Monday, May 08, 2006 - 04:26 pm, by: Aaron Mead(Aaron)
Hey all.
Well, with only one real efi tuner here in Darwin, I've booked the Soarer in for 'problem solving/tuning' this friday (made the booking two and a half weeks ago, thats how flat out this guy is).
Going back to the start of the problem (some of you will know about this already), i received the car in perfect nick, driving it around and enjoying it until all of a sudden it decided to cough and splutter really badly, as if it had decided to not fire on all cylinders, or overfuel some cylinders before igniting the mixture. There was quite alot of unburnt fuel (very black smoke from the tailpipe) exiting, and under any sort of load it was just coughing and spluttering, the stock Bov opening and closing alot as the engine ignited and failed to ignite repeatedly i assume. Embarrassing. Lucky it was only two or three kilometers to get home.
After taking the car in for an initial test and service, it recorded only 175krwk, 50kw short of its previous. The dyno operator commented how it just wouldnt make boost after a certain point, instead, the boost would spike up, then go downhill.
On the road, it would putt about perfectly under 4000rpm. Making good clean power up to that point. After 4000 however, it would surge a little, and wouldnt hold boost at all as the revs climbed. You could hear the exhaust note change. On the dyno, black smoke could be seen exiting the pipes as it climbed. Unfortunately i didnt get printouts of the graph showing the AFR's. Having spokebn to the dyno guy today, I have informed of what just happened on my way home today. He mentioned that it was unusual to hear of the engine going bonkers during an average cruise. (no •••••
Im thinking about gettting a new fuel pump just to cut that out of the picture. The current one is the original soarer item from 1992, and fuel pumps arent really known for lasting more than 10 years in a performance application. I've been buying and hoarding spare parts for testing, like coil packs and stock injectors. Anyone reccommend items i might need in order to really find the problem?
Im thinking about going back to a standard ecu (i.e. minus the piggy back) with stock inj. and boost. I think some rewiring may be in order.
Monday, May 08, 2006 - 08:42 pm, by: Aaron Mead(Aaron)
OH MY GOD.
You guys are gonna kill me, or im gonna kill me. I just had went out to the car after leaving it for a couple of hours. I took the negative terminal off the battery for 5 minutes to clear everything (I tried diong an ecu reset before, but no luck. Actually i tried the ecu reset twice on the way home when the car was running buggered, to no avail, and again not long after i got home at around 4.00pm In the past, this used to solve the prob immediately). Its now 8.33, and the car is running like a dream. LIKE A BLOODY DREAM I TELL YA. It revs out all the way cleanly, seems to be boosting just fine, and on the apexi RSM, it did 0-100km/h in 5.37. When it was running like a snot above 4000 rpm last week, the best it could pull was 7.5ish.
This is driving me nuts. Im thinking about rewiring everything to make sure its all okay. Who knows what might have happened to it on the way up from melbourne during its 3500km journey. Its still booked in for friday dyno, so im gonna explain everything thats happened since i got it till now and hopefully the guy can get with the program. Otherwise ill have to kidnap Lew and stick him the back of my hilux like i did that joanna chick just before i kil.......well you know.
Some interesting things to note. The idle has gone down very low to around the 490-540rpm mark. It used to hover at 590-610rpm before tonight.
Also, the drive idle has a big effect on how the car feels at the lights. Previously, it used to pull quite a bit when at the red lights with ya foot on the brake and the trans in 'D' (for drag!)
Now it hardly pulls. You still need the brakes but it feels like most other cars I'd driven. I know i didnt mention this earlier, but i thought it may have been because of the mv 1.5 shift kit and the trans line pressure. Now it feels normal.
Also with the aircon running and in P or N, it only uses about 800-900 rpm. Previously it would go to 1200rpm. This is quite dramatic as you can see.
Whilst the car doesnt feel 100% like 240rwkw, its close. The last time it was on a dyno the boost was lowered to around 14p.s.i. on the high setting to get it to run half decent. I imagine with another 3 p.s.i. it would be just like it was.
I really need to sort this out. I 've gotta find what causing this erattic behaviour. Maybe it doesnt like me?
Monday, May 08, 2006 - 08:45 pm, by: Aaron Mead(Aaron)
Also, before i couldnt drive it on the high boost setting (14) as it would spike early and wouldnt rev anyway after 4000rpm. In fact after 4000 rpm it ran worse than it did on 11 p.s.i. at the same revs. Cheers.
Robert Hayden Moderator Victoria 1991 UZZ32, 1991 UZZ32 Supercharged, UCF11 Celsior 1990
Monday, May 08, 2006 - 09:16 pm, by: Robert Hayden(The_boss)
Suzie and I are sitting here shaking our heads.
God knows what happened to it in that two week period of transit, but something sure aint right!
The car always used to idle a little low on the tacho. Didn't bother us as it never stalled, nor felt like it was pulling in drive at the lights.
When it was stomped, it would always launch cleanly. Don't stress that it appears to idle a little low. That's normal for the old girl.
What fuel have you been running. Ultimate BP? And always from the same station or various outlets?
Instead of looking for power or tune on the dyno, this time try to analyse the problem. Get the operator to graph all the stuff you need to try and source the issue. Airflow, fuel pressure, air temps, lamda, mixtures, everything.
Then bring the results back here and ask the gurus.
Monday, May 08, 2006 - 11:38 pm, by: Aaron Mead(Aaron)
Golf clap for you Pen!
I always get BP ultimate from one of two outlets. However, our 98 in darwin is refined in singapore then shipped to Darwin, as opposed to mel/syd/bne having theres refined onshore. We will definately be looking for errors and symptoms on the dyno, the power figure will only be for comparitive purposes. I just got back from a 100km drive, the car seems fine. It now idles at 5400 in d, and 6000 in p or n. It sounds much gruntier on the loud pedal, and is almost totally smooth at the 4000rpm onwards point. There is only a marginal hesitation now at about 4000-4500 under wot. Can only just notice it.
