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I talked to DIY - they explained why they don't feel it's ecu related (the alternator part) but I cannot explain why off the top of my head.
I am planning on taking this weekend off from screwing with it because I am burned out, but next week I am going to swap over my oil line and go from there. Does anyone know the length and sizes for an oil supply line from the passenger side of the block routed around the back of the motor like FM does?
46" maybe? I need to find my Trackspeed engineering tee...
Oil line has been replaced and rather than put it all back together with a known issue, my next project is to keep my car from stalling when the main fan comes on. So far, it is a fail.
What has been done thus far:
Ground points for the ECU (front of intake manifold)
Grounds points between motor and frame (braided cable at back of block)
Ground points behind both right and left headlight,
- have all been wire brushed and packed with dielectric grease.
An interesting and possibly telling thing I noticed: When the fan was about to come on I decided to try and meter the amperage draw between the ground and the passenger side headlight grounding point. I metered over 20 amps (more than my meter could handle). However, when I went to plug everything back in I expected the fan to die when I disconnected my meter but it did not. I learned that there are four ground points that are all connected. I am not sure what that means but it's data...
Unfortunately my problem still persists. Next step is to load some idle settings from Splitime and see if there are any changes.
I went through your last 3 pages of troubleshooting, looking for problems that could be causing some, or all of your issues. I also went though the tune you posted.
The coils you are running are not being driving correctly. Those denso coils are designed to be driven by a CDI (capacitive discharge ignition system) that charges them with around 300V DC, which results in a big hot spark as the high voltage stores a ton of energy in them to discharge across the spark plug. You have them wired up to an ignitor that gives them 12V. The spark is very very VERY weak by doing this, around 1/300th of the amount of energy it would be if you drove them at 300V as they are designed to be driven with. The fact that the engine runs at all, is due to Lenz's law. Those coils will technically "spark" with like 2V applied due to Lenz's law, but the spark is so weak it's a miracle the car runs giving them 12V.
The fact your car dies anytime any heavy electrical load is applied suggest the coils spark-energy is so low during this condition, the engine misfires, RPMs drop, alternator turns slower, Batt Voltage is further reduced, and....
The crazy high dwell value you are feeding those coils, at 12V, is causing them to run really hot, which weakens the spark further. The longer the engine runs, the hotter they get, the weaker the spark. Eventually, it won't run, or anything that causes a decrease in voltage causes a proportionally larger drop in spark energy. Those coils typically get about 0.1ms of dwell at 300V by design. You're feeding them 40x that amount of dwell, and only 12V.
Your tune needs work too, you need the spark table setup for 10* more or less at idle, and use the idle valve to stabilize it here. But I wouldn't try to tune anything until you install a CDI with those coils, or you replace them with a coil designed to be driven by a 12V source (like the stock coils for example).
I have a PWM fan controller I made for my SPAL fans. It would be perfect for your car, but you certainly don't need it until you fix all the problems I described above. If you fix everything, your idle might dip a bit with the SPALs kicking on, but it would never stall.
To confirm, you know I am using the FAB9 Coil on plug setup correct? This leads me to believe that the were engineered incorrectly. (not entirely surprised)
Just to note, I had problems with my car stalling before I put the coils in. It may have been caused by a different problem but it did happen.
I'll return to this thread in a bit. Have to run some errands.
Ok, so the plan is order new valve cover and install LS coils as was my original plan. At some point I am going to need to replace my catch can but I am not tracking the car at this point so that can wait. Time to read through the LS coil thread to order plug wires etc.
Oh, and I discovered that the coil mounting brackets I have are the Hawley style (I forget who was the original source), and so they work with D585 coils. I bought my coils on eBay so they are likely fake, but they will do for awhile. I certainly won't get any money for them.
If I want to retain my fog lights, what are my options for running an oil cooler? Where should it be mounted and how effective will it be. I also don't want to stack it with my radiator. Am I screwed?
Last edited by Chiburbian; 06-11-2017 at 02:48 PM.
Your tune needs work too, you need the spark table setup for 10* more or less at idle, and use the idle valve to stabilize it here. But I wouldn't try to tune anything until you install a CDI with those coils, or you replace them with a coil designed to be driven by a 12V source (like the stock coils for example).
My tune does have approximately 10° at idle. It's in the idle VE portion of my tune.
Ok, so the plan is order new valve cover and install LS coils as was my original plan. At some point I am going to need to replace my catch can but I am not tracking the car at this point so that can wait. Time to read through the LS coil thread to order plug wires etc.
