My new car!

[speedjunkie]

Yeah I have a feeling that's why Simon is rebuilding his from the ground up LOL.

Don't get me wrong, there are still some good mods over there, Rich Farrell and Howard Coleman to name a couple, but there seem to be a few that are just pricks.

[chickenwafer]

I got the midpipe and it fit perfectly! I was pretty impressed...usually these aftermarket exhaust pieces require from finagling.

Took it for a spin with the midpipe on. Well, first off I started up the FD and it immediately sounded bridgeported and was billowing smoke out the exhaust like I had just seafoamed it and idling at 10:1 AFR. After much rummaging around I had realized I had bumped the vac line off the MAP sensor earlier...opps. Connect it and it ran fine.

It's louder (obviously) but not as deafening as I anticipated. Smokes a lot more than it used to in high boost also. I'm still only getting about 5-6psi off the primary turbo, but now I'm seeing 14psi off the secondary! When the secondary hits it's pretty crazy. Car hauls!

I also got the AEM ECU in the mail today. It's a very early SN so it needs the TPS signal fixed. Originally, AEM only had programmed the ECU to read just one of the TPS sensors (the low range sensor) so the TPS hit full voltage by 60% throttle. Luckily, Matt (Alpha) is a computer genius and was able to re-wire my box so it would read both narrow and high range TPS sensors correctly.

I threw it in the car and got it to idle pretty well. Holds around 850-920rpm, so there is some movement. Tip-in is pretty bad as it tries to die, but I can sort that later. I really do enjoy the AEM, but there are just SO MANY tables to adjust and to figure out it makes tuning it rather daunting. I almost envy PFC owners who can just throw it on their car and boost...

[speedjunkie]

Which midpipe did you get? Zico got the one on RX7store and he's gonna let me try it first to see if it makes my car any quieter than what I already have on there.

I wonder what happened to make your second turbo respond now.

I've been thinking more about getting an AEM but I still really would rather they made a version 2 for the FD. Oh well.

[chickenwafer]

Not sure what brand it is. Guy I bought it off of didn't know either. There is no visible branding on it or anything. Fits perfect though. Probably easiest/quickest part I'm put on the FD haha, you know something always goes wrong when working on an RX-7!

My car drove on the AEM today as well! Fired it up from cold (50*F) and it idled well, warmed up, and was revving well so I took it around the block. I set fuel cut to 5psi so nothing crazy could happen. I just took it easy and putted around the neighborhood. Drove fine, and cruised pretty well actually.

Still have a problem with tip-in so I need to adjust the accelerator pump functions. Whenever I roll into the throttle it just goes hella lean. I even fattened up the main fuel map a bunch and it's still doing it, so it's obviously an accel pump issue.

I can say that the biggest benefit to the PFC is the base map. The AEM's base map is pretty horrid and basically just sets up the options for you, but you need to go in and physically adjust everything for your setup. This will take a very long time, especially compared to the PFC.

I do believe once you get the AEM properly configured and setup, it's still far superior to the PFC. But for the casual user, the PFC is the better option, or someone just looking for an easier, quicker option and not chasing after every last pony. Because the AEM has superior control, there are more tables to setup, which means it's more difficult to tune and get working, but I believe once it's working, it will be better.

I'm also weighing options about what I want to do with my car. At 14psi the FD hauls, enough to get me arrested, so I'm kind of wondering if I should be chasing more power. I just want to get the car reliable and looking good and call it a day, until I get bored with the power. I think I'll hold onto the twins for a while longer, maybe keep them sequential...not sure yet.

[chickenwafer]

Haven't updated in a while...

Basically, with new emissions laws, I'm taking a different route with my FD build, which means keeping some systems the AEM can't control effectively. I feel like an ***, but I sold the AEM and I'm getting a PFC (like I originally wanted LOL).

It feels backwards, because the AEM is a more superior EMS, but the PFC kinda "just works", plus it controls some systems (namely the OEM seq turbo system) like stock. To this date, I couldn't find a single person who got the AEM to work correctly with the stock sequential twins. And when questioned on the AEM forums, they really have no idea how the stock system even operates. Pretty sad.

Also, digging deeper into the AEM, the system is setup horribly out of the box. It takes a lot of time to setup and get running correctly. Now, if you're building a race car, the AEM is probably the best choice. For a street car, go with a PFC haha.


And now with emissions, I'm also going with an E85 fuel system. It starts with twin Denso Supra pumps in-tank feeding to a single -8AN hose, to a -8AN fuel filter, then to the CJ Motorsports rails which splits the fuel to the primary rail, then twin -6AN hose to the Aeromotive FPR, then a -6AN back to the factory return.

