1st Gen Haltech ECU Discussion

I think I'll just do the pump now then, and wait until your write up to do the fuel lines. Not running E85 for a while, but I want to replace the pump now as I'm about to go on a long trip.

Thanks!

 

Me when that write-up is done:

 

You gonna run ethanol?

 

Not any time soon but there's a place here that offers it and if I had everything to run the injectors then it might be fun to dabble.

The pump is already good to go.

My fuel lines are old and could use a change why not update it

 

Fair point, removes a hard to get un-serviceable line too which is nice.

 

Group buy fuel line upgrade, all these new Turbros would pile in on that

 

Somewhat related I'm curious about the benefits of a flex fuel sensor. How much could the Haltech do with that information

 

The Haltech is fully capable of interpolating multiple maps to correspond with the sensed ethanol content. If you don't write a high content ethanol map, the only thing it can do is tell you how much ethanol you have and what your fuel temperature is. When my buddy and I do flex mapping we go to the gas station, fill a couple 6gal tanks with E85, then manually check the ethanol content to make sure it's 82% or greater... pump down the fuel tank in the vehicle and fill with E85. Then you can start with your existing ignition map, and fuel map (plus about 25-30% more fuel in the VE map since ethanol is less energy dense) and go from there. The fuel map usually only needs a partial retune since it was probably already good on E10 and spark will work as-is but now you have tons of overhead there to increase timing advance so you'll likely fully retune that. Target AFR map will have to change since the fuel has a different stoichiometry. But at this point you're running roughly 105octane fuel so you've got room to turn up the timing out of boost, turn up the boost, and hell turn up both together... it's just like tuning for E10 or ethanol free at this point. Once you've dialed that in how you like and verified the flex sensor is reading the Haltech has its baselines for both fuels now and can interpolate. So you could do any mixture from E0 to E85 and it will mix the ignition and fuel tables appropriately for the ethanol content. You can create some corrections if you find a place the auto mixing doesn't work right but it's usually pretty good on its own. You could easily pick up 25-30hp out of boost and likely much more in boost with ethanol, biggest downside is you burn more of it. But upside is, it's cheaper than race fuel and works just as well, plus corn juice smells nice.

 

Damn, great response.
In my head I imagined it could do a lot and that made it hard to ask such a simple question about a broad topic.
I didn't even think about fuel temperature.

 

I've been running one for a few months. For me it's just nice to know that I'm spot on with lambda (14.7:1 is not stoich for E10, it's actually lean), my gas is what it's advertised to be (always been between 7-8% when I've looked), and there's some small refinement the ECU supposedly does to the fuel calculation based on fuel temp. But for 50 bucks and I was replacing the fuel pump anyway, now I'm future proofed if I want to run ethanol



I'd be totally interested in a line conversion kit btw. I'm pretty tired of the guess and check method with AN equipment.. And especially the fitting installs. Had too many leaks with oil, don't want that with fuel

 

Yeah stoich for E10 is more like 14.1:1 it's a very minor difference, why manufacturers have no concern with it since octane remains the same or greater usually negating the knock tendency of running a tiny bit lean. Would be interesting to do a retune on a tank of ethanol free then go to a tank of E85 and see what the total power gain is. Would be totally applicable just to one rig, but still an interesting comparison.

I was going to have crimped on ANs made by the local hose company, I'll make a set soon and test then give em to the hose co to have a few more made for folks who are interested.

 

For those that have full cat systems (or just like performance car noises) I duplicated the cat warmup procedure in Haltech to quickly get cats up to temp, also has the side effect of sounding pretty intense and rumbly.

