Emerald - What new Feature would you add

[rev-erend]

All,

a bit like the group buy - I thought we could all suggest idea's for new features in the Emerald EMS and we can let them know these.

My suggestion is Knock detection.

I've often wondered why Emerald don't have it .. many others seem to have it .. omex amoungst others, production cars have it .. etc, Bosch make a sensor ..

this place does a detection system with a place to plug in your headphones to hear it yourself :

http://www.thor-racing.co.uk/KNOCK_BLOCK_-LNK_KNKB...

Any other idea's ?

Edited by rev-erend on Friday 9th May 11:34

[rev-erend]

Here is another that would be useful occasionally :

Ability to exercise injectors and coils without engine running for fault finding

[CNHSS1]

swifter release of all the goodies Dave and Karl are working on and have been for years! i fitted wheel speed sensors for traction and launc control 2 years ago as it was beta testing and would be available 'next month' lol

for me:-
release the TC and Launch (with ign retard/over fuelling like antilag start to make boost as i have a turbo'd engine)
dash adjuster for above with graphic display (think 80's stereo rather than expensive digital display).
maybe a plug in external logging facility to a memory card? rather than a lap top (cant see ascrutineer liking a laptop strapped to a roll cage lol) be dead useful to log the wheel speeds and read them after a run. would show lock-ups and excess wheelspin, airborne etc

having discussed knock sensing at some point with DW, his opinion was it wasnt necessary if the car was mapped correctly and run on same fuel all the time. may be different for a raod car buying fuel taht varies from V power to tescos 95ron.

[rev-erend]

CNHSS1 said:

having discussed knock sensing at some point with DW, his opinion was it wasnt necessary if the car was mapped correctly and run on same fuel all the time. may be different for a raod car buying fuel taht varies from V power to tescos 95ron.

Yes - agree.. one thing to base the software around his needs for the R/R but out in the real world .. tings change..

Dave - yes map for S/unleaded..

Great.

Drive to outback of no-where..

Need fuel..

Only unleaded..

8hit...

Det city.. not good but that's the real world.

[dnb]

Knock detection would be good. But it's a non-trivial problem to tune this properly for a given engine, and an awful lot of complexity for something that probably only 1 customer in 20 would really NEED and probably only 1 in 10 of those could actually make the feature work properly...

I'd like to see ion sensing on an aftermarket ECU. Another very difficult thing, but should offer good performance gains - specially around setting up a knock detection system.

[rev-erend]

ion sensing .. thought DTA was just winding you up about that !

How about plasma injection
or
Molecular teleportation

or interstella transmogrification..

Sorry - it's a bit of a quiet afternoon

[CNHSS1]

rev-erend said:

CNHSS1 said:

having discussed knock sensing at some point with DW, his opinion was it wasnt necessary if the car was mapped correctly and run on same fuel all the time. may be different for a raod car buying fuel taht varies from V power to tescos 95ron.

Yes - agree.. one thing to base the software around his needs for the R/R but out in the real world .. tings change..

Dave - yes map for S/unleaded..

Great.

Drive to outback of no-where..

Need fuel..

Only unleaded..

8hit...

Det city.. not good but that's the real world.

agreed, on a road car it would be useful, but with the 3 map 'on the fly switching' why not have a 'poverty-spec' fuel map as well as a proper fuel map? it could be nice and soft, and even air on the side of economy (Uuurgh, perish the thought *shudder*). best of both worlds and only uses 2 of the 3 available maps :-)
dunno if you are using the map switching, but it is well worth wiring in if youre not, very useful even on a racer where a softer/low boost map can be swicthed in if its starts to rain even half way through a run.

Edited by CNHSS1 on Friday 9th May 17:28

[marT350T]

Sorry this is a bit off topic butcan you use a emerald ecu to control turbo boost ? As I am just using mine to control fuel and ignition at the moment.

[rev-erend]

marT350T said:

Sorry this is a bit off topic butcan you use a emerald ecu to control turbo boost ? As I am just using mine to control fuel and ignition at the moment.

Yes - lots of Turbo stuff on the Emerald.

[rev-erend]

CNHSS1 said:

rev-erend said:

CNHSS1 said:

having discussed knock sensing at some point with DW, his opinion was it wasnt necessary if the car was mapped correctly and run on same fuel all the time. may be different for a raod car buying fuel taht varies from V power to tescos 95ron.

Yes - agree.. one thing to base the software around his needs for the R/R but out in the real world .. tings change..

Dave - yes map for S/unleaded..

Great.

Drive to outback of no-where..

Need fuel..

Only unleaded..

8hit...

