Hydra 2.7 Lean under Low Load
 

My FM2 equipped 2003 Miata was running fine and then developed a problem going lean AFR gauge shows --- or 17.9 -18.0 at crusing/ low throttle situations. Get into boost, AFR's are in 11's to 10's depending on rpm and psi. Like they should be. Idle seems okay. I first thought I had a TPS problem so recalibrated cold and hot. Running at 12psi., LS coIls. 3" FM exhaust.Checked grounds, checked for vacuum leaks. All good. When showing lean conditions car runs slightly hotter as would be expected, so it probably IS that lean. Nothing major just about 205 where I would expect 195 or so.

Does Hydra even use info from O2 sensor? If so, how can I test it. I'll be installing a new engine from Trackspeed Engineering as soon as it gets her ( soon) they say and do not want to have any sort of lean condition with new motor.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Paul

Your wide-band O2 sensor might be on the way out (when mine died, it kept adding fuel until it was running pig rich). I would start by calibrating the sensor (which involves removing it from the downpipe and letting it dangle in free air). If the calibration isn't the problem, replacing the sensor is a good next step. Don't forget that you need a Hydra-specific part. Which version of Hydra are you running?

Thanks for the reply Deer Hunter. I'm on version 2.7. I'll do a calibration and see if there's any change.

Paul

Okay, so you have LTT (Long Term Trim). Are you able to attach your current Map file to a post? If not, PM me and we'll exchange e-mail addresses.

DeerHunter,

Laptop misbehaving. I use Macs for all online stuff and a Windows laptop for the Hydra only. I'll have to get connected and get an updated Long term trim off the car. I'll PM you when I get that figured out. I hope I can download it to a USB drive and get it on my Mac so I can send. I don't want to connect the Windows machine to the internet since it has no antivirus and I have no Windows savvy.

Paul

Paul, the LTT *.csv file will be handy in order to see fueling trends but it's the *.hyd file (File-->Save As) that I need to see. Once you save using your Windows machine, you can certainly offload them to a Mac with a USB key.

I noticed on my Hydra that when I have LTT enabled it tries to pull too much fuel at low loads. I turned off LTT and just use the temp correction map with my fuel map and the AFR stays very steady no matter the weather. With the LTT enabled using the Hydra wideband the ECU was constantly trying to pull fuel not really sure why.

Laptop that I use to connect will not charge a battery or run with one in it. So I can connect to the Hydra but not leave the garage. I acquired a different laptop but cannot connect. It's a com port issue. Hope to resolve in a few days and be able to gather some useful info and get with you guys. I apprec the feedback to this point. In the garage, the Hydra software shows my AFR's about 1.5 points higher than the AEM gauge. At idle the software say 14.7 vs. the AEM at about 12.2-12.5
problem might be the gauge. New engine coming in about a week so I need to get a handle on the issue.

Paul

I had all kinds of issues getting my laptop to connect - same reason, com port issues. The solution was to buy the USB to serial adapter from FM.

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You might be able to score one from a local retailer, Amazon or Coolgear.com, if FM won't get it to you quickly enough.

You should be able to pull LTT into the map without moving the car; after all, LTT is..well... long term.

I'm an additional vote for failing WBO2. With a new Hydra WBO2, run the car with WBO2 in LTT for 6 months (starting either in the high of summer or the cold of winter) and integrate the LTT into the map every month or so. Then pull the WBO2 and go open loop fuel. Replace the Hydra WBO2 with an AEM or something gauge based so you can watch it real time.

Put the Hydra WBO2 back in if you need to retune down the road.

My laptop is the same. Go to AutoZone and get a power inverter. Plug into the cig socket and you have a place to plug in the laptop

Andyfloyd
I considered that, but found a refurbed Acer for $100. problem is it is missing one file allowing it to communicate with the Com port. A friend is reinstalling g Windows today. Hopefully that will do it. if not, I'll go the inverter route.

Deer Hunter
Yes, I have that adapter. Came with the FM2 kit. I expect to have the laptop deal sorted over the weekend.

