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Thread: A noob tuning his own car (Calum RT)

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2009-03-05 03:01:38
#1
A noob tuning his own car (Calum RT)
Well guys, I will start this thread so I can receive help and provide help if possible, just wanted to share my experience with this great ECU and maybe it will be useful to other noobs like me lol. I will keep updating the thread as soon as I progress with the tune.
Some weeks ago I got a Calum Realtime knowing that it was no easy job for someone that was used to do just small changes on a emanage blue.

A quick view on my setup:

Built SR20VET
Stock cams
Tubular manifold
MP T60 .63ar turbine stage 3
740cc DW injectors
Z32 MAF
Walbro 255
Nismo FPR
Calum RT ECU

Getting the ECU ready

First thing after getting the Calum out of the box is to read this thread and follow carefully each of the steps: Realtime ECU Quick Start Manual - SR20 Forum

After setting up the TunerPro RT and loading the XDF file (This file defines all the parameters that can be changed on the ECU) I loaded a .bin file from a Mine's ECU (.bin file is the one loaded on any Nissan ECU it has all the parameters to make it work) it was set for Z32 MAF (good) and 555cc injectors (bad) so searching on the forums, I found this post by calum that helped me out:

Originally Posted by Calum

I've never worked with those injectors.

You can compute a ballpark k-value from a known program using the same maf (and type of ECU, B13 or B14):

new k-value = (old injector size)/(new injector size) * (old k value)

So for example if you use the Mine's 550 Z32 maf bin on this page (they probably have the k value correct)-

SR20 binaries

And assume that your injectors at 4 bar flow (550 * 1.15) = 633

So-

new k value = (550/633)*40387

new k value = 35091


Based on that formula, and since the base .bin file I used was properly configured for a Z32 MAF I just had to change the K value to one suited for my injectors, it came up to a value of 30.000, but I used 29.000 since my fuel pressure is a bit higher than stock right now. Loaded the file on the ECU, and it started perfectly!! AFR's kinda lost at cold idle but it was because of a IACV problem (posted on this forum section also). I went for a ride and checked the AFR's on partial throttle and full throttle, and they were a bit too lean on WOT and rich at partial throttle, so I decided to just stop the car until I know how to mess with the fuel map.

Launch Control

When I opened up Tuner Pro RT and loaded XDF and .bin files, I took a look and I didn’t understand most of what was in front of me. So I decided to keep reading stuff on the forums and then I found this guys talking about launch control!!! Hell yeah, I want that on my car!! After searching a bit I found this thread:

B13 bin with launch control - SR20 Forum

Apparently the .bin file needs to match and be made specifically for that Launch control XDF, but that thread didn’t really had a .bin file I could use so I searched some more and found a .bin file (launch control enabled!) that could be useful for my setup here:

Need bin for b13 with bluebird 370cc and z32 - SR20 Forum

So I set the launch limiter to 4200rpm, and the launch speed to 6mph, went for a test drive and it worked perfectly!, it bogged a little because of the big turbo but its amazing, I have launch control now! Too bad the car is not tuned yet

More to come
Last edited by Bagato on 2011-04-17 at 17-31-03. Reason: Thanks Vadim for the heads up on the K value calculation, fixed.
2009-03-05 03:59:09
#2
Messing a lil with the maps

So, hungry for more information about how to work on this ECU, I started to search some more on the forums, and came across this amazing thread:

http://www.sr20-forum.com/tuning/1644-tuning-saga-love-story-about-man-his-daughterboard.html

This thread made me understand a lot of stuff, including what the hell were the values filling the map, then looking for more information I found more stuff which I will summarize here:

Map concepts from a noob point of view

Horizontal: TP = an engine load value based on MAF voltage and the VQ table
Vertical: RPM’s = Engine revs doh!
Values in the middle: Target AFR’s shown in decimal. To convert to actual AFR numbers here is a useful chart: http://cherrypicker.tripod.com/ECU_downloads/AFR_Conversion_Chart.xls

I modified some of the values in the first TP column to verify if it does something, and nothing really happened, went for an extreme value of like 10:1 at idle and still nothing changed!! So, I downloaded some of the Consult software’s and ran a scan on the ECU to se what it finds.

