rwyatt365

Updates;

- Crash damage is semi-repaired. Got the front bodywork pulled out enough so that the hood will close.

- Made up some DIY door cards out of press-board and vinyl tuck and roll material. I still need to tack down, or glue the trailing edges but it's better than the exposed door frames.

- Replaced the Bose speakers with some cheap 3-ways. Also circumvented the Bose amp with a bluetooth-capable amp from Pyle. The sound is significantly better, but not enough volume - I will replace the bluetooth connection with a hardwire connection...eventually.

- Resolved a rattle where the exhaust was contacting the rear subframe (as if a minor rattle made THAT much difference - with solid engine mounts and what is essentially an open exhaust, who'd notice a rattle!).

Was going to do an autocross this Sunday but ran out of money, so I'm home-bound for the near-term (FYI - my last contract job ended at the end of July and I had nothing in the pipeline so I've been draining my reserves for the past month - sucks *****, but I'm back in the game after Labor Day).

rwyatt365

Car has been relatively stable. Just been trying to fine-tune the fuel table and getting adventurous with the spark table. I've been toying with the idea of a J&S knock control system (when the cash-flow gets better) to ease my fears of grenading my engine because I got crazy with a street-tuned spark map.

I've also been trying to decide on whether to plasti-dip the car to get through the upcoming winter months, or bite the bullet and do a real paint job. A plasti-dip "rattle-can special" would probably cost $150+ (depending on how thorough I want to be). The kit from Dip Your Car starts at close to $400 and that would (maybe) produce a better result. A DIY paint kit from Summit would start at about $500 (depending on the sprayer and the type and quantity of paint).

Right now, I'm leaning heavily in the rattle-can direction 'cause it only has to last for 5-6 months and doesn't have to look beautiful (just trying to get the car all one color).

Lincoln Logs

iTrader: (1)

Having gone the plastidip direction with some large body panels and then needing to paint after...save up and just paint it from the get go. Even if you apply enough layers of plastidip, removal is a royal pain.

rwyatt365

But...but...I look so...so...distressed and...colorful.

m2cupcar

iTrader: (5)

I think you're capable of painting it yourself looking at all the work you've done in this build thread. $400 would cover a diy single stage paint job. You have a compressor? You've seen nickt93's paint thread? You'd surely take car of any down time between gigs.

edit: He did a $250 paint job thread too where he did the prep and took it to maaco. There's a lot of post processing on that paint job, but in the end you have minimal cash outlay in trade for lots of labor. He did mention that the diy paint job ended up costing about 3x this one.

rwyatt365

Hmmmm, This is intriguing...I can certainly do the prep work (done that before on several different cars in the past: VW Beetle, Datsun 510) and have done my own painting with different levels of success (the Beetle was flat-black w/ FLAMES!! and the 510 went from Institution Green to Radiant Red - but those are different stories). So I ain't 'fraid of prep work, or painting. My only issue was the cost, but even at $300 (Nickt93's original Maaco quote from 2 years ago) it's worth looking into. I'd even consider taking Maaco's single-stage paint, wet sanding it, doing my own clear coat in the spring and calling it done (this ain't no show car).

Thanks for the info.

rwyatt365

Painting concerns aside, I'm starting to look into the stock knock sensing capabilities of the gen2 MSPNP with the stock knock sensor. In looking at the data logs and what's going on with the ADC7 & ADC7 signals I'm seeing the following;

- ADC7 (the threshold signal) stays the same, no matter the conditions - it's flat as a pancake (is a pancake truly flat?). I was expecting that signal to vary in relation to the RPM's as suggested by the MS documentation.

- ADC6 (the stock knock sensor signal) looks like a sawtooth that dithers between a moderately low signal and (randomly) peak spikes. I'm assuming that these (seemingly random) spikes are true knocks. At no time does the peak value of ADC6 exceed the value of ADC7.