Sorry for starting the thread and not being able to follow through. I'm not driving the car while I get things sorted out. In the middle of a bathroom remodel in my house so that is taking away from Miata time. spent 3 hours yesterday evening putting software from FM on the "new" laptop hoping it was an error in loading the Nemesis software....

Getting Hydra to connect to my old ass laptop last year was a pain in the ass. Im running 2.5 and I had to find a laptop that still has XP running on it. Then it wouldnt connect and I tried a couple different serial cables, and finally found one that will work. Once connected its actually not all that bad. As much as people on MT.net hate on the Hydra it sure has worked out pretty well for me. My car runs like stock for the most part, except for the fact that it has 300whp lol.

Finally got laptop to connect ( needed drivers to enable Com Port ) I drove the car and did a short pull. AEM gauge showed 10-11 in boost then reverted to 17.8 - 18 then to - - - . Checked the catalog after the pull and found that the AFR's never varied from 14.6 or 14.7. Virtually no knock detected except for .04v during shift. I assume that the sensor that the Hydra is using to output to the computer is wrong?

I opened Long Term Trim and was able to view the file, but tried to save it in various forms, but nothing came thru as readable. Any tips on exporting this info to be something useable?

Sone of the cels were in red which, I assume is out of the norm or out of spec.
I don't really understand the Lamda and Stoichmetric stuff. Closed vs. Open Loop is a bit of a mystery as well. I used FM's base map and adjusted idle settings and PWIM things to get the car running properly. I adjusted thing and fuel by using test and tune at my local drag strip, conservatively adding timing and monitoring knock ( lack of it). Beyond that, the Hydra and car just behaved until recently. I have done the usual cleaning of grounds, calibrating the TPS and running the Hydra diagnostics. No issues found. Car runs fine although, aside from the pull I did to catalog, I stay pretty much out of boost. What's next idea wise? Deer Hunter any tips on exporting the long term trim map to be useable?

Thanks,
Paul

Paul, when you open the LTT window, you'll see a table similar to your fueling table. You Control-A (select all), then right-click and "Save as". The format to use is .csv, which is readable by Excel. I've replied to your PM, so you now have my e-mail address.

An update on my situation. Once I got my "new" laptop talking to the Hydra I did a pull and discovered my AFR's were flatlined according to the Hydra. My AEM gauge showed otherwise. DeerHunter prompted me to export my Long Term Trim file and send it to him. He gave me the opinion that the Hydra was pulling a LOT of fuel. Once he pointed that out, I was able to wrap my brain around it and see what he meant. I knew SOMETHING had changed dramatically and assumed it must be the Wideband sensor. After some confusion on my part about WHICH of the 4 sensors in my exhaust system it was, I was able to pull the sensor and discover that it is not heating up and will not calibrate.

At this point I'm in search of a new sensor and have researched via the old "Sticky" about replacements. I've also contacted Nemesis about a proprietary replacement, since FM no longer sells the part. I'd prefer to not get ripped off, so if Nemesis quotes a ridiculous price I'll use the info from the sticky to source a replacement. I'll update the thread once I've cured the problem.

On another note, FM's tech support was helpful after verifying that I bought the Hydra from them. Good to know that they still support their product to some degree.

Thanks to the community, particularly DeerHunter, for making the info available.

Paul

No problem Paul - glad to be able to help.

Further information in case anyone else is searching for an answer to similar problems in the future: LTT (Long Term Trim) is a fantastic feature of v2.7, as it will allow your car to self-tune to OEM-levels of drivability (ideally the LTT values should be occasionally integrated into your fueling table and the LTT values zeroed). There's a big caveat though, in that LTT may introduce some weird values in the boost rows. Mine, at one point, was continually pulling fuel under boost. A simple solution, as long as your fuelling table is good to begin with, is to set LTT so that it only applies trims to cells in your AFR table that are set to stoich (14.7). To change to this setting:Done and problem solved.

