Jeffbucc

I can see his point on how it helps but it sure seems like a hell of a lot of work for a very small gain.

Found it, product called Glyptal

rleete

iTrader: (21)

Holy crap, that guy makes jeffbucc look rational polishing a PPF.

Jeffbucc

For real real. There are indeed people out there much more meticulous than I am(and usually have the know-how to accomplish it as well).

Got a few things taken care of today. Made all the brackets for my SPAL 13" fan

Used 1/8" aluminum to make the brackets. I didn't make a shroud because I'm not sure if I need one or not. I'll see how well it pulls heat out of the radiator and if needed mock up an ABS shroud(already made the template).

Not my best work but I didn't want to make them too thin and have them flex.



used M6x1.0 rivnuts because I wouldn't get enough thread in the aluminum to be secure. Looks a little funky, but that is just due to them not being aligned.




All mounted up and wired in. Had to add a little duty to my idle when it kicks on. Sucker draws a lot of power and makes my OEM fan's CFM seem cute in comparison.



Made a new throttle cable bracket as well. I made my old one out of some 1/16" exhaust pipe, and it would cause a little TPS jitter from the vibrations at idle. The 1/8" bracket is way more sturdy.



Just need to wire in my gauges for coolant and oil temp, and see how I'm going to go about fitting them in the OEM coolant temp and oil pressure locations without hacking it up.

eduTechnic

Yes! I love me some jafromobile. I watch his videos over and over. Glyptal is a pretty cool product but after you see the work that went into his prep just to paint...it makes you tired watching the youtube version.

Jeffbucc

Slowly but surely I'm getting my boost response a little better.
-cleaned out my EBC solenoid(surprising amount of junk in it)-better seal/response
-tracked down a couple boost leaks after making a boost leak tester(pvc pipe plug+air compressor quick release)
-rerouted vacuum lines to EWG

Now I'm going to try messing with my PID to see if there is something that my car just doesn't agree with. The solenoid IS sealing and closing so something is up on the software side.

On that note, I was comparing his new Spark Advance Table with my original file, and noticed he cut back on timing pretty significantly, even with all the beneficial upgrades I've done to the car(where do I begin?).

So the question being, why, after the original owner successfully ran this spark table for several years, did he retard the timing so much? Playing it safe?

Maybe I just don't understand it properly, but methinks this is partially why my low end power is just so terrible to what it was on my 2860rs turbo. I simply can't get boost to respond properly as this EFR has proven to perform on very very similar builds.

-timing is correct
-zero boost leaks
-no injector leaks
-leakdown test shows all is good

I'm just getting a little defeated at this point, smack your head against the wall enough times and you eventually you learn it isn't fun anymore.

Doesn't help, that again, I am learning from ground zero every step of the way. Which is good, albeit frustrating at times. But, I'm to the point I want to drop it off at Flyin' Miata, get down on my knees and take the damage huge bill they will surely *** all over my face(excuse the mental image).

Original Spark Advance Map



New Spark Advance Map



Old vs new boost settings

18psi

iTrader: (76)

old vs new boost settings screen shot not showing up for some reason.

There could be several reasons for him retarding it more:
-tuner is conservative
-it was seeing knock during tuning.
-the newly rebuilt head on engine holds much better compression

What would be a lot more helpful is a log showing the actual commanded timing through a pull. So like 3rd or 4th from 2k-redline. Then you know what it's actually doing. Or go through it in MLV and plot out the path down the spark map and then compare.

your boost duty should be at 100% until it starts to upswing fast, so if he's got it tapering then that needs to be fixed. (although I DO agree that your timing looks pretty darn low)

don't get defeated, you're just messing with finalization type stuff now, it's actually kinda fun (IMO). Much better than starting from scratch or setting the thing up.

The key now is LOG LOG LOG cause you want to quantify everything that's happening and what changes are affecting what now. Save messing with timing for after you've dialed in the boost controller.

Jeffbucc

I'll try to get some solid logs today after work. I honestly dont think it is the boost settings, as I have ran it off the wastegate only and it still showed similar spool(4k), so I'm leaning towards something else.

I need to tear the valve cover off after I try the software side of things and learn how to check my valve lash. Maybe it went out of spec after being rebuilt. 7thous exhaust and 10thous intake if memory serves me right on the 99 head.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

wat?
shoudln't it upswing MUCH faster with ebc? that suggests to me exactly the opposite of what you're concluding.

try this, seriously:
-set boost cut to something low like 15psi
-disconnect the vacuum line to the wg
-do a WOT log from 2k til cut or til it goes past like 10psi, in your 1:1 gear

that will once and for all show you if it's the ebc or not.

