Engine finally ready for Dyno test
Discussion
mgbond said:
Sorry to be critical,
The switch you are using for I assume selecting the 8 different setting is a very cheap RS part by the look of it.
I had exactly this for by variable boost so changed it to a nice Ally one. looks much better.
Other than that great work and what a result.
Still waiting for an answer about the lamina flow oil cooler though
Bondy
Mr Bond I'm sure I answered on page 10 and may of left a link for you, the one that I have fitted The switch you are using for I assume selecting the 8 different setting is a very cheap RS part by the look of it.
I had exactly this for by variable boost so changed it to a nice Ally one. looks much better.
Other than that great work and what a result.
Still waiting for an answer about the lamina flow oil cooler though
Bondy
I like that switch, its unassuming, wasn't cheap with the connectors, the light was extra.
mgbond said:
He he, a link you did leave but then I asked this:
"Where have you plumbed it from the water side and did I here that Pro alloy are going to do a kit?
I've always liked this idea and as I don't track mine that much it seems ideal as it does take a while to get the oil up to temp.
And I suppose you could have one in the other pod for the gearbox right? Or even better that pro alloy do a twin core so you can have box and engine in the same system?
Bondy"
I only commented on the switch because I see them all the time on cheap electronics and in house test equipment.
Each to their on on that one then
Mate after today, don't wast your time or money on changing oil cooler, stick to what's proven, Motec front mounted."Where have you plumbed it from the water side and did I here that Pro alloy are going to do a kit?
I've always liked this idea and as I don't track mine that much it seems ideal as it does take a while to get the oil up to temp.
And I suppose you could have one in the other pod for the gearbox right? Or even better that pro alloy do a twin core so you can have box and engine in the same system?
Bondy"
I only commented on the switch because I see them all the time on cheap electronics and in house test equipment.
Each to their on on that one then
Plumber1 said:
how did it go today? any problems?
Hi Duncun, nice to meet you today, just a couple of stupid things that cost me 90% of my track time,Edited by Plumber1 on Saturday 17th November 21:22
The first was the safety setting on the oil pressure sensor which was set to high, so the ecu kept shutting the car down after Woodcote, we then fixed that and I finally got some track time, then the coil burnt out due to oil pipe getting so hot through the oil cooler not cooling and it runs by the first coil and the heat burn the coil, not having a spare meant that was the end of the day, which was a real shame as she was really going well at that time and we had only just got to number 3 setting of 8.
Thankfully it's all a simple fix that even I can do, But back to Bespoke for the oil cooler being changed.
Well drove back to Silverstone Sunday morn, Martin from Bespoke took me there, we put the new coil in and hey presto all was good again,
The car will be at Bespoke today to look at what the causr was or is with the Laminova, on the road my oil temps have never gone above 76 that's in traffic, on the move it shows around 60, so great on the road, what's so strange is on track it just didn't work at all, which makes me think that at normal speeds it was fine and the airflow through side pod ok,
but at high speed things were totally different no flow at all. Maybe there was a problem somewhere were no more later.
Just to clear things up, the loss to wheels was around 45 47 bhp and that seems to be the same as others have mentioned, so regardless of who and where, if more than one are coming to the same conclusion, then I reckon they ain't both wrong.
The car will be at Bespoke today to look at what the causr was or is with the Laminova, on the road my oil temps have never gone above 76 that's in traffic, on the move it shows around 60, so great on the road, what's so strange is on track it just didn't work at all, which makes me think that at normal speeds it was fine and the airflow through side pod ok,
but at high speed things were totally different no flow at all. Maybe there was a problem somewhere were no more later.
Just to clear things up, the loss to wheels was around 45 47 bhp and that seems to be the same as others have mentioned, so regardless of who and where, if more than one are coming to the same conclusion, then I reckon they ain't both wrong.
RobP said:
Pretty much common knowledge that very little air flow gets into the M400 side-pods above about 70mph. The air-flow de-laminates and just goes round the side of the pod above this speed. Hence any cooling device for track-related work that is located in the side-pods needs to have fans to suck air through. This is in contrast to the I/C where a fan will restrict flow.
My standard oil-cooler has been turned through 90degress and 2 fans added. These are wired into the spare switch on the centre console (along with gearbox cooler pump and fans which are in the other side pod) so they can all be switched on prior to going out on track. Engine oil-temps rarely go above 100C even on the hottest/hardest days. None of the added cooling is necessary for normal road driving.
Hi RobMy standard oil-cooler has been turned through 90degress and 2 fans added. These are wired into the spare switch on the centre console (along with gearbox cooler pump and fans which are in the other side pod) so they can all be switched on prior to going out on track. Engine oil-temps rarely go above 100C even on the hottest/hardest days. None of the added cooling is necessary for normal road driving.
