1UZ on an aftermarket computer

[V8Supra]

As most of you would know, I'm running a GM Delco computer on my 1UZ (and have been for nearly 2 years now)

You can find out some more info here: http://www.v8supra.com/delco.html


At the moment my tuner, Richard, is making a couple of the modules that make a standard (in regards to sensors) 1UZ run on various aftermarket computers. So he's got all the equipment out and has his mind back around it. We tested his newly refined module on my car this afternoon and it works great.

Its a good time to buy!

 

[V8Celica]

One of them would be mine. I hope it works as good as you say they do. If it is it will save me a lot of time and money. By the way he spoke he hasn't sold many which is a shame because he put a lot of time and effort getting it right.

 

[Zuffen]

One of the problems with the Kalmaker system is not enough people went with it to make it economicaly viable for the manufactirer/distributors.

One drawback I see is it's no cheaper than (say)Autronic, or whatever,

As someone going with a blown engine it has appeal.

Personally it appeals to me but I want to run my engine on an engib=ne dyno rather to a chassis dyno (which I understand Richard uses) when/if it ever gets finished.

 

[V8Celica]

How is the kalmaker not cheaper than almost every other programmable management system.
I thought Richards box is designed to be used with any system.

 

[V8Supra]

Richard's box IS designed to go with "any" system.

Most of the people that have put the Autronic on the 1UZs have had to change sensors and muck around with the engine. Not a way I'd favour.

As for tuning it on an engine dyno I don't understand the reason. The way Richard tunes is closest to the way the car is going to be used. That is, mine was tuned on the road (where airflow and load is BETTER SIMULATED THAN ANY DYNO). He's actually built a TCP-IP module for the LS1 engines. He now takes a group of cars to the track out at eastern creek and sits in the stands and tunes them in between each hit down the strip!
He's got a car that is still "just" 5.7L N/A but is worked and is doing flat 11s and will be doing 10s next wednesday. This is in a full-weight car! Do the maths on the power output.



A properly tuned 1UZ a beauty to behold. The sound! The power! The revs!

 

[sideshow]

hey v8supra

is yr wiring bit neater these days

one reason for sales is how u present the product

i recon if yr wiring was neater than when i saw it few yrs ago
im sure i have right car hehe

just make it all look good and promote it

but there is just not enough demand as im findin out with some stuff

i buy devices from alot of people and i only buy 2 at a time as sometimes takes ages to get rid off

another way is to sell it as a package deal

making stuff for people who are on forums sells abit but not enough to make it worth while

get yr friend to fit whole systems and these units all together might be better

another prob is there is just not enough 1uzs around gettin fitted to make it worth while

i wire up one 1uz about every 2 months with a std ecu so its not like its an easy conversion when fitting in another car

and the other thing is a microtech is cheap
all u do is wire it up then start

about 9 out of 10 microtechs i do start first go

u just cant beat that

no muckin round

 

[V8Supra]

No I still havn't cleaned up my wiring. I've been saving (around wedding) to get you out to work some magic on it.

Richard definately does packages to put it in, wire it up and tune it. But everyone thinks these days that they can tune it as well as a professional so he doesn't sell that many packages.

 

[V8Supra]

The other thing is. I don't think a microtech is a big (or any) advantage over a standard computer on the standard engine. Unless the engine is slightly modified (like PeeWee's). In a heavily modified one (forced induction) I don't think a microtech would be appropriate, theres something about boost without knock sensors that scares the crap out of me.

It all depends on what people want out of their car.

 

[KDog]

The newer microtech may have a slight advantage in that you can lean out the map a bit more. But I still haven't tuned one to get the maps to merge properly ie they are no advantage. I guess it depends on your standards.

Not having knock sensors on any engine scares me.

V8Supra, can you give us a list of prices for everything you need to run the 1uz from the Delco including tuning.

 

[V8Supra]

I'm still at a loss to know how people actually tune a car without knock sensors. And I agree they're a necessity.

 

[Peewee]

Re: Knock sensors

We tuned the car to x amount of degrees, gave it a few more degrees timing, and it didnt produce any extra power. So we backed it off.
Dunno if this is normal, or just something that happened coincidently, but it did.

My car is as nice to drive as anything I have drive with a factroy ecu.
It starts cold, idles perfectly, responds beautifully, and this is with only a few hours on the dyno.
The only gripe I have is the fuel consumption. Although I havent really done any country driving, most driving I do is flat stick around the city. But, a few more hours on the dyno should solve this.
But I didnt build the car to drive from A to B on a budget.


