1st Gen Haltech ECU Discussion

You usually need more fuel to start while cold but yeah if you overcook it you could have a bit of a cannon. Mine doesn't drop much beyond the cell I set for 30*

 

They should be a larger pulse. Cold air and fuel is harder to combust. There isn't enough cylinder pressure/temperature for the fuel to vaporize and fill the chamber evenly.

 

Curious what boost everyone can get in 1st gear. Seems like mine peaks a little over 9psi, might be able to squeeze it to 10

 

Also, on a completely unrelated note, is there a somewhat comprehensive guide on Haltech failsafe mode setups? I can't even really see how to assign different severity triggers (like, what triggers 1 vs 2 vs 3). Mostly I want to set up an action scheme in case my VSS fails, but it's seeming like this may be beyond the scope of a 2500

 

I'm sure we have recorded a pull here or there of that but I don't usually punch it in first since it just breaks loose.

 

Makes sense.. steering gets a little squirrelly for a second for me, but I'm still pushing 35s on 4.1s. I'm sure things (incl achievable boost) will change when I drop back down

 

my truck fires right up when it's cold but after I've driven it at all it usually takes a couple seconds. It can be a little embarrassing getting the look from people like they are about to get jumper cables or hand me a tow truck business card

 

Lmao Just wish mine would start in 1 second every time *sigh*

I'll get wacky with it this weekend. Trick is you only get a little bit few attempts before variables change and have to wait a few hours

 

Did a proper launch in 4WD this evening. I can get to 14psi (thats commanded max for this tune, I don't run on my bleeding edge tune 24/7) with no problems in 1st gear. I've got 8psi by 2800rpm and it builds steady from there hitting max boost for this tune at 4600rpm. Not bad for 1st gear load haha

 

Ya that's pretty damn good

 

I blame the sorta stock gearing, 35s and 4.56 is about the same as 31s and 4.10s so its a pretty good balance of load and performance.

 

I need to shrink the volume between the heads and manifold most likely

I other news, I set up throttle to be linear to 10%, 60% is 100% and 8psi, beyond 60% is 8-15psi, which still has some instability apparently.
Conjoined with that is the feeling of static acceleration which means torque is suffering significantly after ~8psi due to timing restrictions. I've wanted to run meth (washer fluid) as the next experiment for a while as a replacement for premium so that might happen soon

 

That is uh, interesting for sure. I still don't really understand why you've done any of that throttle stuff. But the timing is interesting, you sure it is that, do you have a lot of ping? I'd bet there is pre turbo restriction and possibly turbo restriction as well. Both will cause a lower ping threshold and torque falloff.

 

There's a few things to unpack there.. First, I'm running that restricted map you approved when I was getting ping a couple years ago and have been cautious about advancing since. With the wideband knocks, I've set conservative limits and allowed it to advance up to 2*.

As far as why I'm doing the throttle, I'm actually using my Golf R as example. And it works satisfyingly. As a side note, I do want to extend my brake pedal to be at least even with throttle via welding a triangle in the middle or similar since it feels strange. Fundamentally max VE is obtained with least restriction, so having throttle plate open ASAP is preferred. If I could operate with an even lighter spring (3psi or such) I would, and force full throttle before boost adds in, but I'm around 7.

These turbos are known to go as far as 350-400HP/2L engine for Fords. This is clearly stressing the impeller yet it's done with reasonable longevity. Therefore, I feel I'm operating in a more reasonable region with 1.7L/turbo aiming for 400HP, or 200HP/turbo

 

Okay so the pedal thing is just a feel good thing for how you drive, that's cool if you like how it works. Now that you have knock sensors and know what the knock freq. is have you been encountering knock or does it just stay 2* advanced? I haven't looked at your map lately so I don't know what your timing looks like, frankly everything else is so different from how things are normally done I wouldn't want to mess with any of it unless it was to be retuned traditionally first. But if I recall you were a bit more conservative than I was about a year ago and we've added a lot to mine after dyno tuning. But I'd think that would likely be your next step too staying with the tinkering theme of your build, hit the dyno so you can steady state tune with some knock ears. The dyno graph is a pretty reliable indicator of what your bottleneck is, and after a few different vehicles on one you can start picking out that same info from a VE table (along with a host of other symptoms and issues)

 

Haha tbh my plan is to get a cheap amp for the knocks into my head unit 3.5mm jack and just leave it on as I drive. Would be interested to see how far you were able to push your timing map though

 

The one from the kill tune has a few extra degrees that might not fly on a heat soaked engine on a very hot day.

 

Does anyone have any actual hands on experience with using a set of diy knock ears on these motors? I'd like to do a setup on my 3rz with the stock sensor ideally, but wouldn't I need some sort of filtering for the signal to be usable?

I like the Fowler product and the functionality it provides, but it's more $$$ than I'd like.

 

The ones we used are DIY, just a headphone amp wired to a Bosch knock sensor. You could add a filter circuit. Really the FWLR gauge deal is about as cheap as you'll find a genuine knock monitoring device though.

 

How was the background noise? Was it hard to distinguish the knock from other noises?