Still tuning Idle on my MSM, need some guidance, perhaps in person
 

Hey guys, I stepped away from my MS project on my msm for most of the winter, because its just too frustrating to sit out in the cold and try to learn something from scratch. Now that its starting to warm up in Maryland, I'm ready to tackle it again. I started to try and tackle my idle tuning again yesterday since it was a nice day, and it seems as if in open loop I have things working well enough wiith the AC on and all the electrical load I can throw at the car, but without that additional load the car is idling around 730rpm and isn't smooth ( I cant even find and idle target setting ). The car doesn't like to start on the first try (warm OR cold), and it continues to want to stall when coming to a stop if I'm not careful to brake slowly with load on the engine (the idle doesn't want to catch if I let it drop more than a couple thousand rpm with the clutch in ) Closed loop idle control immediately destroys any sense of a stable idle I have, so I have it turned off at the moment. 'Im not far from the basemap that diyautotune supplies with the mspnp for the msm, as all I've done is a bit of around the neighborhood autotune and messing with the idle so far, as well as getting the AEM wideband to sync up with tunerstudio (within about .4afr).

I'm making slow progress through trial and error and LOTS of reading,and I'm not going to give up on that, but I'm getting super frustrated that I just cant get things to "click" in my brain when it comes to this stuff... I need help (I've attatched my current msq if anyone would be kind enough to look over what I have going on), I could easily drop the car off somewhere reputable and just pay them to do the tuning on it, but I wouldn't learn anything, which is sort of the point with this whole project. To reach out, is there anyone in the Maryland or DMV area that would be willing to spend some PAID time with me going over the tuning process in person? I know we have quite a few competent tuners in the general vicinity

For reference, the car is an 04 msm with little enchilada, and no other power mods, stock injectors, stock boost levels for the moment

Some quick pointers that might help you:
- Don't forget that you have the idle VE table enabled. I found it easier disabling this to tune the idle.
- Closed loop is still the way to go. I wouldn't spend too much time on open loop.
- In general your closed loop settings are somewhat off what I've seen to be common. Might be smart to take a look at Brains ( https://trubokitty.com/#/tune ) and take those to start out with.
- Make a cheat sheet of what idle valve PWM% corresponds with with RPM (or at least roughly). You can do this with the Output Test Mode - Idle Valve in the CAN-BUS menu. You'll need to have a rough idea of those values to fill in various screens.

thanks! Ill go over all those values from Brain this week. I took a look at what he has going on and my settings seem very different, as do my fuel and ignition tables

Good luck! Brains settings should hopefully at least get it working - albeit maybe a bit roughly. From that point on it should be somewhat easier to start tweaking. If you run into issues, could you also include a log of your idle?

I'd argue you should spend more time on open loop, as closed loop adds a lot of other factors.

You need to make sure EGO control, idle VE, and idle advance are all shut off. I usually tune for a ~950rpm idle, as that seems to be smoother than Mazda's 850, but 90% of the time I'm tuning cars with the stiffest rubber mounts, mazda comp, installed. But whatever your target idle, make sure you have a column for it on your fuel and ignition table. Nothing more frustrating that trying to nail target AFRs when it's interpolating between a 700 and 1200rpm column for instance.

Just had a look at your tune, it seemed very rough. Try this, see if it's any better. I simply smoothed the fuel table and changed some other settings. Don't worry about cranking and starting yet, you need to get your warm fuel table close to "finished" first.

Once your coolant temps are 180+, adjust the 160* warmup duty cell until it's idling semi wheel at 950rpm, and select the 6 35.0 cells on the fuel table in the idle range until it's at a steady 14.7.

Are you still on a stock ~190* thermostat? And stock injectors?

did some logging today on the way back from cars and coffee, as well as a limited bit of messing with the idle with limited success. Cold and warm starts still create a situation where the car dies unless i give it some throttle until it stabilizes. The idle doesn't "catch" in starting situations or when coming to a stop, though its a bit better at not dying when I come to a stop. More research! current tune included, uploader tells me my logs are too large to upload for some reason

Did you test what idle PWM% corresponds to what idle RPM (see previous post) and then put those into the idle warmup duty screen?

OK, spent some time back out at the car just now. Made some changes to the idle pwm and got my target in the the 950 range. Still some oscillations in closed loop (especially with the ac on, but only 40rpm or so with it off. I was able to get the rpm to hang a bit when free-revving the car as well, which seems to have helped alleviate the stalling after throttle input and letting the revs fall at idle issue, as well as the starup issue. I haven't had a chance to take it around the block to test it while moving yet. I've had to add some fuel in the lower cells to get closer to a target afr down at idle, as well as a bit of timing below the idle cells (though it really seems to me like a LOT of timing down low... not that I'm particularly familiar). The cooling fans and ac compressor still do a number on my oscillations at the moment though.