Det city.. not good but that's the real world.

agreed, on a road car it would be useful, but with the 3 map 'on the fly switching' why not have a 'poverty-spec' fuel map as well as a proper fuel map? it could be nice and soft, and even air on the side of economy (Uuurgh, perish the thought *shudder*). best of both worlds and only uses 2 of the 3 available maps :-)
dunno if you are using the map switching, but it is well worth wiring in if youre not, very useful even on a racer where a softer/low boost map can be swicthed in if its starts to rain even half way through a run.

Edited by CNHSS1 on Friday 9th May 17:28

Yes - had the same thought myself but as you probably only pay for 1 mapping session .. if you get it wrong with the other map (low octane) having a safety det sensor makes a lot of sense.

[Lesliehedley]

I have an Emerald and I've been trying to find somewhere local that can set the ignition map up properly on a R/R to no avail. So knock detection would be a useful safety function. But a useful feature for setting up ignition maps on the road (if a R/R isn't available) would be the ability to pull the ignition map about using the mouse on the graphical display. Omex have this facility and I know one chap who sets up all his customer's cars on the road using this method with a knock detector. It's much quicker than changing individual cells and can get the ignition map very close to the correct settings.

[CNHSS1]

Emerald have various 'approved' dyno guys around the country, ring emerald and they can put you in touch with one nearest to you or take the pilgrimage to Norfolk...

[Pupp]

I'd like to see the ECU accepting the serial wideband signal from the likes of an innovate controller rather than just analogue... would give a bit more confidence in the accuracy of the reported AFR

[hiltonig]

I would like to see support for two wideband sensors like DTA does, also I would like to see cranking trace like the DTA. and the ability to fire injectors / coilpacks manually for testing. otherwise I think its a good bit of kit.

[Herman Toothrot]

rev-erend said:

CNHSS1 said:

having discussed knock sensing at some point with DW, his opinion was it wasnt necessary if the car was mapped correctly and run on same fuel all the time. may be different for a raod car buying fuel taht varies from V power to tescos 95ron.

Yes - agree.. one thing to base the software around his needs for the R/R but out in the real world .. tings change..

Dave - yes map for S/unleaded..

Great.

Drive to outback of no-where..

Need fuel..

Only unleaded..

8hit...

Det city.. not good but that's the real world.

I thought the emeralds could do twin maps? Thats how I get around no knock detection on my LINK G3, toggle on dash, up = 97 ron, down = 95 ron basically I run 97 ron unless its not avaiable, the flick of the switch drops the boost map so peak boost is lower and Ignition timings pulled across the map.

[CNHSS1]

yep, latest K3 version has 3 maps which are switchable 'on the fly'. when i questioned Dave W about knock sensing originally it was on the original 1 map setup before the K3, hence his comments. the map switching works beautifully, i have 3 maps at various boost pressures, but all designed for V power. no reason at all why you couldnt have a 95ron and a decent fuel map though.

[Crash Test Dummy]

CNHSS1 said:

no reason at all why you couldnt have a 95ron and a decent fuel map though.

I am fitting Emerald in a few weeks and thought about an economy map. Running on 95 with a suitable map did cross my mind although I decided that the inferior quality of fuel, relative to BP Ultimate/V-Power wasn't worth the money in the long run.

With a wideband lambda sensor it is possible to put the ECU into adaptive mode and set the ECU to chase an AFR 1 leaner than optimum performance. This is how I plan to create my 'economy map'. Will be for cruising and will generally be a 'fluffy' map since acceleration will be next to non-existant.

What map switch are you guys using? And how expensive is it to add wheel speed sensors, and subsequently traction control. Might be a better option that a LSD

[trackcar]

The only feature I would add is a dedicated plug and play wideband lambda. I hate all the fiddling setting lambdas up. If my wish were granted the only lambda set-up you should have to do is alter the feedback time depending how far the probe is from the combustion chamber, and set your target AFR and that's it. It should really be that simple in a perfect world.

[eliot]

Crash Test Dummy said:

I am fitting Emerald in a few weeks and thought about an economy map. Running on 95 with a suitable map did cross my mind although I decided that the inferior quality of fuel, relative to BP Ultimate/V-Power wasn't worth the money in the long run.

I have switchable maps on my megasquirt, but all I do swap is the spark table that retards further when under boost - the fuel tables are the same. If you want economy, dont press the right pedal as far.

[rev-erend]

trackcar said:

The only feature I would add is a dedicated plug and play wideband lambda. I hate all the fiddling setting lambdas up. If my wish were granted the only lambda set-up you should have to do is alter the feedback time depending how far the probe is from the combustion chamber, and set your target AFR and that's it. It should really be that simple in a perfect world.

Surely that would do Dave and you out of a job on the Fuel map ..