Consult Softwares:

SR20 Forum - View Single Post - What is Consult? FAQ

I got a Knock Sensor code! The wires got damaged during the engine swap. Now, I remember I saw a secondary map on Tuner Pro, so maybe that code was taking me to the secondary map?, I modified the value for idle on the secondary map and now I noticed the difference on the wideband! So, I went to “Flags/Switches” and turned off the knock sensor, and o2 sensor (needed to be replaced anyway) cleared the codes on the consult software, and the car was back on the primary fuel map. Some may not agree with me but I’m not really friend of the stock knock sensors, I think on these old cars are not really useful especially on such a noisy engine like an Sr20, and either way I am going to get a real knock sensor since I want to tune my own car as the thread title says. Now, I think I am ready to start tuning this thing, but where to start, how do I know on which TP column should I work at different engine loads and speed? Datalogging!!! It cant be that difficult with a calum can it? I’ll continue with this later on
2009-03-05 04:11:32
#3
that excel speadsheet is nice.

does it apply for any maf?
2009-03-05 04:17:11
#4
Originally Posted by speedyd718
that excel speadsheet is nice.

does it apply for any maf?


Yes it does, what changes from MAF to MAF is the VQ table, which basically transforms the MAF voltage into values the ECU can use to know the MAF utilization. When changing a MAF I recommend to use a .bin file that is made for that MAF as a base, but I think you can also get the VQ table from that .bin file and copy it into your .bin file in your VQ table.
2009-03-05 04:21:53
#5
thanks. one more question,

how well does the ecu dial in the values that are input?

like say i want 12.8 afr on the top end.

if i put in 19 in those boxes, with the ecu actually get in spot on?
2009-03-05 04:25:13
#6
Originally Posted by speedyd718
thanks. one more question,

how well does the ecu dial in the values that are input?

like say i want 12.8 afr on the top end.

if i put in 19 in those boxes, with the ecu actually get in spot on?


The only way to know is to go check it out, it is a target AFR, thats what the ECU is trying to get but that doesn't mean it will do exactly that. I will get there on the next post "datalogging"
2009-03-05 04:27:09
#7
ok, thanks again. i'll be watching this thread.

guess i need to invest in a wideband pretty soon.
2009-03-05 07:15:32
#8
Datalogging

First of all, if anyone is reading this and is looking for a wideband GET AN INNOVATE, I have an LC-1 and it’s a really badass unit, proven to be very accurate, it has digital outputs as well as analog outputs that you can configure to work on any voltage range you want from 0 to 5v, also, it comes with LogWorks! A seriously good datalogging software, and best of all! Calumsult software can stream data from the ECU to the Logworks software, so you can datalog almost any parameter in the ECU you want along with the AFRs! So you will have something looking like this:



How to do this? Well, with the Calumsult software installed, download this file: http://www.calumsult.com/calumsu/CalumSult/CalumSult%20-%20LW2%20Beta.exe run it, open the com port as usual, then go to the gauges and turn them on. Then open logworks, connect it to the wideband and you will have lots of gauges on it, yep, that’s coming from the ECU!

Pretty cool, but I still cannot do anything with that, since the fuel map looks like this:



So I can datalog RPMs, I can datalog actual AFR numbers from the wideband, but, where is the TP?, I still don’t have a way to work on the map without knowing which TP column should I work on. Well calum to the rescue again, he found the way to do this, here are the instructions for a B13/S13:

How to: add TP streaming on B13/S13 etc ecus - SR20 Forum

I had some troubles first, using the hex editor, I found the address when I did the search for 75 44 74 44, but they were not on the first byte as it was on the instructions on the link above, so I was putting the wrong address into the tuner pro (FFE):



Well, the problem was the Hex Editor window size, I have to adjust the window size so there are 16 horizontal blocks, as simple as that:




Then I created the Consult Data Register table in my XDF file, there was an XDF file with the table in there already, but it didn’t have any launch control feature so I decided to create a new table under “Tables/functions” and copy all the parameters from that XDF to mine (If anyone wants this XDF let me know), after that I followed the rest of the instructions and it worked perfectly!! Please note that if you don’t put the TP address in Calumsult at the start, it won’t read the rest of the stuff (RPM, injectors, MAF, TPS… So my logworks looks like this now:



Isn’t it great?... Now my next step was to set up LogWorks and start datalogging.