Thanks to you both - so very little support for the Hydra now that I am happy to see and be part of a small engaged community of users supporting each other.

Update on this thread. After solving connectivity problems with "new" used laptop, I was pretty sure my problem was with the wide band sensor. So I decided to pull the sensor and calibrate it according to FM's installation manual. the "sensor disconnected" calibration went fine, but when I went into the calibration with sensor connected but in open air, the shit began to go sideways again. FM's manual states that "Miata batteries are weak, and the sensor calibration requires a lot of power, be sure to hook up to a battery charger". Made sense, since without the engine running my battery voltage was only 11.7 ( but would go to the target of 13.7 when started) So, I get out my trusty battery charger and select the 2 amp setting, but the battery voltage was only about 11.8. Not enough to heat up the sensor, I assumed. changed the charger to the 5 amp setting. same deal. I gave up for the moment and decided to ohm out the sensor while the battery charged up a little. Sure enough, the sensor that should have read about 4.5 ohms was reading a dead short. Okay. I suss out the proper sensor to use, thanks to the sticky in this forum and fire off the order.

By the way, FM no longer sells the sensors and referred me to "Phil" at Nemesis. I called him, no answer, left a voicemail, no response. Sent an e-mail on the 15th and got a response on the 20th that he'd be happy to send me a new sensor for only $275. I had already received my new sensor from Amazon by the time he returned my e-mail.

New sensor had different connector, as expected, but wires were same color as the original Hydra sensor, so I carefully soldered them to the Hydra sensor and figured it was good. connected the sensor, connected laptop, checked battery voltage and it was 3v! WTF!

Did some research on getting a new AGM battery and discovered that you can only charge an AGM battery at 1 amp or less, according to what I read. I had killed my battery.

Fast forward....have to get my car to my buddy's shop where we are going to pull the motor in anticipation of installing the new one from Trackspeed Engineering which is built and shipping in the next day or so. I put the new sensor in after "calibrating" it in the middle of the calibration slider and zero out my long term trims. I assume that, driving carefully I'll be able to get to the shop OK. Car won't turn over, even with charger on starting boost. New Marathon AGM battery might arrive tomorrow or maybe next Tuesday according to Battery Depot.

This whole thing has turned into an ordeal. My plan, at this point is to try to get the car started and get it to my friends shop and proceed as planned. it new battery doesn't give me enough voltage to calibrated the sensor and get me up and running, I'll kind of be out of options. Given lack of support for the Hydra I may have to get a Megasquirt and start this whole mess over. FM DID respond to me when I called them (they don't really respond to e-mails for a week or so) and told me that, "yeah, it might be the sensor, no we don't sell them, yeah the map for your stock VVT engine will be fine with the new one 9.5 CR vs.8.5 CR won't really matter. if you turn up the boost it'll probably be fine, just make sure to get it tuned".

Moral of the story. While my Hydra has been really good for a couple of years....it isn't so good right now and if you have a problem with yours, you're pretty much left to your own devices and the support from fellow Hydra folks on this forum. My story may end happily, but today doesn't feel so great.

Paul

Paul, none of your issues, other than the requirement for a specific WB replacement, are really Hydra-related, so I wouldn't be thinking about jumping ship to MS quite yet. A working battery should allow you to calibrate your new O2 sensor and LTT will tune the non-boost rows very quickly for your new engine. You will probably get fine numbers for the boosted rows as well, but I would check them frequently to ensure they make sense (and to smooth them out). Once in the ballpark, a dyno tuning session will be the icing on the cake and you can then turn off LTT in the non-stoich rows.

Your AGM battery probably isn't dead, BTW. I had the same symptoms once and was able to resuscitate mine using the following procedure (Option #2):
Bring Back Your Dead!

Finally, you spliced the new sensor to the old harness by soldering. Hopefully you used heat shrink tubing to keep the elements out plus I would suggest putting some kind of outer shell on the wiring that runs by your transmission to the downpipe. Grounding out the WB is what kills it, which is what happened to me a while back too.