Oh, and I discovered that the coil mounting brackets I have are the Hawley style (I forget who was the original source), and so they work with D585 coils. I bought my coils on eBay so they are likely fake, but they will do for awhile. I certainly won't get any money for them.
If I want to retain my fog lights, what are my options for running an oil cooler? Where should it be mounted and how effective will it be. I also don't want to stack it with my radiator. Am I screwed?
a) retain fog lights, so no ducting from there
b) no stack with radiator, so the easy behind the radiator solution is out.
c) ... profit?
You've knocked out the two simple answers. If you can take high pressure air from in front of the radiator, say via a side hose, you could then direct that to the oil cooler, say in the pax wheel well, but you still need to find a low pressure exit for the airflow. The wheel well isn't great for that, as they are high pressure. So you could duct it to an exit diffuser along the undertray perhaps. For all of this to be effective you'll need to properly craft the pieces feeding air from the hose to the cooler, and especially the piece that then takes the exit air, smoothly ducts it to the exit hose so it can accelerate without obstruction, and then an exit nozzle so it can accelerate further and be drawn out by the high velocity lower pressure air along the undertray. i'm thinking off the cuff here, there are things to consider such as wheel clearance etc.
Someone, I can't recall who, had an oil cooler along the top front of the radiator basically.
You could just throw it on the back of the radiator and see what happens.
I can't recall if you have a reroute or not. If you do, you can run the return through a laminova oil cooler and then directly into the radiator. This is what I plan to do eventually if my car ever runs again. No airflow blockage is a huge plus, cost is a downside, as they aren't cheap.
a) retain fog lights, so no ducting from there
b) no stack with radiator, so the easy behind the radiator solution is out.
c) ... profit?
You've knocked out the two simple answers.
Someone, I can't recall who, had an oil cooler along the top front of the radiator basically.
Yes, someone did put the O/C up high, in front of the radiator. But I don't remember who, and I don't think he reported back.
I will be doing that shortly. May actually just put bosses on the I/C and mount the O/C on the top of it. I'll let you know how that works out (though I'm moving at a snail's pace lately). I don't see that as any different from the I/C being in front down low. In conjunction, I'm bypassing about 2" worth of air under the I/C. Others have done that I/C bypass with good results.
My tune does have approximately 10° at idle. It's in the idle VE portion of my tune.
Ok, but I would not recommend doing it that way. It will be more stable at idle (and in the area near idle) if you run 10* in that area and open the idle valve more.
Ok, but I would not recommend doing it that way. It will be more stable at idle (and in the area near idle) if you run 10* in that area and open the idle valve more.
I am confused. A couple pages back (DNMakinson) I was advised to use timing to keep my idle stable because the idle valve can't change fast enough and isn't as accurate as using timing to fine tune idle. Obviously I need some work in this area but I thought that trying to use idle valve was the wrong strategy.
The car is partially disassembled at the moment but I should be able to start it tonight and try a few of the suggestions. First of which is trying to lower my dwell from 4ms to something like 2.5 to see if that makes any change what so ever. I am also going to use my IR thermometer to watch the tops of the coils to see what they are reading at.
(I will also switch back to stock coils and plugs sometime this week to see if the problem persists)
From there, I will turn off ignition idle correction temporarily and lock my idle valve in using the test mode. From there I will play around with my ignition timing to see how low in vacuum I can get. From there, I will adjust my fuel to see how low on pulsewidths I can get with various slight timing changes. Am I on the right track?
Ignition timing is more effective than the idle valve at stabilizing idle. Closed loop should be more to cover changing loads. While idle timing correction works really well for stabilizing idle.
We (Pat, Aidan, and I) are all saying the same thing. Run a low nominal timing and let idle be stabilized by active timing changes. Then let the AIC slowly replace the temporary higher timing to hola d the new load point, and timing returns to nominal.
Here is a hypothetical scenario.
Sitting at 800 RPM, AIC @ 25%, timing at 10*
Add load, and idle begins to drop
But, at 775 RPM, the timing is driven to 15*, and stops the dropping of RPM and returns to close to 800
Then the AIC opens slowly to 30% pushing RPM fully to 800, and the timing adjusts back to 10*.
The new steady state is now 800 RPM, 30% AIC, and 10* timing, but at a greater load on the engine. System is now ready for the next upset to tame.
Fuel economy by idling at 800 vs 950 more than over-rides that obtained by using lean AFR, or minimum MAP.
I picked up some cheap plastic pipettes from the science supply store on my way home tonight. Before I go to bed I am going to try and fill in those markings.
05-18-2017, 03:55 PM
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