Discussion
Does anyone have the Emerald K6 upgrade from Joolz on here?
If so, Are there any (power) benefits over the MBE, besides the switchable mapping?
I'm due for a remap anyway and was thinking to go the extra mile and get the K6 instead
The Emerald drive in drive out is £1250 and a remap for our MBE is £600…
I was thinking if you then sell your MBE ECU, the costs won't be that far apart. or am I wrong?
the self mapping function on the emerald seems like a cool feature.
A remap and some Protechs is on the list anyway so might as well bite the bullet.
If so, Are there any (power) benefits over the MBE, besides the switchable mapping?
I'm due for a remap anyway and was thinking to go the extra mile and get the K6 instead
The Emerald drive in drive out is £1250 and a remap for our MBE is £600…
I was thinking if you then sell your MBE ECU, the costs won't be that far apart. or am I wrong?
the self mapping function on the emerald seems like a cool feature.
A remap and some Protechs is on the list anyway so might as well bite the bullet.
I have the K6 and Joolz short induction along with a few other bits and it makes a difference. I can't quantify it as I have no before or after figures but seat of the pants and regular loss of traction in 3rd on a dry road suggest it's not an inconsequential difference.
The biggy for me with the K6 is that minor tweaks can be done with a laptop and a couple of brain cells rather than loads of faff, an EEPROM burner, hex editor and tefal head. This is quite handy when it just needs a little tickle to improve the idle or you change the exhaust or you just want to pull the fans in a bit earlier etc, just plug in, adjust, job done. The three map function is nice too. I can turn the pops and bangs on and off at will which is nice for the neighbours and keep a "scrape me through the MOT" map in position 3. You can also get much more useful diagnostic information from it and save datalogs.
I'm working on idle speed control for mine which is an inbuilt function on the K6, just needs a stepper and mechanism designing for the Cerbera for which is not beyond the wit of man. I think this will make it much more civilised. The standard MBE method of chucking loads of fuel at it and advancing the timing to make it fast idle when cold is a bit crude and has knock on effects like overheating when the timing is retarded to slow the idle back down when warmed up. Crappy bit of TVR save a couple of quid design there.
There is also soon to be a dual wideband supporting firmware released for it, although soon is a relative term and I've been waiting since last April! That will be a nice feature, knowing for sure that you are not bore washing or melting piston crowns instead of hoping for the best.
The biggy for me with the K6 is that minor tweaks can be done with a laptop and a couple of brain cells rather than loads of faff, an EEPROM burner, hex editor and tefal head. This is quite handy when it just needs a little tickle to improve the idle or you change the exhaust or you just want to pull the fans in a bit earlier etc, just plug in, adjust, job done. The three map function is nice too. I can turn the pops and bangs on and off at will which is nice for the neighbours and keep a "scrape me through the MOT" map in position 3. You can also get much more useful diagnostic information from it and save datalogs.
I'm working on idle speed control for mine which is an inbuilt function on the K6, just needs a stepper and mechanism designing for the Cerbera for which is not beyond the wit of man. I think this will make it much more civilised. The standard MBE method of chucking loads of fuel at it and advancing the timing to make it fast idle when cold is a bit crude and has knock on effects like overheating when the timing is retarded to slow the idle back down when warmed up. Crappy bit of TVR save a couple of quid design there.
There is also soon to be a dual wideband supporting firmware released for it, although soon is a relative term and I've been waiting since last April! That will be a nice feature, knowing for sure that you are not bore washing or melting piston crowns instead of hoping for the best.
Hmm… sounds like your quite happy with it fatjon.
What kind of power does yours make?
Would be nice to do some minor tweaking myself.
But I'd also like to know if they support the separate TPS system as Jhonno states.
I don't know if a switchable mapping is really that interesting. As I just want ALL of it ALL of the time
Maybe a special 'MOT'-map for emissions
The self learning mapping function coupled with some wideband lambda's is pretty interesting.
And it would be interesting to know if putting some knock sensors in there would be beneficial/possible/recommendable…
No more running rich/lean and you know what's going on with each cylinder
What kind of power does yours make?
Would be nice to do some minor tweaking myself.
