It's alive!
Starting a car for the first time after upgrades are always exciting. Especially with a new ECU.
Before turning the key there are a couple of things that need to be calibrated and configured with the Hydra software:
- downloading the preconfigured FM map from the ECU and save it as a backup.
- Calibrate the TPS
- Calibrate the WB02
- Resetting the idle screw.
No problems when connecting to the ECU and downloading the map.
The software itself will not win any awards for usability. I miss the easy and intuitive interface of DataLogLab that was used to setup the Link ECU.
Calibrating the TPS is easy with the v2.5 box. Just click the calibration buttons and the values gets right the first time.
Calibrating the WBO2 on the other hand was a problem. My battery is almost brand new but did not give more than 11.9 volts with the ingition on. The manual states that calibrating wont work if its less than 12 volts. I got the voltage to 12.1 by adding a battery charger but it still would not calibrate right. At this point I thougt the sendor was faulty or destroyed by my faulty wiring.
The solution was to roll the car outside and temporarily route the sensor to the cabin to avoid exhaust contamination while calibration.
I got 13v and perfect calibration with standard values while holding the sensor in free air top down.
The startup went ok but with idle alomst at 4K.
The problem got even worse after installing and activating the WBO2 and setting idle as described in the manual. When warmed up the idle was oscillating from 1000 to 4000 rpm which makes it impossible to set the base timing and idle fuel.
After som head scratching I tried to unplug the ICS valve. The result was dead stable idle at 900 rpm when warmed up. Idle fuel was way rich according to the NBO2 but timing was spot on with the standard settings.
The idle problem with the ICS connected did not get any better after tuning idle fuel. I got the oscillations down to 3000 rpm by using the PID settings and other idle control parameter but still not drivable.
After some complaining to FM, Jeremy recommended to set the idle manually with the ICS valve disconnected to just above stalling rpm . This way the ICS will work in a more optimal rpm range. That worked out pretty well. Standard settings are ok but I still have a issue with idle oscillations from 900 - 1500 when the heater fan is on (!). Might be a problem with the harness or the AC compensation map.
I took it easy on the first test drive and datalogged a few low boost pulls while listening for knock or other unwanted sounds from the engine.
The exported datalog looked really strange in DLL. After lots of debugging the error turned out to be the Hydra Software using the Norwegian locale settings to get the decimal delimiter character. In Norway we use ‘,’ as a decimal character while lots of other countries including the US uses ‘.’ This made the Hydra datalog export look all wrong as both the column separator and decimal separator was set to ‘,’. Problem fixed by changing locale settings in Windows.
Finally after verifying that A/F and temps looked fine in the logs it was time for some WOT runs.
The first noticeable change is the earlier spool and extra kick-in-the-back at 3-4K.
It goes right up to 10 psi with the standard configuration and no EBC activated.
The next nice change is being able to rev the car to 7200. This really changes the way one drive when having fun. It also helps with the short standard gearing.
Nice to have the car back on the road. VERY NICE.
Next up is autotuning with the WBO2 and possibly adding some timing in the boosted part of the map. Yeah, and winding up the boost to 14 psi….
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