I'll get a video soon but it's the same idea as this video of my old 135i, car starts on normal timing (more advance works better in cold start), then retards timing massively to let some unburnt fuel into the cats and ignite in the exhaust, obviously retarded timing makes more rumbles and heats up the exhaust nice and quick. Then the whole thing decays to normal timing within 15ish seconds.

https://youtu.be/pyR4aW0Hn5Y

 

For those that are interested in self tuning ignition to its highest potential there have always been methods available like looking for the maximum torque on the dyno (work on non-knock limited vehicles), knock ears, or even a home made set of det cans. I've used det cans before and for those that are attuned to the noise an engine makes, and can pick knock out of that, they're an excellent option and so cheap there's no reason not to make a pair. Knock ears are a similar concept but instead of a hose and crimp connection bolted to the engine you get a knock sensor (basically a microphone with a bolt hole) and a box that that lets you adjust some audio filters for low and high pass so you can single out mostly the sounds of detonation (knock/ping/marbles in a can)... some versions of knock ears even have loggable outputs. And recently I came across a newcomer to the game, a gentleman from Canada has come up with a rather portable version of knock ears, it's $450ish cheaper so it is lacking some attenuation abilities. But it has some very good features too, uses a normal Bosch wide frequency band knock sensor and is capable of dual bank knock monitoring (two sensors). Has a low and a high gain wiring options for the knock sensors to allow a bit of total attenuation ability, has a volume adjustment for your headphones so you aren't blasting your ear drums with valve train rattle or something. And after you dial it in and aren't tuning anymore necessarily you can still watch the LEDs as an indicator of knock.

I think I'll be purchasing one for shop use that I can take between vehicles but may get another and wire it in full time to the Haltech for logging... and really you could use it's input (after finding the knock threshold) as a quick safety to prevent knock either by pulling "x" amt of timing or by adding some fuel, or both.

Anyhow here's the link...

https://www.fwlrtuning.com/product-page/knock-detective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfvrSEdrPU0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL8NYVwk04s

 

I don't understand why you would need this if you're going through the trouble of installing knock sensors. The Haltech essentially has this functionality built in lol


Or maybe it's just the 2500, but you can still easily do a passive filter circuit and pass it through as analog on the 750, op-amp if you need more dc bias. $250 seems crazy for this

...in fact, I think I actually made this circuit as a freshman honors project in college LED scaling and all

 

I'm going to use it as a tool to take from vehicle to vehicle instead of my old detcans, but sure if you can make it this polished and portable you should, there's a market. I won't be permanently installing any knock sensors, there's plenty of workable bosses for audible feedback on the block. The haltech output is nice when looking at a log if already dialed in, you'll still need knock ears or detcans to dial them in though and you cannot listen live through the haltech ones. Tuners don't use the ECUs knock monitoring for tuning (usually a trust issue really, who knows if they've ever been tuned in fully), they use it for maintenance and safeties after they've had the time to dial them in themselves. Also it's like $180 bucks after accounting for USA freedom units against Canadian Moose nuggets. The real crime is how expensive knock ears are, they're $850.

Speaking of things that could be dialed in and polished and there would be a market... the gauges are a big hit in the local car scene here and there are a few people that want me to make some sets and gauge faces/tray mounts. I said I'd make some but would like to get the software functioning properly first. Is there any way I can help you with that? I'm not trying to develop a product here since these are all just one off in different positions and with difference applications but it would be nice to have AFR working right for them and I have a feeling if you wanted to develop it further as a product there would be buyers.

 

Haltech

I've been wanting to jump into the rabbit hole for quite a while but I told myself I wouldn't do it until I payed off a big loan for some needed home improvements


Damn financial responsibilities



well I payed it off last night

I'll probably be eating knockoff Mac N Cheese and top ramen for the rest of the month but at least I'm not paying interest

 

So you bought an R3 then?

 

Not yet, all my spending money went to paying the loan off earlier. That should teach them to try and add a $2 monthly statement fee.

But I did get pre approval from the wife for the R3.

 

Gabe Salazar building a 600-800hp 5vz with haltech of course.
He will be selling these parts.
Going to be a monster

 

Nice haha, well that'll be exciting. Probably just feels good to be free of loans too.