I'd love to hear about your MoTeC experience. There are lots of coils that MoTec supports directly but the main data you need to write a custom calibration is dwell time vs voltage. If you don't have that data, a good guess is 2.5 ms for all voltages to start.
I'm wrapping up the wiring today and tomorrow, so then I'll be doing all the calibration and tuning after that. I'll have some more photos soon.
The car is now coming back to life. I've got all the lights, brakes, and turn signals working again (I rewired the chassis harness and removed a lot of unused wires as part of this). The M1 has power, and passes data quite nicely to the AIM MXL dash, so that's a big relief. All the sensors are connected and seem to be working. This morning, I got the DBW throttle working. The shifter compressor system works (M1 monitors a pressure sensor, and keeps the compressor tank full of 8-10.5 bar air). The fuel pump primes fuel rails as required.
I still need to calibrate the gearbox gear position sensor, and then I'll have a massive amount of calibrating and tuning (engine efficiency, shifter/throttle integration, spark tables, CAN devices, etc.).
One big challenge is working out the engine timing -- I need to put a timing light on the engine somehow to verify the crank and cam signals. I also need to verify the firing order. Here's a couple photos of the engine and PDM (power distribution module) wiring.
Great progress John. I am looking forward to hearing / seeing a video when that monster starts breathing fire again ?
Great progress! Looks well done.
On your coil dwell, it is important to get the dwell setting right, as it is the amount of time the coil needs to charge prior to firing. Too long and the coil can overheat, too short and the spark will not be strong enough. You can verify this with an oscilloscope looking at the current.
I did a coil on plug conversion for my Miata using Toyota smart coils, and they had a slightly different dwell than what was recommended on the web.
Yes, that's right on the dwell. One of the reasons I chose the coils I did is that Bosch publishes a full dwell data sheet for them.
There's no video, but I have a running car again!! The ECU seems to control all I can test correctly. Throttle, paddle shifter, fans, water pump, compressor all seem to to be working ok.
Lots and lots of tuning to come, but for now I'll put the side pods back on, and hook up the cooling system so I can run the engine for more than a few seconds at a time. Then I'll post a video of a real MoTeC controlled SR8.
I'm pretty psyched!
Congratulations, that must be a very satisfying feeling.
Congratulations! That’s a major milestone.
Charley
Awesome John, well done!
Thanks guys!
I spent today figuring out why the lambda sensors weren't working. It turned out to be a CAN bus wiring issue and so that's sorted. It's a secure feeling knowing that the engine is burning fuel at around .95 lambda.
More problematic is that my long-suffering MAP sensor solution -- isn't so much. I'm only getting about 5 kPa below atmospheric at this point, so I gotta figure that out next.
The MAP solution was fine. The engine was genuinely only making 5 kPa of vacuum. Most of the problem was in the throttle body syncing along with the VE (volumetric efficiency) table.
Now it's idling at 70 kPa and.95 lambda. The M1 has support for idle management via the DBW and ignition controls. Once I balanced the throttle bodies, I got the car idling with just the DBW, and then I added ignition controls. It's pretty sweet.
I found I have another bad oil leak, so I'm fixing that now (from the oil drain plug "block"). I'll take some video when that's back together.
I'm trying to get to a track event in mid-February, and so now I'm trying to secure some dyno time.
Great project John!
I drove the car around my block today. It's a risky move, but I live in a semi-rural area, and I didn't see another car on the trip. I got a couple thumbs up too!
The GPRP package shifts the car perfectly. Up-shifts are fast and smooth, down shifts matches rpm well. It was gentle street driving -- I was trying to avoid arrest, etc., but this set up is going to work great on the track.
Dyno day is Wednesday, and I'll have more to report then.
One of the neat features is that reverse is actuated by holding the downshift paddle for more than 2s. It's also required that the gearbox be in neutral and the clutch must be disengaged. No buttons or cables to deal with.
Today was dyno day. Finally.
We had a LOT of work to do to find the VE table shape, and while it's now pretty good at the WOT areas, some of the lower load and rpm cells need more attention. So I've got another dyno day next week, I hope.
We had a few problems, (alternator and throttle), that limited the dyno pulls to 8k rpm. Still, after a bit of work, the number was 350 hp measured at the tires, which corresponds nicely to the advertised 440 hp at 10500 rpm.
Does anybody know anything about the SR8 alternator? I've found that nearly every part on the car can be sourced back to an OEM (fuel pump to an Audi TT, etc.) passenger car, but I don't know anything about the alternator.
