Sparky's winter/spring/summer/autumn work

Well, that could have gone better
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Started the engine and it hunts when cold, so I let it warm up. Ticking over ok when hot.

Drove up the drive, but I did have to control the revs well with the throttle to keep it going. Clicked on the auto tune and it did start to get easier. Then it started getting difficult to keep the engine running, and it would die if I pushed the clutch in, so back to the garage. Engine died just outside of the garage then refused to start, so I pushed the car in.

There was a box which came up on tunerstudio saying that stopping the session would lose all of the data - so I clicked ok, as I had no choice.

Turned the ignition back on so that I could try and find out what happened but the tunerstudio stayed greyed out and said it was Not Connected. Tried starting the car anyway, but to no avail. So, out with the electrical tester. I turned on the ignition and could hear a quiet tapping coming from the back of the car. I put it down to the fuel circulating, but it got a lot louder when I pulled the main relay to check the wiring. I put the relay back and went to the back of the car to find the light tapping coming from the fuel relay. Changed the relay for another one, still clicks without connecting. So I have no fuel pump and no coils, possibly why it won't start
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I did put my hand on the ECU and main plug to check it wasn't hot - it wasn't.

I have now been back out to see if it still does it (about an hour later) and the relay still clicks, but is now louder. Something amiss somewhere in there, and not being an expert, I'll just have to ask, ponder, test, remove bits and shake them, then ponder some more etc. I'll sort it :cool:

On a positive note, I have driven the car with the megasquirt fitted, and I have found an annoying water leak and fixed that.

Richard
 
Progress is still progress!

Hunting when cold will be the warmup enrichment, unfortunately you are best leaving the adjustment of this until last as it is affected by the main fuelling table.

Is the fuel pump relay opening and closing like the ECU is pulsing it open and closed? With MS if you change a setting that causes a conflict somewhere it will pulse the fuel pump to tell you.

Can you still connect the laptop with the ignition on and talk to the ECU?
 
The relay is clicking about 4 times a second ,so something somewhere doesn't want to play.

My plan was to get it ticking over ok when hot, then play a bit trying to get some of the ve map about right, autotune up the road to the MOT station, then autotune to get it spot on, then finely adjust other stuff like warm up, spark map, etc

I have reloaded the msq supplied, so we are back to the starting point, but the laptop won't talk the the ECU :mad:

Richard
 
Argh - comms problems are the worst...

Your plan sounds spot on. I'd tune your idle cell and the ones immediately around it by hand so that they are all the same, and let autotune handle the rest like you say. You can lock parts of the map that you don't want the autotune to adjust by highlighting and right clicking in the VE analyse screen (at least I think that was how you do it...).

4 times a second does sound a bit weird. Do you have a Megastim/JimStim to bench test the ECU with? If it all behaves on the stim then you know that the ECU is ok and that something's gone awry with the wiring somewhere.
 
Just shows what I know LOL - I though the Jimstim thing was to pretend to be an ECU so you can practice with it without messing up your ECU. I didn't get one as I thought I would just plug into the car and get on with it.

I will be having a good play tonight to see if I can get it working, or I'll have to phone Nige and get him to sort it out :)

Richard
 
Tried loads of stuff, reinstalled the adapter driver, shook fist at it, unplugged everything including the car battery, tried megatune, scratched head, and it just came on - and worked
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Problem is, I don't know what the hell was wrong with it! Never mind, its running and quite well too.

I will book an MOT asap and hopefully it will pass and I can get out on the road, tuning
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Richard
 
Late last night I unwrapped the N/S original loom under the bonnet and found a dodgy join, all taped up, which I had used to fire the main relay. Replaced it with a new spade terminal join, and all seems fine. Let's hope that was indeed the problem.

Richard
 
quattro said:
Tried loads of stuff, reinstalled the adapter driver, shook fist at it, unplugged everything including the car battery, tried megatune, scratched head, and it just came on - and worked
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Richard
Click to expand...

