are far mre people able to map the aftermarket systems so it is likely to be easier and cheaper to do. I think you may find that if you're spending £2K on an emerald setup that probably covers the mapping work too.

Let's say that the experiences of folks who went aftermarket both in the Saab and TVR communities don't exactly fill me with confidence - most have some running problem or another to sort months or years down the line,. and I haven't heard of any that were 100% right from the off. I simply don't have the time, money or patience to start from Ground Zero again when what I have now is a car that behaves perfectly well - I've had fourteen years of tinkering with the bonkers Saab 900 and I bought the Chim because I just want to enjoy it. I just need to make sure that the ignition is set right and that I still have decent A/F ratios at WOT at the higher end of the range.

[blitzracing]

When I last spoke to TVR power, they told me they access to someone with the Lucas development hardware who was not Mark Adams, and did the TVR mapping for them. JE engineering used to have the hardware as well, but I do believe it was binned after it went wrong.

Mark

[StardustV8]

900T-R said:

Let's say that the experiences of folks who went aftermarket both in the Saab and TVR communities don't exactly fill me with confidence - most have some running problem or another to sort months or years down the line,. and I haven't heard of any that were 100% right from the off. I simply don't have the time, money or patience to start from Ground Zero again when what I have now is a car that behaves perfectly well - I've had fourteen years of tinkering with the bonkers Saab 900 and I bought the Chim because I just want to enjoy it. I just need to make sure that the ignition is set right and that I still have decent A/F ratios at WOT at the higher end of the range.

Ive done the Abbott Racing/ Speedparts/ T5 Trionic route in my saabs and know what you mean.

Facing the same dilemmas on my own 400 Chim. Engine is stock. Just servcied her and will putting her on my own Maha rollers tomorrow to see what she does. I just know i will want more power...........

[dickkark]

I`ve had a couple of ecu`s and looms from J.E. and they both have had the original lucas chip changed for their own type,in fact they tape your old chip to the ecu casing before sending it back.
I could be wrong but I seem to remember them telling me the standard chip can only be read not altered,hence the replacement.
This was about 8 years ago though.
HTH

[900T-R]

I expect the chip in a CU(X)14 control unit to be a standard Eprom (cost about twopenneth a pop nowadays), though? At least that's the way we've always done it with the Bosch LH system: read the chip, alter the maps, burn a new Eprom, put it back in, see what it does on the rollers - repeat as necessary...

[GreenV8S]

blitzracing said:

JE engineering used to have the hardware as well, but I do believe it was binned after it went wrong.

I thought it was the people who knew how to use it who parted from JEE and are working for themselves now. Either way, there are certainly people out there who can do the job, just few and hard to find. It's much easier to find somebody to work on Omex, Emerald, DTA etc.

[blitzracing]

900T-R said:

I expect the chip in a CU(X)14 control unit to be a standard Eprom (cost about twopenneth a pop nowadays), though? At least that's the way we've always done it with the Bosch LH system: read the chip, alter the maps, burn a new Eprom, put it back in, see what it does on the rollers - repeat as necessary...

Spot on. Problem is its impossible to work out which bytes do what on these maps, and thats why you need the Lucas Development unit and software to decipher the various parameters for you. Heres how far I got before giving up.

http://www.g33.co.uk/fuel_injection.htm

Mark