Your timing does seem pretty high. Normally for tuning, I'd just make all the cells up to 1000 rpm at 10 degrees (like so). Might have to adjust your VE again to get to a decent AFR (14.0 or so).

In regards to your idle, you will probably have to tune your PID settings. Currently you are using basic mode, which is P=100, I=100, D=0. To counteract oscillations you can increase the D. If you want, you can start with my settings (link) - although no guarantees that it'll work for you like it does for me. Please note that if you change 'Use Last Value or Table' to 'Table' under 'Closed-Loop Idle Settings', you will also have to fill in the table (a new menu options appears) - as the default settings might be off for your car.

I had been messing with the advanced mode for PID Idle settings, and havent had much luck stabilizing things unfortunately, so I turned it back to basic for the moment. I feel like I need to get back to some basic known to be OK Idle timing and fuel settings before I mess with the idle too much at this point. The basemap from DIY seems to have idle timing in the 25* range out of the box, mine aren't too far from that now

no open loop. use what god gave you. the idle settings are just bad.

your msq showed:

youre not using the intial value table, but last known.
youre not using idle rpm timing correction
youre not using the idle ve table
your idle freq is too low for your valve
engine states arent tuned well
you never close the idle value
and you never tuned PID.

I did, all those settings are off, and I've been able to adjust the idle valve duty cycle to get my rpm target at idle to be around 950rpm. I pulled a bunch of timing in the idle cells to get closer to what I've seen on other working timing maps, and I've locked out autotune until after 1500rpm to make sure it stays away from my idle when I use it.

current map attached, as well as a short datalog of my warm idle

Thanks for the feedback! I'm still playing with things quite a bit, and I was under the assumption that I had been screwing things up (seems I was correct)
I'll continue to update things as I try to work all this out.

did some flailing today... totally destroyed my idle and had to go back to the edited map Curly sent me and start over from there. I've attached what I have currently, The car seems to idle pretty well once warm with these settings (obviously I have a long way to go from here) Feel free to look at what I have going on and yell at me (I'm sure I deserve it)

OK, got in touch with a local tuner that was kind enough to do some remote work for me this evening. We only worked on idle for about an hour on and off, and it seems like he made some relevant and helpful changes for me. I've attached the current revision after he worked with me. Pretty sure he's coming out tomorrow to do some more tuning work on the car with me directly ( as long as no one takes a look at what hes done and tells me to run for the hills!

my log files are too large to upload unfortunately

For the record, the tune you posted above is NOT what I sent you.

I've revised it some more. Please, don't let a week pass, don't change anything you don't tell us about, don't try closed loop yet. Just load the tune, tell us what works and what doesn't, and attach another log.

Loading the my tune, making changes, then taking a log does NOT help your situation. /yelling

I've attached the tune you just posted, after quickly looking at your log and making some quick changes. Again, let us know asap how it runs.

Got it loaded and made a short log Idle is a bit high, load changes like ac on or headlights on make less of a dramatic change and result in less oscillation. Car idles richer in both circumstances Idle catches nicely when I free rev the engine a bit as well

Ok now we're getting somewhere.

Remember you need to tune your warm (not hot, not cold) running with zero secondary conditions first. For instance your warm up enrichments are a percentage of your base fuel table. If you haven't nailed your base fuel table, WUE tuning is useless. Likewise, if you haven't figured out your idle, you shouldn't be messing with revs, AC, electrical loads, etc.

For now:

1. load this new tune
2. get your thermostat open
3. adjust the 160* warm up duty cell until you're idling as close to 950rpm as you can make it
4. adjust the 6 "42.0" cells in the lower left corner of your fuel table until you're idling at 14.7afr.
5. bounce between step 3&4 until both conditions are met. Idle advance should be maintaining a very stable idle at this point.

Take a log and post again.

thanks for the update! Got things loaded and adjusted a bit today. I did have to step a couple cells outside of the bottom left 6 to keep the transitions (cooling fan on) a bit more stable afr wise. The car starts on the first attempt without dying, though the rpm does drop and take a little bit to come up to target. It doesn't stall if I free rev the car either, idle catches a bit above target and falls to target easily when I do that. first log is the first startup after I loaded the map, second log is after my changes to the ve table and warmup duty as described, and I posted the edited MSQ as well.

thanks again for your help and time!

Ok, looks better. I changed the fuel table in the cells it was running lean in after it started. If that doesn't fix it, you'll have to make changes to after start enrichments.

Sadly I also noticed you were running a few percentage points of WUE during normal operating temperatures (180-205), so you may have to go back and tweak your fuel table before doing any of the suggestions below. I also set it to go 5% richer by 230*, and pull up to 5* timing by 230, these settings just help keep the engine safe if it starts to over heat.

One thing you can do is switch to closed loop on a cold engine, just get it to idle(it won't start/run well), and let it idle with no throttle input until it warms up, all while logging. This will log the idle DC required to maintain your target idle RPM curve, and you can use this in your initial duty table for later closed loop use, and your warmup duty cycle while you're still using open loop.