1 amp or less for an AGM battery? Is that over a long amount of time? You'd get more than that from the generator.

AGM Battery
 

I know....I was surprised when Iread that. But, my battery worked fine before I put the charger on it. I only did so at FM's recommendation to have sufficient power to calibrate my wideband sensor. It killed my battery, totally. Not even enough power to click a solenoid.

Paul

Update on Hydra Situation
 

The deeper I dig into the Hydra situation the more frustrated I become. Trackspeed says that my engine was done as of last Tuesday but still haven't given me any shipping info, so that adds to the frustration but gives me more time....

i verified that the Hydra is NOT supplying heater power to the wideband sensor, so it couldn't be calibrated. Deerhunter told me that he had the same problem with his and had to send the Hydra in for repairs to the circuitry. At this point I have very little faith in Nemesis who took a week to answer a phone call and e-mail. I'm not too excited about throwing MORE money at the ECU.

So, what I did was:
Cut the heater power supply wires from the Hydra to the sensor and hooked them up (on the sensor side) to the heat circuit, with a separate battery. It got HOT very quickly. Connected the laptop to the Hydra and calibrated the sensor. Put it all back together for about the 10th time. Upon restarting the AEM wideband gauge is still showing very rich 10-3 to 11 ish, while the laptop is flatlining on 14.7. Yes, I did reconnect the heater wires to the Hydra. Hopefully, the sensor will be heated by the exhaust temps enough to provide info to the Hydra and Lomg term tune.

Engine does not SEEM to be running rich. Tailpipe, rear bumper shows no sign of soot. Maybe my AEM gauge is wrong? Next step is to pull a few plugs and look at their color. Maybe Trackspeed will actually send me info on when my paid for and completed engine will be shipped.

At this point I'm stating to consider a part out......

Paul

Paul - I've had to purchase connectors from Phil @ Element Tuning recently - who purchased Hydra when they went out of business. Yes - he may be a little late but he is still extremely supportive - got my connectors when he said I would. Rather than throw away a well sorted car, why not send the ECU back to him so he can test the wideband circuit on the board and ensure it has not failed? Those of us running this particular ECU will now have to learn a little extra patience as well due to the non-available support structure from the marketplace. To have spent this much money on a new engine and not enjoy it is rather short sighted. Deep breath, contact Phil and see what he has to say. Since the engine is still on its way - you have time to sort the ECU out in the meantime......

Miataki, no I'm not really giving up on the car. I was able to calibrate the wideband by heating it from a separate battery. A check of the plugs confirms that it is running pretty clean. I have ordered a new sensor for my AEM gauge to see if THAT is the problem. I have put some miles on the car and will be going into my long term trim to see if the Hydra is tuning after zeroing the long term trim. If it is, then I'll carry on.

If the Hydra needs to be sent away for repair, I'll probably make the change to MS. At this point I have little patience for a business that doesn't return calls or emails and have little confidence that they would do better with my ECU. I'm already stressed out from my engine builders lack of communication.

That said, the Hydra has been flawless up till now, and I would like to keep using it, if possible. There's no reason for a board in a modern ECU to fail though and, apparently, it's not an unusual occurrence in the Hydra. It the sensor failure took out the Hydra and sensors fail every couple of years....do I really want to stay with this platform?

Paul

Paul, your sensor failure most likely had the same root cause as mine - the wire grounded out after the sheath abraded and wore through on the transmission (or something nearby). It's the short circuit that killed the WB and the WB heating circuit on the motherboard. In the ten years that I owned my '93 L.E., I only had one sensor actually wear out (it started reading lean all the time, so the LTT kept adding more and more fuel until I was getting about 15 mpg at light cruise). The Hydra (and WB) in my MSM has also been rock solid, and that car is hammered on the track almost exclusively. I'm not a Hydra apologist and the change of ownership does cause me concern, however I would be loathed to make a wholesale change at this point.