Generating ignition by scratching head - infallible cure!
 
Hello Sparky, what have you been up to?



New MOT, no advisories, nice :)

Now I can get some tuning done. He did decide to break down during the MOT and I had to connect the laptop and play with some stuff. That didn't work so I wandered off up to the garage and got some petrol. Has anyone else ever run out of petrol during an MOT!! It's just me isn't it :oops:

Never mind, he's at work now and will be going home on autotune.

Richard
 
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quattro said:
Has anyone else ever run out of petrol during an MOT!! It's just me isn't it :oops:
Click to expand...

I've not had one run out of petrol, but I have had a 3500S gearbox grenade itself driving over the brake rollers to get on to the ramp. We had to struggle to push it out from the rollers on to the ramp, then after the inspection was done it was pushed backwards again into the rollers to do the brake test, (accompanied by some nasty noises from the gearbox), whereafter it was pushed into the corner to await my picking it up on the tow truck later. Needless to say, it passed.
 
Mechanical canibalism at it's worst :eek:

Went off for a drive round last night with the autotune working away, and it did improve the driveability quite quickly, until 30 minutes in a suicide jockey in a corsa decided red lights didn't apply to him. I rather stupidly thought green lights meant I could carry on, and so did the chap in the left hand filter lane who turned left and blocked the corsa, who then managed to stop right across the road in front of me! Luckily P6s have awesome brakes and I stopped dead in my tracks. I lost all of the data though as the laptop ended up in the footwell, disconnected. I pulled around the corner and stopped to get all of the stuff back onto the seat, and the chap who had slid down the road behind me (sideways) stopped behind me, walked up to my car and asked me the stupidest question I have heard this year. "Did you see that idiot in the corsa?"

He then proceeded to tell me his life story, which included his memories of P6s in his early life, discussion on how long I had owned the car, what had I done to it, what's a '4000S' etc etc. Another half hour passed and by the time he had gone, the battery in the laptop had almost died, so I went home.

I'll give it another go soon
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Tuning's going well, learning more all the time and the car is now pulling strongly right up to the where I think the red line is. The tacho isn't working yet so I am having to guess, so am a little cautious.

Three small problems have arisen though. Firstly, the dip stick comes up in the middle of the engine, right under the throttle body. So being a clever dick I just turned the P clip that held it onto the rocker around so it came up further forward. It still hit the air flow tube so I put the actual dipstick in back to front.



I did notice a clicking noise when I started the car for the first time, and it took me a while to work out that it was the dipstick (it didn't do it when I took it out). The only thing it can be is the crankshaft hitting it as it's in at the wrong angle
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I eventually took it out, cut the top off, then rebent what was left to form a new top.

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Dinky dipstick
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doesn't click, but I may have to take the elbow off to check the oil.

Secondly the MAT sensor has punched a hole in the underbonnet sound insulation, it's simply sits too high. I have had to turn the air flow tube round a few degrees, although the build manual said it had to go at the top.

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Now it turns out that the air filter, which did look too big, is too big and also fouls the underbonnet sound proofing. Smaller one ordered,

Then hopefully all will be well
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Thank you Peter :)

Smaller air filter on, and been playing with the tuning. I have to admit to getting some help from a local rolling road which has finely tuned the acceleration, pulls like a train now.

New battery fitted as well, that was embarrassing, breaking down in heavy traffic on a roundabout :oops:

Still has some juddering when cruising, but I'll get it sorted soon.

Power is 210.9bhp at the flywheel with 247 torques :)

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117mph!! I bet that was fun, shame I wasn't there when they did that.
 
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That is a serious gain in power you achieved so i believe you can be happy with that! Would have expected that the maximum torque would be reached at a lower rev but the diagram starts at 190 so it is a little distorted view.

Peter
 
Ever thought getting in contact with the guys from Petrolicious ?
This modified and fine example of a P6 would be very interesting for them, I can imagine and their videos are simply the best.
 
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