The thing is, the Laminova is not supposed to need any air flow to work, it can be put anywhere, it relies on its internal coils and whatever to cool it, in this case it didn't work. I need to find out what the cause was? but will be changing back, as never had the problem on track before, most I saw was 110.
ThatPhilBrettGuy said:
ow are you diverting the water feed to it? Is it possible that at high revs and so high flow rates the water finds another path? Might explain why it seems to work on the road as the average revs are that much lower.
Obviously without knowing the plumbing I don't know if this is a possiblilty, but I've seen it happen in other systems, so might be worth thinking about.
Hi Phil, good question, I'm not sure, but what was strange was the water temp was ok, just the oil temp gave the problems, so you could be right in that there after the water feed to the cooler may have been the problem, as the temp out of the rad must of been ok, my water temp gauge is connected to the ecu so now show accurate readings, I'm starting to think that under extreme load the Laminova struggles to keep up, in other words the water going through the laminovo doesn't have enough time to cool before its spat out the other end, all speculation of course, hopefully we will have an answere tomorrow .Obviously without knowing the plumbing I don't know if this is a possiblilty, but I've seen it happen in other systems, so might be worth thinking about.
GTO600 said:
Hi Craig, Have they resolved your oil cooling problem ?
Hi Kevin, At Bespoke being done, I think the problem with Laminova is it can't keep up with the flow, it passes through it to quick to cool properly so to be efficient, you would need 2 in line, so going back to front mounted cooler.Hi gents, thought id give an update on the progress,
After changing back to the Motec front mounted oil cooler and reducing the size of the front number plate, my oil temps have dropped dramatically, so much, so that now it runs to cool and is hard to get up to temp, which in the summer will be great, but now is a problem, so quick measure was to tape up the front mesh in front of the cooler which helped but not enough, the hottest i could get was 78, and the water temp with the new thermostat showed 90, problem is if I add more tape the water temp increases, so will have to go back to standard size number plate in winter, and small for summer.
The last month we have been trying to get the part throttle maps to be perfect, we spent days driving round the M25 and all the B roads in Essex, but we always seemed to encounter a problem where as each time we got it spot on, the next day it would drive awful again, it would misfire around 5k rpm and kangaroo if you where in traffic at 2k rpm it was getting very frustrating, we took the car to Surrey rolling road, where Ryan who also works with the life system and no his onions strapped it on and we done some power runs we couldn't achieve anymore than 570bhp without the fuel pressure dropping and causing a misfire then the spark would blow out , I left there with my head in my hands and the poss of someone else's joining it;) then Ryan suggested checking the spark to the coils. and hardwiring the fuel pump.
What we found Down at Bespoke, was the new fuel reg seal had broken down and was loosing pressure, Skip made a better seal, so now no more fuel pressure probs and the misfire gone.
The next problem ie the spark blowing out, turns out the power by the time it reaches the coil has lost 2volt so the spark is week hence it gets blown out, Jason who built the loom, is going to run 2 wires to each coil, inside the loom, so we deliver the voltage the coil needs to work correctly to boost the spark to the plugs, will let you know when all is finished, as we will then be doing all the power runs again in Chertsey Surrey. So will finally have all the power runs complete, I have also decided to go fully digital for all my diplays so will be fitting this into my carbon dash, its touch screen and is perfect for my needs, check it out here .
www.jti.uk.com/toucan/
Skip will remove my oil gauge and boost gauge and replace them with this unit flush mounted. The fact that its touch screen and direct into the ecu, i can also check all the data and do map changes via the screen, so no need for laptop pc.
Nearly forgot, have now fitted 2 fuel pumps the same as the other big power boys, as back up.
Sundance
After changing back to the Motec front mounted oil cooler and reducing the size of the front number plate, my oil temps have dropped dramatically, so much, so that now it runs to cool and is hard to get up to temp, which in the summer will be great, but now is a problem, so quick measure was to tape up the front mesh in front of the cooler which helped but not enough, the hottest i could get was 78, and the water temp with the new thermostat showed 90, problem is if I add more tape the water temp increases, so will have to go back to standard size number plate in winter, and small for summer.
The last month we have been trying to get the part throttle maps to be perfect, we spent days driving round the M25 and all the B roads in Essex, but we always seemed to encounter a problem where as each time we got it spot on, the next day it would drive awful again, it would misfire around 5k rpm and kangaroo if you where in traffic at 2k rpm it was getting very frustrating, we took the car to Surrey rolling road, where Ryan who also works with the life system and no his onions strapped it on and we done some power runs we couldn't achieve anymore than 570bhp without the fuel pressure dropping and causing a misfire then the spark would blow out , I left there with my head in my hands and the poss of someone else's joining it;) then Ryan suggested checking the spark to the coils. and hardwiring the fuel pump.