I still haven't had the chance to install the new sensor for my AEM gauge, but I connected to the Hydra and found that the Long Term Trims ( which I zeroed) are showing changes. I calibrated my sensor using an external battery , since the Hydra isn't providing heater voltage.

Am I correct in the assumption that if the Hydra is trimming fuel, that it is getting input from the sensor? I have auto tune enabled. I'm hoping to finish up a home project today ( bathroom remodel) and be able to put in new AEM sensor tomorrow.

For anyone following this thread...my AEM is pretty much hovering around 10-11. I pulled plugs #1 and #3 and saw nice tan color.

Trackspeed says engine will will arrive in 6 days so I really hope that my ECU is ready to play nice.

Paul

Paul, the heater in your WB is not an on/off switch for the sensor itself. All it does is heat up the sensor so that it can be effective as soon as possible after a cold start (it's for emissions purposes). As I mentioned, the WB will function just as well after exhaust gasses have heated things up within a few minutes. Don't sweat the heater wire and, if it was me, I'd just run forever without it. Cold starts might be a little smellier but the car will run (and self-tune) juuuust fine.

Yes Steven, I understand that. But is it safe to assume that if the long term trims are changing, then the Hydra is getting feedback from the new sensor?
Paul

Yes, that's correct.

Hydra Problems Persist
 

My new Trackspeed engine is in and running well. The old engine was running well in spite of sensor problems (maybe).
To catch up, problem started with engine showing lean AFR's under low load, 18's. I changed out wideband sensor and calibrated it per FM's instructions
Long Term Trim showed changing values, so I assumed that the Hydra was seeing the sensor. The AEM pillar mounted gauge kept showing very rich 10-11 AFR's but plugs looked good and engine ran and idled well.

INSTALLED NEW ENGINE. I installed, at the same time a new sensor for the AEM gauge. It is the first sensor after the turbo, in the downpipe. Started engine, and after some tweaking of the crank sensor it ran well. Did the timing check and TPS calibration, new Skunk manifold and Skunk throttle body idled and ran nicely. BUT the AEM gauge kept showing extremely rich 10-11 AFR's. Spark plugs and idle, lack of black smoke all said otherwise. I zeroed Long Term Trims to let the auto tune do its thing.

FAST FORWARD, I now have 300 miles on the engine, it is running well. Changed the oil (per instruction) at 50 miles and will do so again at 500 miles. No black smoke, engine running cool and idling well. Occasionally, pushing into wastegate boost (6psi) running it up to 6k . All that is okay as far as I can tell. Problem is, AEM continues to show very rich. Idling 10-11, running at low load 3000 rpm, maybe mid 12's occasionally 13's. In boost, AEM shows 10-10.5. Laptop never comes off of 14.6-14.7.

This is morning I pull plugs #1 and #3. The look lean, if anything. But do have soot on exposed threads. Hopefully the photos will attach to this message. Oil does not smell of gasoline, as far as I can tell.

At this point I don't know what to believe. The AEM gauge has been swapped out for a different gauge, but same model and has had a new sensor. Both gauges and both sensors read the same RICH conditions. I don't want to put miles on this engine until I can get a handle on what's going on. Will try to get some input from FM later today. They guarantee support for life, but it is different now that they no longer sell the Hydra.

Any ideas?

Paul
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Those plugs look perfect to me. I would trust the aem gauge because it's a pretty simple device. Is just a vessel to show you sensor voltage. The fact that the Hydra stays stuck on 14.7 is not right. 12-13 AFR isn't bad at light throttle and 10.5-11 on boost isn't bad either. Maybe lean the idle up a little everything else sounds pretty good honestly

Andy read what he posted again lol. If the AEM is legit, then the car is running like ass.

Laptop/Hydra stuck on 14.6-14.7 sounds like the onboard controller is trashed. Not an uncommon issue with those piles of crap.

I read it he said it's running well but just slightly rich as per the AEM gauge. If you lean out the idle and the part throttle stuff it should be fine in my opinion. Yea it sounds like the wb02 controller on the Hydra shit the bed meaning autotune wouldn't be doing Jack shit though.

