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I recently dove into the world of tuning and got my car to run and drive in a seemingly reasonable manner. I made the tune myself and I have never done any sort of tuning before this car. I was hoping someone with more experience than myself could look it over and let me know if there is anything that looks off or needs changed. I would also appreciate any helpful tips, suggestions or criticism. I also just ordered a Stage 1 Turbo kit from FM so any advice for getting my tune/car prepared for that is appreciated as well! Hoping to run about ~10psi and get around 200HP. Tune file is included along with Datalogs and screenshots.
Issues I’m aware of:
1.) Trouble starting and and running. Sometimes, the car dies immediately after starting. Other times it will keep running but idle poorly for a while. The car will die when I give it some throttle right after starting. Once the car has warmed up a little, it seems to be fine.
2.) Engine states are weird. I have to set the threshold for Acceleration and Deceleration high or it will think it’s deceleration when it drops to idle. Then, the idle will jump and and think it’s Accelerating. Problem is worse with the AC on. I probably just need to tune my idle better.
If you intend to learn to tune, get a Megalogviewer HD license and learn how to use it. Also go through Andy Whittles videos and read the MS manual for your firmware version.
A few things you can start with:
- Ignition table seems too high around idle, you should rebin it and set it around 13-15 for the idle region at least. Then let the Idle RPM Correction table do its thing. Look through other tables in the forum to get an idea.
- Disable the Idle Advance Timing table and Idle VE until you've refined your tune around the idle area.
- Keep Idle RPM Timing correction curve, but make it more aggressive in the negative side. Like 8,3,3,2 for -400, -100, -75,-50 respectively.
- The oscillations in your log are caused by your ignition going from 10* to 22* in an instant, then from 23* to 10* in another, the same for the Idle VE going in and out changing the fueling a lot. This all gets compounded by EGO Corrections. These jumps are likely caused by the engine states accel/decel activating as you said, so first stabilize the idle, and find what the thresholds are for steady state to use in the Engine States. You could start with 600/-600 on those for now.
- EGO Delay After start is too short. Try 40 seconds.
- EGO doing 1% steps isn't great. Consider going to PID. It will take tuning to get right in all conditions, but it's better than 1% steps.
- Your AFRs are very lean. You were at 6400RPM, 93kPa targeting 14.2AFR. I would at least make the 100 row 12.7.
- Try this table: https://www.miataturbo.net/megasquir...e2/#post794463 or another table from that thread that fits your needs
- Turbo, NA and Supercharged AFR tables are not the same, so also keep that in mind.
- Is this a DIYAutotune MS3ProPnP? If so, it should have an internal barometer in Analog In 3, so enable that in General Settings.
- The car dying when you press the throttle is likely lack of AE when cold. AE is a difficult thing to tune and it's done by feel for the most part. Watch videos on the matter on Youtube and read the manual.
- For starters, I think your TPSDot threshold is too high and you need more cold enrichment, but the buttdyno is the ultimate tuner of AE.
- Starting and idling after start is kind of an art. You have to balance the PWM Idle values with fuel (Cranking, ASE, ASE Taper) to make the engine happy. Often times you need longer tapers. Judging by the warm start in your log, you need more ASE and more taper at those temperatures and also more cranking duty cycle.
- The LC2 is prone to voltage offsets like the older AEMs. Consider switching to a CAN based controller, or a controller with separate grounds for the sensor heater and electronics.
I can't speak on the MS3's Engine States since I have no experience, but there a few things I might change if it were my car. Also, there are some good threads on this site in regard to engine states if you look hard enough. I also can't look at the datalog since I'm at work
You could probably run more WUE. I've seen people recommend as much as 200% when CLT is around freezing, and then taper it to ~100% by 100 degrees. Personally, my engine doesn't need this much, but I'd try adding some more to see if that helps your cold starts. It would also be useful to see how long you have your ASE set to run for.
Also should check what your idle duty when the car first starts running when cold, there's the possibility that you just need to give it more air. I don't use closed loop idle, but if you tuned your closed loop starting values when hot you might need to increase the duty cycle for the higher RPM values. When cold it'll need more duty cycle for the same RPMs since it'll be rich and down on power. The only time you should be in the high RPM values is when cold anyways, so this shouldn't have any ill effects on your normal idle. I'd check this before giving it more WUE.
For AFRs, you're on the lean side. If you ran it a little richer I'd be comfortable with more ignition timing (assuming premium gas, I could feel the stock ECU pulling timing on my stock '99 with 87 octane so 93 is all I ever ran). If you don't run premium gas, I would enrich the fuel mixture but keep the timing just to be safe. The HPA video attached below shows how little of a difference AFR makes in terms of power, so you might as well run it safer. I'd run it closer to 12.6:1 or 13.0:1 and give it a few more degrees of ignition timing. Maybe +2/3 degrees around 4900rpms and peak around 30-32 degrees at your revlimiter. Should still be safe with 93 octane as I've run it as high as 30 degrees at peak torque and 34 deg at the revlimiter with 9.5:1 compression. This comment from the video explains my thought process well.
TLDR: running it richer will allow you to run more ignition timing and likely make more power while being just as safe, if not safer due to lower EGTs if you had a way to confirm there is not any knock from the extra ignition timing.