Jeffbucc

Yeah it weirdly doesn't though, in regards to climbing faster via EBC.

That is a very good idea, I'll log that as well.

One thought I just had is the new map is using the initial value boost table, while the old had it turned off. Maybe IVB is interfering withe boost climb due to the values he inputted.

I'll stop the conjecturing though until I get some data for you, just running through the differences in the tunes elimination style as I contemplate this.

curly

iTrader: (25)

OR, drive they extra 9.5 hours to Oregon City and let me take a look, then dyno on a proper DynoJet with Kris of KO Racing looking over our shoulder.

Jeffbucc

That is becoming a possibility soon. Just picked up a Euro Westfalia Class 2 hitch for my Jetta. Just need to get a tow dolly(sell my KW V3s) and I will have no problem driving 10 hours with AC, cruise, comfy seats, 30ish mpg +/-.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Or drive it to Kaliforneeya and I can take a look on the local Mustang Dyno too

*edit: arent you coming down for MRLS anyway?

*edit#2: opened up that post on my phone and noticed the CL Boost PID is WAY different on the new settings. Before it looks to be set to hit target agressively and now way slower and way smoother.

btw what is your initial duty table look like?

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

Me first!

FAB

iTrader: (4)

It looks like he changed the break points on your ignition table and then took a solid percentage out of the 175 + kPa area. Doesn't look like it was tuned for torque but without knowing exactly what was happening I'm not going to say it was a good or bad move on the tuners part.

codrus

Well, there's basically two reasons to reduce the timing. One is that it's pinging, the other is that it's beyond MBT and there are no gains to be had by running the timing that high. It seems unlikely to me that 14 degrees is MBT at 200 kpa, but it varies a lot depending on the engine config. AIUI, the higher the VE of the engine, the less timing advance it wants for MBT, although I'm not sure why.

Personally, I would add some more progressiveness to the boost target table so that you can use more of the throttle travel range to actually change the power level.

Changing the breakpoints makes a lot of sense, previously you had nothing between 215 and 300, so it was just linearly interpolating. If your peak boost target is 260, then that's not really a good thing.

--Ian

18psi

iTrader: (76)

One thing is for sure: 100kpa and below there is a LOT of timing that can be added back in without issues

Jeffbucc

And you can feel that Vlad, below 3k it is so gutless.

Ehhh, overstatement, but you get that "hurry the **** up" ansyness when it doesn't climb the rpms as you'd like it to.

I really need to read up on timing adjustment and spark tuning. That has always been the area I've never understood/too scared to start in on.

codrus

AIUI, it's pretty straightforward really. If you graph timing vs torque, the left part of the graph shows big gains from every degree you add. Eventually the curve starts to flatten out, and the peak torque is at "MBT". To the right of MBT, it actually starts to lose torque as you add more timing.

Supposedly the stress on the rods goes up a lot as you approach MBT, so ideally you want the motor tuned a degree or two off MBT, to maximize your torque gains while minimizing the stress.

If you're using a dyno, finding MBT (for boosted rows) isn't hard, you pick a row on the table and start adding timing to that row in successive dyno pulls. If the shape of the table is wrong, then you'll probably get to MBT in some cells before you get to it in others, so you start only adding timing in the cells where it actually adds power. Once you find MBT, you back it off a bit, and move up to the next row.

If it pings, then you stop there and back it off a bunch, obviously. A little bit of pinging isn't going to do much damage, the trick is in accurately determining when it's pinging, and that's where having dyno tuning experience helps a lot.

You also need good boost control to get this to work, because changing the timing will change the amount of boost you get out of the turbine at a given wastegate setting. If the boost varies by 10 kpa then the torque gains or loss from that can mask the gains or loss from the timing change. Dyno software that could graph torque divided by MAP would be really useful here, but I don't know of any dynos that do that.

As for how you tune timing without a dyno, I have no clue. AFAICT, you basically don't.

--Ian

Jeffbucc

Thanks for that Codrus. I see what you mean by the difficulty without a dyno/experience.

Maybe I'll start playing with timing below 3k rpm/150kpa to see how that changes the spool/graph/map.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

You can do spark tuning REALLY roughly/crudely on the street, but once it comes down to that last 10hp then yeah there's no way at all to do it without a dyno.

I mean we pretty much "know" what a miata spark map should look like in most cases, that's how many of us were able to tell you that yours is conservative just by looking at it.