Not Running to healthy

[Tony C]

well that didnt work
only way i can get her to sort of idle is to disconect the stepper,
and wind it out of its housing as if it is an idle screw,
then i can get her to idle, not very smooth but it idles,
have had enough now the ecu is out of the car and sat on the kitchen table,
im looking at refitting the old ecu now as not got no more time or patience now to sit round garage every day trying to get the car to run,
Rob if you want the ecu sent back to run on the test bed just shout mate,

also it seems if you load a map on the ecu get car running to a fashion,
turn ignition off come back later it wont run you have to start setting it up again.
the values you store seem to be there still but you have to change the VE etc to other settings along with stepper settings to try and get it to idle,
if you wind the dizzy round to 28 degrees it will run ish on its own, but thats not a wise thing on an engine that was fine at 10 degrees

[rob@vems.co.uk]

Yeah send it back and I'll run it up on the test bed to see if I can replicate the same problem with it loosing settings.
Interesting that the idle picks up at 28degrees ignition advance though!?!

All very strange.

Rob

[Jorgen]

I worry a bit about the grounding, even if the MAP sensor is internal it can be affected by very bad ground. The internal MAP is very rugged and it's unlikely that it can fail. With a separate hose to the plenum and a test with a vacuum gauge we should be able to eliminate the MAP sensor from the equation.

I have seen MAP traces like that a few times before and I'm sorry to say that in 4 out of five cases it has been related to the valve train. In the fifth case it was a leaking intake gasket on a manifold with very long runners. ECU's like ours that use the MAP as the primary load sensor will be sensitive to problems that give an unpredictable vacuum.

You say that you let it idle at 10 degrees, I usuallly do that as well when the engine let me get away with it. But some more idle timing give a much better idle if you have a lumpy cam.

Jörgen

[Tony C]

hi Jorgen,
i have spoken to a few guys i race with and they are asking why have i got to give it so much at idle timing wise,
one uses an aftermarket ecu and has an even wilder cam than me and he aint got to run his that high, strange eh, i wish i never upgraded the engine now.

im going to try my old set up, (started redoing the loom tonight)
just to ease my mind, if it runs ok then then im convinced its a ecu/loom/sensor problem.
if it fails to run and gives the same faults then i will agree its to do with the engine/valvetrain

the ecu is boxed up already Rob,
will be coming first class recorded, while you got it how much to change that blown transistor bit on the fuel pump channel?
do you want the loom also so you got what i have here you may find something wrong with the loom that i have missed?

[dnb]

at least its not just me then, what would cause this mate??? as is a little worring as would the ecu not try and change the fuelling for the high temp?

I put it down to the TVR grounding being really nasty.  I had sorted most of it, but there were some bits that were less than ideal!

[Tony C]

well in between the party and me hiding i managed to get the ecu loom removed and the loom and ecu both boxed up to send to rob for a testing session, (cheers mate)

[Jorgen]

I hope that you find the problem, the lack of a vacuum signal indicates that you'll find it in the valvetrain. As the ECU only controls the fuel on your car it's hard for it to change the vacuum signal at all and even if you used it for ignition it would be hard to get it to change the vacuum this much.

Good luck,
Jörgen

[Jorgen]

Tony, I saw your thread on http://www.v-8.org.uk. I saw some notes about throttle shafts and the intake looks much like a ITB intake. Was individual throttle bodies part of the last upgrade package?

Jörgen

[r2d2hp]

Tony only installed new throttle shafts to his twin plenum setup.  I know as I had them made for him.

[Tony C]

Tony only installed new throttle shafts to his twin plenum setup.  I know as I had them made for him.

not installed the newshafts yet mate as was waiting for the new bolts to lock the plates in with,

no jorgen i wish it was throttle boddies mate,
its a twin plenum set up, two throttle plates that feed into the plenum chamber with 8 ram pipes inside.

[rob@vems.co.uk]

Okay, so I've got the VEMS and harness from Tony today.

All 8 injectors are functioning correctly.
Anti-lag was on.

I've downloaded and checked over the configs, upgraded them flashed the unit with firmware 1.0.73
and ran a sweeping test from 600-6000-600-6000 rpm pulling a pressure on the MAP sensor.
The datalog is here:
http://www.vems.co.uk/VEMSInstalls/TonyCooper/BenchTestAfterUpgraded.xls

I set the MAP kpa reading to 101.5 as it was the closest I could get to the measured pressure of 101.7
The atmospheric pressure has gone up here, its currently reading 102 on Tony's ECU and 102 on my test unit.

All injectors fire correctly.

I've recalibrated the wideband:
nerst target is now 136 (was 141)
pump zero remains at 100

All in all everything looks fine with the VEMS
I'll keep checking and downloading the config so I can compare them back to back to ensure that the settings are not getting corrupted.

[Tony C]

keep an eye on the anti lag mate,
as we turned that off 3 times

will i need to upgrade the laptop software now as the ecu is now on 1.0.73 mate?

did you test the ecu and loom together?? just in case there was a fault in the loom,

and did you find that popped transistor?

thanks again for your help on testing the ecu for me mate,
looks like i need to spend some money on some gaskets and strip the engine down again

[rob@vems.co.uk]

keep an eye on the anti lag mate,
as we turned that off 3 times

will i need to upgrade the laptop software now as the ecu is now on 1.0.73 mate?

did you test the ecu and loom together?? just in case there was a fault in the loom,

and did you find that popped transistor?

thanks again for your help on testing the ecu for me mate,
looks like i need to spend some money on some gaskets and strip the engine down again

Because of significant changes in the configuration of anti-lag turning it off through MegaTune doesnt work when you've upgraded from pre 1.0.3x

When I return the VEMS to will recieve what all new purchasers get:
A CD with the Software release and the configs&tables that the unit was shipped with.
A calibration sheet detailing the settings and tests made on your system.

The fuel pump driver is a complete chip: the p259, and I didnt get a chance to test it last night, but I did'nt see that the earths on the harness were not joined:


This would account for the p259 dieing in the event of an earthing problem.  It might also explain the noisey signals that we saw, but again these wouldnt be sufficient to cause the problems you've been having.

I didnt test with the loom as I wanted to isolate the VEMS first.  I'll look at the loom next.

Rob

[Jorgen]

I took a look at the preload setup you did on the lifters and it looks like it could be easy to get it wrong. Isn't it possible to start the engine and loosen it up until it starts to tick, let it run for a few seconds that way and then tighten it up until it doesn't tick any more?

To tight preload will give the behavior you see.

Jörgen

[Tony C]

Hi Jorgen,
very doubtful i got the preload wrong,
if i have its the first time in the 14 RV8 engines i have built that i have,
the only way to check is to strip the lifters out dismantle them drain oil out of then refit and re set preload, also if the preload was wrong i would of thought the problem would of been there from strat up not 40 miles later mate, but i could be wrong,
will be doing a comp test over the weekend to see if we have anything not sealing proper, have rigged up a drill to run the oil pump to make sure evry thing is pumped up with oil as if engine was running to check clearances too.