Injectors are either going to be Injector Dynamics 1000cc primaries and 2000cc secondaries, or just run 4 ID 2000cc injectors in the primary and secondary spots. There's no problem running 2000cc primary injectors with the ID's because they are high impedance and have an excellent spray pattern that promotes proper atomization. The only problem is the ID2000's are $480 a pair haha.

[chickenwafer]

Haven't updated in a while...

Basically, with new emissions laws, I'm taking a different route with my FD build, which means keeping some systems the AEM can't control effectively. I feel like an ***, but I sold the AEM and I'm getting a PFC (like I originally wanted LOL).

It feels backwards, because the AEM is a more superior EMS, but the PFC kinda "just works", plus it controls some systems (namely the OEM seq turbo system) like stock. To this date, I couldn't find a single person who got the AEM to work correctly with the stock sequential twins. And when questioned on the AEM forums, they really have no idea how the stock system even operates. Pretty sad.

Also, digging deeper into the AEM, the system is setup horribly out of the box. It takes a lot of time to setup and get running correctly. Now, if you're building a race car, the AEM is probably the best choice. For a street car, go with a PFC haha.


And now with emissions, I'm also going with an E85 fuel system. It starts with twin Denso Supra pumps in-tank feeding to a single -8AN hose, to a -8AN fuel filter, then to the CJ Motorsports rails which splits the fuel to the primary rail, then twin -6AN hose to the Aeromotive FPR, then a -6AN back to the factory return.

Injectors are either going to be Injector Dynamics 1000cc primaries and 2000cc secondaries, or just run 4 ID 2000cc injectors in the primary and secondary spots. There's no problem running 2000cc primary injectors with the ID's because they are high impedance and have an excellent spray pattern that promotes proper atomization. The only problem is the ID2000's are $480 a pair haha.

[chickenwafer]

Finally sold the AEM, and bought a Pettit Racing Charge Cool II SMIC. I decided to forgo the FMIC option and get a stock mounted intercooler (SMIC). The Pettit CC2 looks real nice and functions great as well. It used a huge duct from the front bumper so the intercooler gets fresh air, and it doesn't block the radiator. Best of both worlds really.

I also got twin Denso Supra fuel pumps I'm going to drop in the tank to help with fuel demands of E85. I'm getting the PowerFC here pretty soon as well!

[speedjunkie]

Maybe you can help me with my ID injectors tuning issue then haha. I dropped them in and I changed the injector dead times for 40psi and the injector sizes (all on settings 5) and it won't stay running on it's own. I'm not sure if its just the fuel map itself or what. The wideband still isn't working, even with the new sensor I bought. I'm pretty outraged right now.

[chickenwafer]

What is your base fuel pressure? You need to change the injector latency in the Datalogit, along with injector CC size. A working WB02 is vital though, otherwise you won't know if you're running too rich or too lean.

Edit: is your fuel correction map at 1? Set everything to around 1 in the correct map and see if that helps

[speedjunkie]

?que?

LOL I made the settings based on a base pressure of 40psi, but I also have a map for 43.5psi too (I've only tried the 40psi map so far though). I set the lag vs. batt v using the flow charts on their website. I changed the injector sizes according to their flow charts too, all of that based on the base fuel pressure.

Other than that I have no idea what you're talking about LOL.

[chickenwafer]

So what is your base fuel pressure? 43.5psi is the "normal" setting.

[speedjunkie]

Well I thought I had it set to 40psi but I'm going to load the 43.5psi settings and see what happens. I also got a reply back from thewird on 7club and he was telling me to change some other stuff too. I really want to learn this stuff so I can do it myself, but first I need to get a reliable wideband setup apparently. I'm thinking maybe I'll bring it up so you can tune it next time, because I want to tune on EGTs in addition to AFRs and Steve only has AFR capability.

Here is what thewird responded with...

If you were running the ID1000's before, your primary injector % would have been ~57.3%. If you went to the ID725's, then your primary injector % would go to ~79.7%. This change usually makes your primary injector fueling be close to what your tuned map was before and should be enough to drive around (in vacuum) at a minimum until you can get the car retuned. But its not always the case and you may need to make small changes to make it run alright. So try setting your injector percentages to 79.7% and see how it runs.

If your injector % was 100% with the ID1000's then you'd have to use completely different numbers altogether with the ID725's.