So...my (rookie) analysis is;
a) The "slope" pot inside the MSPNP is set to zero - that's why the neither ADC6 or ADC7 varies with the RPM's. But is that necessary? If they stay flat and the peaks of ADC6 (the "knocks") exceed the threshold, who cares if the "floor" stays flat?

b) If I adjust the "start" pot so that the value of ADC7 more closely approaches ADC6 so as to catch the knocks, then I should be good.

c) If I can do all of this successfully, then I just need to make adjustments to the knock settings so that I can effectively manage knock. I'll need to do some research on what are sensible settings.

More later...

rwyatt365

Went out yesterday with the intent of adjusting the pots related to knock sensing but the cover screws are not all accessible, so I scrapped that idea for the short term.

I made a gauge in TS to look at AD6 hoping that if I tap the knock sensor it would register something (and that would give me inspiration to extract the MS from it's resting place so I can take off the cover). HOWEVER, when I tapped on the knock sensor I got nothing, not even a quiver. Which leads me to believe that the values I'm seeing in the log are just random noise spikes. I can't find anything (other than the MSPNP2 installation documentation) that goes into using the stock knock sensor with a gen2 PNP.

When i get a chance, I'll probe further.

rwyatt365

I gave up on the stock knock sensor (for now). I've been playing around with EAE for the past week. It's not perfect, but it's closer than I thought I would be at this point. I was having a problem getting my head around how it all works but this thread helped a lot.

I started out with almost 100% TPSdot based AE and now I'm almost exclusively EAE with a touch of MAPdot based AE.

EAE is da bomb!

rwyatt365

Was on my way to work this morning (yep, got another contract gig). Was about 2 mile away when my foot went to the floor during an upshift. One minute there was the typical return spring resistance, the next...nothing! I was worried that I had broken the throttle cable (no, I don't stomp the go-pedal THAT hard), but it turned out that the cable had fallen out of the mount on the IM. I guess it wasn't fully tight or something. Anyway, 5 minutes and I was back in business.

Still playing around with EAE but I think I'm to the point of all but turning off AE and just using EAE. I've just got a little bit of rick spiking on decel, but even that is not so bad.

The only tuning issue that I'm aware of now is a tendency to idle droop when cold. It's not horrible and I can drive around it, but I get to it before the weather gets too cold.

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

<p>I thought EAE was for gradual throttle changes, and AE was for sudden accelerations. And they don't do the same thing.</p>

rwyatt365

True, they don't do exactly the same thing but I'm finding that I can increase the threshold for AE events to higher and higher values as I get EAE dialed in. Initially I was using AE to "fill in the gaps" and offset some off-idle tip in problems I was having. With that, I was almost exclusively TPSdot driven at values as low as 50%/sec. With EAE getting better and better, I'm mostly MAPdot driven and that threshold is now 200kPA/sec (with a MAPdot threshold of 250 kPa/sec) and no tip in stumble at all. I'm not going to totally eliminate AE, but it's going to assume the role of a "fill-in" and not the main way of controlling accel fuel.

Just my $0.02.

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

<p>Gotcha. Makes sense.</p>

rwyatt365

Still foolin' around w/ EAE (since my cashflow hasn't yet recovered, but soon...). I've got it dialed in pretty good - my butt dyno says that it's perfect but the logs are showing a mean lean spike on throttle-off conditions. I've seen plots from others that show this can be conquered but I haven't found the "secret sauce" yet. I've had to back track on my AtW and SfW curves a couple of times, but I think I've settled on a sweet spot.

My next planned add-in is a J&S knock sensor. After that, I might just go into hibernation for the winter.

Also, once I'm 1000% confident that I'm not going to spin another set of bearings I'll do a real dyno session. Virtual dyno says I'm getting near to 250whp, but I'm taking that with a grain of salt (though I'll be disappointed if I'm not north of 200). Time will tell...

rwyatt365

Oh yeah... I still need to get the radiator supports pulled out (from the crash last month). My DIY repair got me 80% done, but I'll let a professional get the job completed. Also have to replace the pass-side headlight (it's cracked, but functional), and replace the windshield (ditto - not from the accident, a result of my heavy-handed attempt to re-install the rearview mirror during the build...PS I'm driving without the rearview mirror now).

rwyatt365

Been away from this thread for a while. Cashflow is still recovering so I haven't been able to get anything real interesting, just been fooling around with my tune. Here are some highlights;

EAE - I've got things almost where I want them to be. There still is a rich spike on throttle let-off (which I can deal with), and a pesky lean spike on throttle tip-in that I just can't seem to get rid of. I've tried to use time-based AE to clear up the lean spike, but haven't devoted a whole lot of time to dialing that out.