But I'd also like to know if they support the separate TPS system as Jhonno states.
I don't know if a switchable mapping is really that interesting. As I just want ALL of it ALL of the time
Maybe a special 'MOT'-map for emissions
The self learning mapping function coupled with some wideband lambda's is pretty interesting.
And it would be interesting to know if putting some knock sensors in there would be beneficial/possible/recommendable…
No more running rich/lean and you know what's going on with each cylinder
fatjon said:
The three map function is nice too. I can turn the pops and bangs on and off at will which is nice for the neighbours and keep a "scrape me through the MOT" map in position 3.
This is very cool[attach Tefal head]
I've been thinking of doing similar with the standard MBE using a 27512 EPROM which can hold 2 x the normal 27256 code and then just adding a switch
We do the same in the Arcade world when making multi-Pacman games and similar - double / quadruple the size of the available EPROM and then use the extra Address Register(s) Hi/Low to switch between them
[/attach Tefal head]
Out of interest do you need to turn the engine off before selecting the new program?
Also - any chance of a copy of that 'scrape through the MOT' mappings if I ask nicely?
My mechanic claims I don't drive the car very much when he takes it in and that's why it's all over the place of emissions when mine normally goes in
If you need a correction on a bank you can simply apply it in bank corrections in the software IIRC. The dual widebands will take care of any minor bank corrections anyway when that bit of the firmware arrives from Emerald. I can see the point about seeing if the banks are in sync in terms of throttle opening though, although if they are out of sync the biggest effect will be at idle and it would be pretty obvious I think. A 0.5mm difference at idle with a 1mm opening will be critical but at 20mm opening it is nothing really.
Don't pay too much attention to the "maps itself" stuff, it's more marketing speak that fact. If the map is very near it will trim itself nicely but you need to be close first. If for example you have a rich spot causing a misfire the widebands see spare oxygen and enrich that cell in the map, making it worse not better. The best way is to set it up without the widebands correcting as a best guess, make sure it drives nicely up to medium load cells then allow the widebands to assist with final trim. Never rely on the widebands to do initial setup of high load and high rpm cells if you like your engine. Set them safely rich and finalise their values on a rolling road. Then limit the authority of the widebands to maybe 15% correction so if it goes wrong it can never force them so lean as to wreck the engine. Better still go open loop above 90% throttle and above 5k RPM. You can still use the widebands with AFR gauges to see the ratios at the top end of the engine load but not allow them to correct.
Some years ago it went on the rollers at Emerald and was somewhat north of 400BHP but no idea what it was before and it's had some work done since then too which has helped a bit more. Trouble with rolling road figures is they are worth the square root of zero unless all cars go on the same one and are tested identically. When I hear figures like 15% driveline loss it makes me chuckle. If you think about it from a physics perspective 400BHP is 298KW so 15% driveline losses is 44KW. Then apply that figure to the gearbox and diff mass and the specific heat capacity of oil, aluminium and steel and it should all be a molten mess on the floor after a dozen roller power runs. Not getting into that one anyway, people always get paranoid and protective over their rolling road figures.
And yes, you can change maps on the fly, no restart needed.
I have to take the 5th amendment on the MOT map
Don't pay too much attention to the "maps itself" stuff, it's more marketing speak that fact. If the map is very near it will trim itself nicely but you need to be close first. If for example you have a rich spot causing a misfire the widebands see spare oxygen and enrich that cell in the map, making it worse not better. The best way is to set it up without the widebands correcting as a best guess, make sure it drives nicely up to medium load cells then allow the widebands to assist with final trim. Never rely on the widebands to do initial setup of high load and high rpm cells if you like your engine. Set them safely rich and finalise their values on a rolling road. Then limit the authority of the widebands to maybe 15% correction so if it goes wrong it can never force them so lean as to wreck the engine. Better still go open loop above 90% throttle and above 5k RPM. You can still use the widebands with AFR gauges to see the ratios at the top end of the engine load but not allow them to correct.