First is to set the triggers, you need to set this because otherwise you will log lots of crap at idle and when the engine is decelerating (wideband will read like 22.9 or something like that during deceleration) you want to log information when you are actually on the throttle, so:



Then went for a short ride to test everything, and went back home to check the stuff recorded, it looks like this:



Yeap, it’s a mess! But everything is there, lets just organize all the information and make it useful for us, go to View menu, then “new chart”, and try make it look as close to your map as possible, and have the wideband fill it up, in my case this is how I set it:



And this is how it looks:



Better?, now you have your current AFR’s on a chart that looks really close to the map on Tuner Pro, the next step is to find out how much you need to change the fields on the map, to do that, you have to tell Logworks the target AFR’s you want. To do that go to “File” menu and “New user chart” put “Target” as a name, you will have a blank chart that you can fill up with any info you want, so, I filled it up with what I thought would be some good AFR’s at certain loads/rpm’s, how? Well… I modified the chart set up (“Table” menu, then “Table setup” so the content will be the throttle, and based on throttle utilization I will decide the target AFR’s I want:



I choose the “Max” tab to see the maximum amount of throttle I gave at those TP and RPM levels:



And based on throttle utilization I manually filled up the target chart with what I thought it was a good target for each TP column, Target chart now looks like this:



Now, don’t forget to put back the AFR as the content in the table setup. Next step is, go to “Table” menu, then “Chart calculator library” and choose the formula “Simple fuel map change in %” Now in my case I had to do some corrections, click on “edit formula” it should look like this:


?iWhat is the name of the target AFR user chart = trgAFR[Target]
?iWhat is the name of the % correction user chart = newmap[chart_min]
?Use only cells with min. number of datapoints = minpts[1]

MC(Changes in map) = ((chart_num >= minpts) * (chart_avrg/trgAFR) - 1) * 100


Then click on “Calculate” and click on “OK”, it should give you a chart like this:




And that folks is all we need know to start making changes, that means that for example, based on that chart, on 6140rpm at 42 TP, I need to reduce the AFR value in -13.29% to get to the desired target AFR. On the thread I posted before you will find how to change the decimal AFR value on the Tuner Pro map based on that percentage:

If the MAP VALUE is less than 128, then MULTIPLIER = (DATA + 128)/128
If the MAP VALUE is greater than 128, then MULTIPLIER = (DATA – 64)/128

I set up an excel spreadsheet to calculate the MULTIPLIERS for me based on the MAP VALUES. For a map value of “0” we can calculate that the multiplier would be “1.00” using the first equation above. For a map value of 3 we see that the multiplier is 1.02. To get multipliers less than “1” we need to enter values greater than “128.” For example, a value of 160 gives a multiplier of 0.75, and for 192, the multiplier is “1” again. Values higher than “192” have multipliers greater than “1.” Kind of weird, but workable.

Now I was ready to change the fuel map to fix my rich idle. After warm up, my idle was about 12.5 AFR with a map value of “3.” (multiplier of 1.02). I wanted to move it to 14.7, or 2.2 AFR units. To figure out how much to reduce the fuel flow multiplier, I divided 2.2 by 12.5 to get a 17% decrease in fuel delivery, or 83% of the original multiplier. 0.83 x 1.02 = 0.85, the new multiplier that I would want to use for this cell. Using the formula above, a map value of 173 gives us a multiplier of 0.85.



Now, the idea is to fill up the whole chart, so I can tune the whole map on Tuner Pro, to create load at low RPM’s and fill up some empty spaces, some people use the car’s brake and accelerate at the same time, that will create some load and will fill up some spaces when datalogging, This is where I currently am, I have to do a lot more driving/datalogging to fill up more spaces on the chart, and since Logworks fills up the spaces with an average of AFR’s the more I drive the more accurate is the chart. After I finish with all this process, I will start with the timing! I will keep updating this thread with progress.

Thanks for reading… And any advice/suggestions are more than welcome.
2009-03-05 07:28:58
#9
Haha great thread man. Nice work here.

I can also speak for the LC-1. Be prepared to have to send it back for a new one if it dies though, it was (at least for a while) a common problem. Once you got a good one it was fine though. It might be fixed now though, don't know.
2009-03-05 07:33:43
#10
It has been with me for like year and half, so far so good. Is just now that I got the calum that I am really starting to use this thing as it should be used.
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