BATTV - I made another thread about my alternator weirdness. I made some measurements, and discovered that the lower voltage was not 11.9V as reported, but more like 12.6V (a marked difference). So I re-did the battery calibration which precipitated an over-lean condition at idle. Chasing that led me to the idle voltage PWM setting which needed to be adjusted to compensate. That resulted in a great idle before the alternator starts charging (i.e. gets "turned on" after the first time the RPM's go over 2500), but a lousy idle everywhere else. That meant re-doing the idle VE cells so the idle was good everywhere...which meant re-doing the CL idle initial values (because now those were off).

This morning I think I got it all sorted out - just a final tweak to the initial value table and I think I'll be good...at least until there's another major change in the morning temps!

My initial value table is based on MAT (as opposed to CLT). I was using it based on CLT initially (pun intended) but found that it wasn't sensitive enough - when the water tamps were low, the initial values were wrong for the air temps and the car tended to idle too low and almost stall. Changing to MAT-based was better, but I'm finding that there aren't enough cells! A 5x5 table would seem to be good, but I'm finding that (for MAT-based) there's a 20* sweep (between 60* and 80*) where small changes in the initial value makes a big difference in the cars behavior. That's 3 whole rows in the middle of the table. If temps lower than 50* (the last row in my table) are just as sensitive, I von't have enough rows to make fine adjustments. FWIW, I'd give up two RPM columns to get more temp rows. But that's just me.

In other news...I just installed an adjustable brake proportioning valve last week. Moreso to take care of a leaking stock prop valve than anything else. But it does give me some "ricer cool points" at the AX when I jump out at the end of a run, twist the **** and mumble, "Too much reach brake, I'll just dial that out."

Next on the El-Cheapo mod list;
- 36-2 trigger wheel. Why? Because it's cheap and I can.
- Turbo heat shielding (thanks for the thread patsmx5!)
- Trans heat-shielding (thanks aidandj & company)
- Prepare for an eventual alternator failure (then move up to a FD alt)

I'm gonna back off on the knock sensor for now and start looking at the Fab9 COP kit. I think it's a better ROI (even though that means sticking with my cowardly, conservative spark map for now).

Then it'll be time to start saving for TIRES!!

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

Go LS1 coils. Best bang for buck.

rwyatt365

Better value, but I need a PNP solution (so I can blame someone else if something goes wrong).

rwyatt365

Latest updates;
- DIY heat shield done (polished SS stock w/ left-over "lava-mat" to protect the master cylinder)
- crash damage repaired - now my hood closes properly (yay!)

Next steps;
- back-tracking on the COP setup, reading has convinced me that LSx coils are the way to go (thanks for the push aidanj)
- FD alternator on standby
- replace the nose (damaged in the crash - old one is functional, but too cracked to repair)
- trying to find a glass shop that'll replace the windshield for less than a king's ransom (I'm getting $300+ quotes, and that's just plain wrong)
- have a muffler shop fab up a center-exit exhaust (totally unnecessary, but cool - I have no muffler, so this should be easy-peasy)

Future dreams (for when I become independently wealthy and have beaucoups disposable income);
- XIDA suspension
- 245/15 Maxxis RC-1's on 15x10 wheels
- fender flares all the way 'round
- EFR turbo
- full 3" exhaust
- Marrad seats

rwyatt365

Spent Saturday tracking down a brake line leak. Tracked it to a leak at the crush washer for the brake line on the right rear caliper. Cleaned it up as best I could, replaced the washer and thought I had it solved until this morning. The level at the MC was down about 2mm so it's still leaking.

Gonna have to replace the caliper now (dammit), unless someone has a "bright idea".