What we found Down at Bespoke, was the new fuel reg seal had broken down and was loosing pressure, Skip made a better seal, so now no more fuel pressure probs and the misfire gone.
The next problem ie the spark blowing out, turns out the power by the time it reaches the coil has lost 2volt so the spark is week hence it gets blown out, Jason who built the loom, is going to run 2 wires to each coil, inside the loom, so we deliver the voltage the coil needs to work correctly to boost the spark to the plugs, will let you know when all is finished, as we will then be doing all the power runs again in Chertsey Surrey. So will finally have all the power runs complete, I have also decided to go fully digital for all my diplays so will be fitting this into my carbon dash, its touch screen and is perfect for my needs, check it out here .
www.jti.uk.com/toucan/
Skip will remove my oil gauge and boost gauge and replace them with this unit flush mounted. The fact that its touch screen and direct into the ecu, i can also check all the data and do map changes via the screen, so no need for laptop pc.
Nearly forgot, have now fitted 2 fuel pumps the same as the other big power boys, as back up.
Sundance
Max_Torque said:
I'm not sure if/how you have mapped your coil dwell time? A voltage drop to the coils is not actually an issue if you have more dwell time availible. Only at super high rpm will you run out of dwell time to charge the coils before you need to fire the plugs (obviously, if you're using a wasted spark system then it's more critical because the same coil is used for 2 cylinders).
it's worth trying to get hold of an osciloscope and a current clamp (20A rating, at least 20KHz bandwidth) and actually measure your coil charge event before and during your misfire events!
In extremis, you may find that the switching transistor in the coil driver (either in the coils or in your ECU, again, depending on what coils you have used?) has too low a breakdown voltage. (typically ~400V) in this case, the transistor will breakdown and conduct and limit the rate of change of current and hence the maximum output voltage of the coil packs. In this case, if the ionisation voltage(due to high charge density between the spark plugs electrodes) is higher than the IGBT breakdown voltage multiplied by the coil turns ratio, you're always going to have a problem. If this is the case, then two options are smaller plug gaps or a change of coil driver.
Hi Max, Yes We went from one extreme to another with coil charge times (dwell) no change, which is what lead us to the loom, the wire to the coil is just to thin to deliver the charge, yes it is a wasted spark system but not sure what you mean by, same coil uses 2 cylinders? its 6 cylinder 6 coils.it's worth trying to get hold of an osciloscope and a current clamp (20A rating, at least 20KHz bandwidth) and actually measure your coil charge event before and during your misfire events!
In extremis, you may find that the switching transistor in the coil driver (either in the coils or in your ECU, again, depending on what coils you have used?) has too low a breakdown voltage. (typically ~400V) in this case, the transistor will breakdown and conduct and limit the rate of change of current and hence the maximum output voltage of the coil packs. In this case, if the ionisation voltage(due to high charge density between the spark plugs electrodes) is higher than the IGBT breakdown voltage multiplied by the coil turns ratio, you're always going to have a problem. If this is the case, then two options are smaller plug gaps or a change of coil driver.
The alternator, is not strong enough to give any extra voltage so there is nothing left to play with, so will also beef that up, as the engine revs. to 8k we set the lmt at 7700rpm.
Thanks for the input , was spot on to what we thought but turned to be the loom wire to thin to cope.
,
Sundance
Max_Torque said:
BTW, of you want REALLY high drive voltage for your coils (and super short dwell) then mounting some large (>5000uf) low ESR capacitors locally to the coil packs, earther directly to the negative terminals, will really help !
Looked at an amplifier its an option, but the altanator just doesnt give anything to pkay with.Max_Torque said:
If a second wire to the coils fixed it, then it was an issue with the original wire! If changing the dwell made no difference, then increasing the voltage to the coils will also make no difference (peak spark gap voltage ISN'T in anyway linked to coil supply voltage)
The capacitor trick works whatever your alternator outputs, because it uses the caps to locally store energy, the instantaneous current in the supply wires is lower (the mean current is the same of course) so the voltage drop is lower, and hence the coil charge time is shorter. Remember, automotive coils are an inductive flyback step up devices, and NOT Transformers!
generally, misfiring that is insensitive to dwell (and hence peak coil charge current before interuption event) suggests that the firing HC pulse is "leaking out" somwhere else, be that arcing down the plug ceramic, out of any HV leads / distribution paths, or resulting in a breakdown of the firing transistor.