Im wondering about the 6km journey home I had earlier today just before I wrote the first post, with the car fueling like all hell and black smoke drowning those behind me. No doubt the Iridiums will be coked, will clenaing them suffice or better to replace? Im also wondering how the o2 sensor is. Its suffered a fair bit of severe richness lately. Ill bet its not giving 100% efficiency thats for sure. Anyway, till dyno time on friday, lets hope it remins this way!
Tuesday, May 09, 2006 - 08:36 pm, by: Neil Griffiths(Aussiesc)
Allow it the *Re-Learn* after the battery has been off.
Start again...Battery off for 30mins. THEN, Restart Let Idle for 1 min in P turn AC on for 1 min in P Idle for 1 min in D turn AC on for 1 min in D let idle in P again.. Now take for NORMAL drive in NORMAL situations. With & Without AC on.. Do this for about a 29-30 min drive..
Come home..turn off...Go out latter on and see how it goes..
Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 10:43 pm, by: Aaron Mead(Aaron)
Cheers for that Neil! I will do that first thing tomorrow morning. I've noticed some major differences since i last did the battery reset.
The last time I did it, the air con was off for the whole 're-learning' drive. Its been quite cool the last few days and I havent needed it till this arvo. It caused quite a change in the idle rpm. Immediately after turning the AC on for the first time in two days, the drive idle was up at about 1000rpm. It would go as high as 1300 in park idle.
When driving with the AC on, I noticed this arvo that the car felt like the injector overrun was cancelled, the car didnt slow down half as much when i removed my foot from the accellerator. It wanted to take off from a stop as well. I stopped in at bi-lo on the way home with the car and AC running (missus inside) while i shopped. When I got back i noticed the idle had come wayyy down to normal. Also, over the last couple of days since resetting (with ac off) the drive idle has crept up from 490-510 to 540-560. The park idle is 610.
I cant wait to try out the list you've provided, its so good to have that info. THANKYOU!
Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - 10:51 pm, by: Aaron Mead(Aaron)
Oh and Im still noticing a hesitation under wot at about the 4k mark, you can see the rpms drop back about 500 or so, before continuing on well. I have ngk iridium 6's in the car atm, no doubt they are severely coked (as are the exhaust tips) from the overfuelling they copped on the way home the other day. My ngk 7's arrived today, so Ill drop all the now blackened mobil 1 I put in two weeks ago (60bux down the sh|tter) and give it a new filter and shove these new plugs in at the same time.
Friday, May 12, 2006 - 07:56 pm, by: Aaron Mead(Aaron)
Okay, back from the speed shop.
The coughing and spluttering that occurred out of the blue has been put down to the green fuel output (or was that input) wire on the IFT plug. While we couldnt get the green wire out of the plug, we managed to over loop it and solder it in place. So no more coughing and pluttering for me. YAY!!!! After 150km since soldering that wire and some KILLER dyno tuning, it hasnt stalled again, so hopefully thats the end of the coughing and pluttering issue.
The problem with the hesitation at 4000 rpm and the downward power curve after that hasnt been fixed yet, although we noticed on the IFT screen that the values in that area all appeared quite skewed and didnt represent a logical increse in value. Reason why it wasnt fixed: we couldnt edit those figure without 'being on it' i.e. being under that load/rev/fuel point. Unless the car was loaded up we couldnt edit the values. Now you maybe thinking 'why didnt you just hold the accelerator at that point and edit it'?? Well, the damn car just wouldnt glue to the rollers. It was very hard to tie down properlay due to the exhaust posistion and the ground lugs on the dyno. We tried putting planks of wood over the exhaust, but the pipes burnt through that and subsequently throught the straps!!
We also managed to cook the dyno too! And I lost about 30% of my tread. Unfrotunate, but after so many hours of trying to tie it down, using my 150kg frame as ballast, spare 4wd tyres etc, it was getting dark outside and we called it a day. What Dave (the dyno operator) wanted to know was "Can we edit the values without having to have the car loaded up and be at that point. with the wheels slipping up at that range, it made it very hard to enter the right value, as the moment the wheels slipped, teh value point changed and of course the value you just keyed in affected a different map location! BUGGER!
Need to get a trans cooler ASAP. After that killer dyno run, i managed to get it to slip once between 2nd/3rd and back. But after letting it cool down, i took it for a blat and all is well. Aside from being a heap of power short. The other thing dave pointed out was that it was very hard to get more air in the mix, and it could be related to a melted cat. Which is plausible after all the rich rich running its copped. So tomorrow, im off to the exhaust shop to get em gutted. At least we'll be able to see if its the cats. If it isnt, we either need to find a way to edit the values without being on the dyno under load, or I might go to another dyno and see if they have different strap lug locations, and try to get the car to strap down better. We sure burned a lot of rubber on that dyno. I also forgot to get printouts of everything and only got a basic dyno sheet with road speed, AFR and power axis's. Onkly made 180kw. On the low boost setting, (blue lines) the damn thing ran even richer. On high boost it was a little better, maybe cause it was using that extra fuel. The IGN isnt wired into the IFT Dave said. Not that he got around to trying to tune the IGN.
Ill post pic of the dyno after i shower and get some bloody food in the tummy. I been at the dyno from 3.30 till 7.30, and I started work at 4.30 this morning. I Think i earned a stubby too.
Friday, May 12, 2006 - 08:22 pm, by: Aaron Mead(Aaron)
and look what the missus brought home. Its getting its nuts removed tomorrow. So many irresponsible cat owners up here, they should all be shot. Along with their un-desexed cats.
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