Some years ago it went on the rollers at Emerald and was somewhat north of 400BHP but no idea what it was before and it's had some work done since then too which has helped a bit more. Trouble with rolling road figures is they are worth the square root of zero unless all cars go on the same one and are tested identically. When I hear figures like 15% driveline loss it makes me chuckle. If you think about it from a physics perspective 400BHP is 298KW so 15% driveline losses is 44KW. Then apply that figure to the gearbox and diff mass and the specific heat capacity of oil, aluminium and steel and it should all be a molten mess on the floor after a dozen roller power runs. Not getting into that one anyway, people always get paranoid and protective over their rolling road figures.
And yes, you can change maps on the fly, no restart needed.
I have to take the 5th amendment on the MOT map
fatjon said:
If you need a correction on a bank you can simply apply it in bank corrections in the software IIRC. The dual widebands will take care of any minor bank corrections anyway when that bit of the firmware arrives from Emerald. I can see the point about seeing if the banks are in sync in terms of throttle opening though, although if they are out of sync the biggest effect will be at idle and it would be pretty obvious I think. A 0.5mm difference at idle with a 1mm opening will be critical but at 20mm opening it is nothing really.
Don't pay too much attention to the "maps itself" stuff, it's more marketing speak that fact. If the map is very near it will trim itself nicely but you need to be close first. If for example you have a rich spot causing a misfire the widebands see spare oxygen and enrich that cell in the map, making it worse not better. The best way is to set it up without the widebands correcting as a best guess, make sure it drives nicely up to medium load cells then allow the widebands to assist with final trim. Never rely on the widebands to do initial setup of high load and high rpm cells if you like your engine. Set them safely rich and finalise their values on a rolling road. Then limit the authority of the widebands to maybe 15% correction so if it goes wrong it can never force them so lean as to wreck the engine. Better still go open loop above 90% throttle and above 5k RPM. You can still use the widebands with AFR gauges to see the ratios at the top end of the engine load but not allow them to correct.
Some years ago it went on the rollers at Emerald and was somewhat north of 400BHP but no idea what it was before and it's had some work done since then too which has helped a bit more. Trouble with rolling road figures is they are worth the square root of zero unless all cars go on the same one and are tested identically. When I hear figures like 15% driveline loss it makes me chuckle. If you think about it from a physics perspective 400BHP is 298KW so 15% driveline losses is 44KW. Then apply that figure to the gearbox and diff mass and the specific heat capacity of oil, aluminium and steel and it should all be a molten mess on the floor after a dozen roller power runs. Not getting into that one anyway, people always get paranoid and protective over their rolling road figures.
And yes, you can change maps on the fly, no restart needed.
I have to take the 5th amendment on the MOT map
Thanks you for the very clear explenation Don't pay too much attention to the "maps itself" stuff, it's more marketing speak that fact. If the map is very near it will trim itself nicely but you need to be close first. If for example you have a rich spot causing a misfire the widebands see spare oxygen and enrich that cell in the map, making it worse not better. The best way is to set it up without the widebands correcting as a best guess, make sure it drives nicely up to medium load cells then allow the widebands to assist with final trim. Never rely on the widebands to do initial setup of high load and high rpm cells if you like your engine. Set them safely rich and finalise their values on a rolling road. Then limit the authority of the widebands to maybe 15% correction so if it goes wrong it can never force them so lean as to wreck the engine. Better still go open loop above 90% throttle and above 5k RPM. You can still use the widebands with AFR gauges to see the ratios at the top end of the engine load but not allow them to correct.
Some years ago it went on the rollers at Emerald and was somewhat north of 400BHP but no idea what it was before and it's had some work done since then too which has helped a bit more. Trouble with rolling road figures is they are worth the square root of zero unless all cars go on the same one and are tested identically. When I hear figures like 15% driveline loss it makes me chuckle. If you think about it from a physics perspective 400BHP is 298KW so 15% driveline losses is 44KW. Then apply that figure to the gearbox and diff mass and the specific heat capacity of oil, aluminium and steel and it should all be a molten mess on the floor after a dozen roller power runs. Not getting into that one anyway, people always get paranoid and protective over their rolling road figures.
And yes, you can change maps on the fly, no restart needed.
I have to take the 5th amendment on the MOT map
Sound like it's an interessting mod.
Guess I'll have to save a little longer (again) and have it al in one go.
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