There was never a problem with the old loom, the spark never blew out, this has only occurred with the new loom,
so we have now removed it to change the wire to the coils, if the problem is still there, which i doubt it will be, then I will deff look into using the capacitors, we have also re earthed at 5 points on the chassis now, Should be ready next week so will see if it has solved it. Thanks again for the input, all very helpful.
Sundance
.
The capacitor trick works whatever your alternator outputs, because it uses the caps to locally store energy, the instantaneous current in the supply wires is lower (the mean current is the same of course) so the voltage drop is lower, and hence the coil charge time is shorter. Remember, automotive coils are an inductive flyback step up devices, and NOT Transformers!
generally, misfiring that is insensitive to dwell (and hence peak coil charge current before interuption event) suggests that the firing HC pulse is "leaking out" somwhere else, be that arcing down the plug ceramic, out of any HV leads / distribution paths, or resulting in a breakdown of the firing transistor.
There was never a problem with the old loom, the spark never blew out, this has only occurred with the new loom,
so we have now removed it to change the wire to the coils, if the problem is still there, which i doubt it will be, then I will deff look into using the capacitors, we have also re earthed at 5 points on the chassis now, Should be ready next week so will see if it has solved it. Thanks again for the input, all very helpful.
Sundance
.
Edited by Max_Torque on Monday 21st January 18:28
Well finally have the new loom back, and fitted today, thought id show a few pics before it was fitted, also a oic of the new touch screen display, just waiting for the new dash to be made so it sits flush mounted, thanks Daddy Sumo,
Hoping to be ready for the 17th and meeting up with you all at Silverstone fingers crossed.
Hoping to be ready for the 17th and meeting up with you all at Silverstone fingers crossed.
GTO600 said:
Hope the new loom sorts your problem Craig, just at the start of going through the same process with a Motec system.
Thanks mate, it is a very long and sometimes tedious process to go through, but when you get it right, the benefits are worth the effort, Good luck with yours, Andyggt will be a good guy for knowledge, he also is configuring the Motec for his beast,
whats good is, if you have the patience, Juno was right, you need the patience of a saint, its def worth it in the end, I think,
but then i was decisive, now im not sure
Plumber1 said:
TuxMan said:
Well done Craig !! Keep the faith mate it will be worth it in the end !!! What's on at Silverstone on the 17th ???
Tux
Sunday service!!!! Think you have your name down for it Tux
I forget things too Hollowpockets said:
Hey Craig,
Whats the latest on this?
Think I'm going to have to make a decision quick if I'm going to do an ecu change before easter weekend.
Graham
We have had a few problems in that the ecu has highlighted other problems that had to be fixed ie fuel pressure, so now have 2 044s, and the loom wire being wrong to the coils, so now after fixing all the niggles, we are ready to do the final runs on the dyno at track and road next Tue, will post all the results on here,Whats the latest on this?
Think I'm going to have to make a decision quick if I'm going to do an ecu change before easter weekend.
Graham
Will give you my honest opinion when i see the final results, Would I do this again from scratch setting up the ecu as the guinea pig no, its to stressful, but now they have set it up, ie part throttle, cold start, overun, rev lmt, and all the throttle positions, just the finale power run to do now, so for someone else its just load the map and fine tune to your style of driving,
If the results are whats been promised, then I would recommend it, Roll on Tue.
Hollowpockets said:
Yeah I can only imagine how much time and money you have put into this, i hope you get the results you wanted on Tuesday.
I know its not something you want to think about BUT... what price range is the next customer likely to be quoted for the same set up?
would you say its a system that can be fitted and forgotten about? until it flags up a problem of course. As touch screens and adjustability just scares me, I just want a normal, fast and very fast switch options. lol
Graham
Cost wise with all the sensors, inc touch screen display, loom, ecu, + loads of other little changes, over 10k.I know its not something you want to think about BUT... what price range is the next customer likely to be quoted for the same set up?
would you say its a system that can be fitted and forgotten about? until it flags up a problem of course. As touch screens and adjustability just scares me, I just want a normal, fast and very fast switch options. lol
Graham
The system once set up will need no further input, unless of course there is a problem, the system will make sure the engine is safe and adjust as needed,but then by reading the data you will be able to see where the problem lies,
What is also useful is that you can adjust any of the cal settings yourself, as he will email you any changes you wish, then you just enter them into the ecu via a laptop that plugs into the dash. I will not be doing this however tempting, will leave it to them, Just send the data to them anf they will make the adjustments and send them bavk for you to input.
The touch screen wont allow you to adjust the map, but will allow you to set the alarms at any level ie oil pressure,fuel pressure, oil temp etc and give accurate readings, take a look
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8TKgoXR62w
I do think especialy if your racing that the ecu is a must which ever make you choose.
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