So, if you lean out the 95% of time the car is spent running, it'll be great! :rofl:


That's not how LTT works. Hydra is seeing the thing at 14.6-14.7 constantly, so it's drowning the thing in fuel as a "correction." "Leaning it out" with a dead wideband circuit/sensor/controller will just make the corrections get more aggro.

I believe on the 2.7 you can disable the onboard controller entirely and feed it an external signal. That's what i'd be doing at this point if there was resistance to swapping to an ECU that has actual support.

Concealer:

It's not that hard to lean out a car from 13afr to 14-15. It's not that far off, but I understand it's cool to be a dick you're good at it.

I'm not, though? You're just not understanding the situation. What it's doing at WOT is the least offensive, and it's also the smallest chunk of run time in any street-driven turbo miata. 95% of the time this thing is drowning in fuel.

It's doing that because the ECU is getting garbage information. It's not so simple as "just lean it out." This is NOT a tuning issue.

Disagreeing with you and correcting you doesn't make me a dick. Being passive aggressive after being corrected on the other hand...

I'm not being passive aggressive though I'm just telling you you're a dick. However I do understand now after your explanation and it does make sense. So you are right, but you're still a dick.

:rofl:

Sure, I can lean it out, but there's got to be a reason that it suddenly went south. Yes it's a street car. I do a fair number of autocross events, but it's just a fun ride. I had the engine built, just because.....the stock engine was at the peak of what it could handle and I wanted bullet proof. I'm retired and could never afford to build a car the way I wanted in my younger days, so I threw some $ at a TSE engine.

Spoke to FM today, at length and they felt it was likely a toasted Hydra. They said, in their opinion, it was worth having Nemesis repair it.

I hesitate to start over on a different platform, but I simply can't drive the car and drown my new engine in fuel. For what it would cost to repair the Hydra, I'm not that far off of a new MS of some flavor. Right now I guess I'll just research my options. I'm open to suggestions.....

Thanks everybody,
Paul

Can you ask them about running the AEM output to the Hydra in place of using the garbage onboard controller? That onboard controller is likely the #1 failure of those stupid ecus. I wouldn't pay a single dime to repair it if you had the option to just not use it and its expensive sensors.

Being able to NOT use that thing was one of THE big upgrades to the 2.7.

Can you give me more info on how to do that? Point me to a thread or link? This might be a good fix.
Paul

Found this.

https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/sho...&postcount=436

There's a bunch more out there, and/or FM should just be able to tell you how to do it.

Great info to have guys, really helpful.

Paul,

MS3. You know that is the answer. I don't know why you are still avoiding the inevitable.

DNM

MS3
 

I think that I'm avoiding it for two reasons.
1. The Hydra has been great until this. The car is running very well, but showing extremely rich on the AEM gauge. Plugs look about perfect. It might be a simple fix.
2. More importantly, I hesitate to start with a new platform and go thru the install. I can't do it by myself ( I bungle small electrical connections ). If I could find a plug and play and someone to kind of hold my hand, I'd make the switch. It's not a $ thing, it's about having the right person to advise and help. I've been asking around my area for a guru who can help out.

My new engine is at about 400 miles right now and, according to gas mileage, using about 10-15% more fuel than the old one. Changing oil at 50, 500 and 1000 miles, so even if I'm a little rich, there shouldn't be any harm done. After the 1000 mile mark, I think that I'll be ready to make the move. Any recommendations on a resource to do the work? DIY Autotune for the MS?

Paul

Thanks!
 

It might be helpful. I had pretty much decided to move to an MS, but if the seller is reasonable....
Thanks for making the connection. How about a positive cat?

Paul

Agreed to a price with the seller, paid him and he already shipped the Hydra. I have my fingers crossed, but will be out of town for 6 weeks or so and will install in late August.
Thanks DNMakinson

Hope it works.

And, yes, I work for PosCats.

DNM