Also, lower your injector staging to 35% and you'd want to set the secondary injector lag to zero since your inputting the real dead times on lag tables.

thewird

[chickenwafer]

Yeah, you'll have to change the switch over lag times for primary/secondary transition since your injector size differential changed. You should also change your accelerator pump/tip-in scaling as well to avoid stumbling or bucking. Also, for some reason the Datalogit has setting where you can change the front primary and rear primary injector scaling (as if you're running 2 different sized primary injectors, I have no clue why) and it's easy to confuse changing the rear primary setting as if you think you're changing the secondary injector setting (if that made sense haha, it's late). Just make sure both primary injector settings are the same.


On a side note about my car- I've been having issues with getting low primary turbo boost (5psi, supposed to be 10psi). Then at switchover to the secondary turbo (4500rpm) I would get 14psi so it was a pretty violent switch and scary fast.

I took the car over to Matt's (Alpha) to hook up his diagnostic ECU patch box which has a series of LED's that can tell us how the solenoids are functioning. Matt also measured resistance across the solenoid in suspect (turbo pre-control) and it was within spec at 34ohms. All vacuum lines looked to be good as well. The diagnostic box showed the solenoid was operating properly as well.

We were pretty stumped and assumed a small boost leak on the primary turbo, or the turbo pre-control actuator is bad, or even the primary turbocharger is bad. So on my way home, I noticed the primary turbo is now boosting pretty good. Not perfect, but good. It shoots up to 5psi, holds it for about half a second or so (roughly 500rpm or more) then climbs to 10psi, holds it until switchover at 4500rpm, then boost goes to 13-15psi.

We also found at that at 15psi I hit fuel cut. This was the first time I've done so and it was a pretty violent reaction, like slamming the throttle shut. The first time I was pretty nervous the motor was toast because of a HUGE smoke cloud that was farted out of the exhaust, but it held, and it held through another 2 more hard fuel cuts LOL. I've hit 14psi before, but never 15psi, so I think that's where the fuel cut is coming into play. The 38*F air was dense enough to make some more boost, so that's where my extra 1-2psi came from.

Also, thanks to Matt's diagnostic box, which has LED's for all 4 injectors, we found out during an over boost fuel cut, the stock ECU only cuts fuel to the rear rotor, but not to the front. Odd, but it was plenty enough to get the car to loose all its momentum. Just shows there is a lot out there we don't know about the factory ECU.

[speedjunkie]

So why do you think it's still holding at 5psi on the first turbo? And are you getting boost creep up to 15psi or what?

That's pretty cool that Matt rigged up that box too. Amazing actually. I could never do stuff like that haha.

Oh, and it's not a side note about your car, I hijacked the last several posts on YOUR thread, so it's a side note about mine hahaha. Sorry.

Here is my current map though, just in case you wanted to take a look at it (hint hint) LOL.

[chickenwafer]

Alright, I'll take a look at the map tonight or tomorrow (I'm on my Macbook Pro right now so I don't have the FC Edit software installed)

Yeah, Matt's little diagnostic box is pretty awesome. It's spliced into an AEM patch harness and has status LED's so you can see exactly what the ECU is commanding. For example, there are status LED's for all 4 injectors (primary and secondary, front and rear rotor) and you can actually see them pulsing/blinking as the engine is running- it's pretty cool! That's how we were able to tell when I hit fuel cut at 15psi that only the rear rotor fuel injectors were shut off, while the front rotor fuel injector LED's were still on.

Matt can explain it more, it's really a box of magic to me LOL. He also took a video of it in my car (and his) running so we could see exactly what was going on...maybe he'll post up the video of one of my runs. What's REALLY cool is the diagnostic box has a plug on it Matt is using to plug in a "fake engine" simulator which runs the ECU on the bench, out of the car, which he's currently using to test his AEM. It's really awesome!

Even though I'll probably have to remove it later, I decided to go ahead and install the Pettit Charge Cool II SMIC. Install was pretty straightforward with removing the factory mini intercooler then dropping in the CCII, you don't even have to remove the bumper. Biggest hurdle was getting the factory intercooler duct out because it's wrapped around the A/C dryer. I was a little rough with it because I didn't care if I break a line or anything since I plan on deleting the A/C anyways, but I just didn't want to spill refrigerant everywhere. Luckily, I was able to faniagle it out and not damage anything.

I got the CCII all installed except I'm missing a coupler from the top intercooler pipe to the GReddy elbow. I'll go to Checker tomorrow, I think they will have the coupler I need. I'll get some pictures up then.