Remember you want to use WUE to maintain ~12.5afr tapering to 14.7 when warm. If you're happy with the afr you're running at when warm, you can now start to change warmup enrichments to achieve this.

You can also switch to idle valve test mode, and bring the rpms up to your RPM column numbers, going as high as your idle valve will allow, and you can manually tune these very low load cells in the fuel table to help the afrs stay happy when you lift off throttle to return to idle.

Also once you're happy with the idle afr, you can turn on EGO, and give the idle cells ~5% authority, turning all other cells to 0% while you autotune. This plus the idle advance settings I've already given you should give you a very solid idle, both in terms of RPM and AFR. Only once you've achieved this stable RPM and AFR should you look into switching to closed loop idle control. Full disclousure: I don't like closed loop idle. Maybe I'm not using the right firmware, maybe I don't drive my car enough to really want it, but I've been extremely happy with open loop idle. If you want to pursue CL, I won't be able to help you very much.

Other people are welcome to join in, this is a very slow way to remote tune, but hopefully it's making your idle more solid before you start driving it around to autotune.

here is the log

Interesting, apparently changing the WUE and cold advance table affected the warmup duty table. It changed the top temperature cell to 230, without changing any of the DC numbers. Since you never got close to 230, you were essentially running the 177* cell, which was closer to 33% than 29. Dumb.

Should be fixed now, lemme know how the rest of the changes helped.

BTW, I did change your target table to go from 1500rpm cold to the 950rpm warm target. It was 1100-950.

Also what are the specs on your coolant system? It seems to sour right past the standard 190* thermostat opening range without dipping and goes right to 200*...

Your fan should be coming on and staying on at 185*. What rad? What coolant mixture? What thermostat? Reroute?

Good, hopefully you're not blindly loading these and expecting magic. I'm not a magician, just helping you out. Take a look at what I change and I'm glad it's making sense.

Sorry about your wife's grandmother, sounds like she was at least comfortable at the end.

Glad the car is running better. When you get a chance to mess with it, use idle test mode to bring the RPM artificially lower, as low as it'll go, and tune these load/rpm cells. That way when an electrical load does bring the idle down, the poor fuel map won't make it worse.

You can close your bypass valve some to get even lower, but don't forget to put it back where it was or open loop will be all off.

Quick question about Over-run fuel cut... I was still having intermittent stalls coming to a stop that weren't always reproduce-able. Doing some reading in the manual and elsewhere, I started looking at these numbers. I have things Idling pretty darn well a this point (was even able to drive comfortably to work without the laptop this morning), even experimenting with closed loop idle settings has worked out well now that with your help my open loop is dialed in very well. Turning OFF Over-run fuel cut seems to completely solve the intermittent stall issue, so I'm looking at my settings (same as in the above posted tunes since I hadn't adjusted it at all) to see if they should be changed, or is it just fine to leave over-run turned off completely (I'm not super concerned with the fuel savings it provides, since I rarely drive the car to begin with)? Obviously if its advantageous to have over-run cut working correctly, I'll use it, as I hate having features worth using that I'm not taking advantage of!

I've attached a log of the stall on my way to petco this evening, since it just so happened to occur

Looks like your fuel-cut is disengaging too late.

The configuration looks like you should be dropping out of fuel-cut at 1400RPM but your log shows it dropping out of fuel-cut at 1062 RPM, at this point you are in a full lean condition.
This is way too late to recover, you can't get enough fuel injected in time to stop you from stalling.

Add the following custom field to track "FuelCut On": ([status3] & 1)
Or view the "Engine in overrun" attribute in the lower values pane (this may not fully correlate because this attribute says you are "eligible" for fuel cut, not necessarily that all of fuel cut conditions/timers have been met).

The question is why is fuel cut disengaging so late?

My guess is your engine state settings aren't configured correctly.
I'm running 1.5.1 and my settings are:
Slow acceleration threshold(rpm/sec): 300
Slow deceleration threshold(rpm/sec): -700
[In 1.5.1 the fast acceleration settings have been removed as they turned out to be unneeded - I can't remember how I had these set when the fast settings existed.]

Looking at your log, I never see your "Engine decelerating quickly/slowly" being triggered, without these states triggering, you won't disengage fuel-cut at the specified RPMs (High 3500, Low1400).
In fact, it looks like going into "engine idling" is the only thing pulling you out of fuel cut - this is why fuel stays cut until 1062RPM, at which point you are in free fall with no chance of recovery.

You'll have to work on your engine state settings - or better yet, turn off fuel cut for now.

FYI - pulled this from a few sources:

Noticed that your engine state settings don't have any hints in your release.

From the MS3 Tunerstudio MS Lite Reference for 1.5 manual:Slow deceleration threshold

see wall of text (paragraph #2): https://www.miataturbo.net/megasquir...3/#post1482220