For 100kpa I'd run the ignition timing similar to what found in the trubokitty basemap attached below. It is known to be aggressive in boost though. I run significantly less in boost than they do AND I've got 8.5:1 wiseco pistons. A thread discussing the Trubokitty basemap Ign Timing
Also your VE table's low load cells from 3000-7000 look way too lean. Make sure to tune these cells manually and not use autotune here. The VE table also looks like it could use some smoothing. Some cells are higher than the ones above them, which shouldn't ever really happen.
Last edited by Watterson02; 07-11-2023 at 02:37 PM.
If you intend to learn to tune, get a Megalogviewer HD license and learn how to use it. Also go through Andy Whittles videos and read the MS manual for your firmware version.
A few things you can start with:
- EGO Delay After start is too short. Try 40 seconds.
- EGO doing 1% steps isn't great. Consider going to PID. It will take tuning to get right in all conditions, but it's better than 1% steps.
- Your AFRs are very lean. You were at 6400RPM, 93kPa targeting 14.2AFR. I would at least make the 100 row 12.7.
- Try this table: https://www.miataturbo.net/megasquir...e2/#post794463 or another table from that thread that fits your needs
+1 on all that he touched on, but I'd like to add on a few things myself.
I've got my ego delay set to ~20 seconds since that is how long it takes the wideband to start outputting a signal. I'd time how long it takes to warm up and start working during a cold start then add 5 seconds and use that value.
When tuning PID EGO correction, it is my understanding that the integral setting is most important. A good thread to read up on
The LC2 is prone to voltage offsets like the older AEMs. Consider switching to a CAN based controller, or a controller with separate grounds for the sensor heater and electronics.
Thank you for the input!
What wideband would you recommend?
Thank you for the input! I changed my barometric correction to "two independent sensors" with Analog In 3 as the "Realtime Baro Port". I also updated my AFR and Timing tables. Changed AE but i will still need to work on tuning that.
+1 on all that he touched on, but I'd like to add on a few things myself.
I've got my ego delay set to ~20 seconds since that is how long it takes the wideband to start outputting a signal. I'd time how long it takes to warm up and start working during a cold start then add 5 seconds and use that value.
When tuning PID EGO correction, it is my understanding that the integral setting is most important. A good thread to read up on
big +1 on using that AFR target table
Thanks for the help! I really do appreciate it.
I updated my EGO delay and I will look into getting PID EGO tuned. AFR table is updated.
Thank you for the input!
What wideband would you recommend?
Thank you for the input! I changed my barometric correction to "two independent sensors" with Analog In 3 as the "Realtime Baro Port". I also updated my AFR and Timing tables. Changed AE but i will still need to work on tuning that.
Many like the AEM X Series wideband, and in a recent thread it was explained that it is compatible with other CAN devices in MS3 as long as nothing else uses the same ID. I personally use the Spartan 3 and it has worked great. Both the X series and Spartan 3 have CAN capability which is preferred because there is no chance of voltage offsets. The Spartan 3 does have separate grounds for the heater and for electronics if you want to continue using voltage output instead. I don’t like having gauges around my dash and both of these controllers work without gauges (the X series has an inline version).
Many like the AEM X Series wideband, and in a recent thread it was explained that it is compatible with other CAN devices in MS3 as long as nothing else uses the same ID. I personally use the Spartan 3 and it has worked great. Both the X series and Spartan 3 have CAN capability which is preferred because there is no chance of voltage offsets. The Spartan 3 does have separate grounds for the heater and for electronics if you want to continue using voltage output instead. I don’t like having gauges around my dash and both of these controllers work without gauges (the X series has an inline version).
What would I need to do to set up the Spartan 3? I assume it uses a different input on the MS3? I don't think I have any other CAN devices that would share an ID. Could I reuse the O2 sensor that came with the LC2? I already have an A pillar gauge Pod that holds 2 gauges so, I would like to keep my AFR gauge. Can my existing gauge be made to work with the Spartan? Forgive my ignorance and all the questions. I installed the LC2 a couple years ago and don't remember a ton about it and the CAN stuff is new to me as well.
What would I need to do to set up the Spartan 3? I assume it uses a different input on the MS3? I don't think I have any other CAN devices that would share an ID. Could I reuse the O2 sensor that came with the LC2? I already have an A pillar gauge Pod that holds 2 gauges so, I would like to keep my AFR gauge. Can my existing gauge be made to work with the Spartan? Forgive my ignorance and all the questions. I installed the LC2 a couple years ago and don't remember a ton about it and the CAN stuff is new to me as well.
The manuals explain it better than I could, but it is very easy to connect the CAN Bus on either of these. The general idea is that you connect the 12v, ground, and sensor ground, then the 2 CAN bus wires to the MS3 CAN bus pins (there is a CAN High and a CAN Low), and then configure the CAN EGO in MS3 and start using it. The important portion is that the O2 heater ground must not be connected to the ECU ground shared by other sensors (CLT,TPS,MAT, etc.), only the electronics ground goes there. Yes you can use your current sensor with the Spartan 3 (it should be an LSU4.9). That's exactly what I did when I switched from an LC2. About using your current gauge, I would think it's possible but don't have personal experience doing that. You may be able to wire the analog output of the Spartan 3 to it with a custom linear scale that mimics the LC2, but someone else would have to chime in on that.
07-10-2023, 08:43 PM
Looking for a review of my tune
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