The problem with Delco is the cost. Plain and simple
Its $600 for richards box.
$90 for a holden knock sensor.
$120? each for ignition modules.
And, what, about $400+ for a HSV knock sensor equiped Delco unit? (I think only the HSV's had it, but didnt research this very far)

So you are up to $1300 minimum just for the hardware.

Then go get a quote for tuning.

Quotes I've heard around Perth are over the $1000 mark, for one tune (ie, the initial)
When you go back after a mod, its even more money.

This is too much for people to outlay.
I've spent about $1700 including 4 separate tuning sessions.
After a mod (ie, intake, I had the zorst finished, extractors etc), I went back and put it on the dyno for another hour

 

[sideshow]

knock sensors are only for factory systems where they cant aford engines to break

since aftermarket ecus are tunable u use best fuel 98 octain
and tune the car to suit that
if it pings u retard timing
u dont give it more timing and hope the engine to retard it

the reason std ecus run heaps of timing is the strick emmission laws

my 1uz runs 40 to 50 degrees timing at very light throttle

no way u could do that with an aftermarket all the time

plus a std ecu has 10000 variables
where an aftermarket has afew

if yr engine ius tuned right then knock sensors arent needed

unfortunatley i see more bad tuners these days

plus i cant see any probs with a microtech on a 1uz running 10 or 20 psi

and if u hear yr engine ping then just retard timing bit more

tuning an aftermarket isnt just for all out performance

i think u need to be satisfied to have about 10 hp below breaking point

that way it will last

 

[MaxPower]

Re: Knock sensors

We tuned the car to x amount of degrees, gave it a few more degrees timing, and it didnt produce any extra power. So we backed it off.
Dunno if this is normal, or just something that happened coincidently, but it did.

If other tuners actually did some back to back runs they would find out the exact same thing, this happens with any engine - maximum power is a fair few degrees before spark advance that causes knock, while the engine is knocking you are losing power. The actual amount is different for all engines just like the AFR for maximum power on one engine may be 12.0:1 and another may be 13.5:1. Just give the engine what it wants, not what the tuner thinks it wants. A knock sensor is not meant to be a tuning tool.....it is a sensor that detects a problem. Have a look at the factory tunes, they are sooooo conservative to allow low octane fuels to be used but they have knock sensors, why?? In case of contaminated fuel or a any other problem, a 1UZ aint going to ping on 92 octane fuel with 20 degrees WOT timing like in the stock tune.


It is also possible to run heaps of timing at light throttle without knock sensors as the engine is less likely to ping. For instance i run between 26-28 degrees WOT timing, about 45 on a trailing throttle and around 36 at cruise, it does not knock at all however this is a pretty conservative tune.

Anyway thats enough ranting for me.....i had to refrain from posting earlier.

 

[V8Supra]

WHY would you put an "aftermarket" computer on if you wanted a conservative tune??

I did another log recently to see if anything had changed, and guess what - it had. Apparently they changed the Shell Optimax formula and there were a couple of MINOR knocks (my computer was pulling out about 6 degrees of timing). Which in a car fitted with a knock sensor pulls out timing before this happens thus making the knock MUCH smaller than it could be. Richard told me to switch to BP ultimate as thats what all his customers cars are using now and the knock went away. If my engine didn't have knock sensors then it would have been knocking a LOT more the whole time! fukc that!

As for maximum power being a "fair few degrees" before knocking, this poses the question - Why does my car STILL make more power "stock" than any other?

Knock sensors are to prolong the life of the engine. Try running a car that is highly tuned on a microtech and take it to the track on a hot day. It will be pinging its head off all day and no-one would know. In Sideshow's case it doesn't matter as he views them as throw away engines. In my case I'd rather not spend another $1k to put another engine in.


If you can hear knocking is FAR worse than it should be.


Sideshow says "tuning an aftermarket isnt just for all out performance". No its for engine longevity, fuel economy, by law adhering to emissions standards etc. But most of all its for power. I don't know about longevity of my engine, as I havn't run it for 200k kms yet, but fuel economy is better, power is better and its very legal.

 

[MaxPower]

WHY would you put an "aftermarket" computer on if you wanted a conservative tune??

As for maximum power being a "fair few degrees" before knocking, this poses the question - Why does my car STILL make more power "stock" than any other.

I spent a whole 30 minutes on the dyno to get the AFR's and timing initially setup, just havnt been back to finish off the WOT tune yet as the diff is dying, all low end stuff has been done on the road. Plus after 30 minutes we got 155rwkw, this was with a factory holden V6 airbox, factory paper filter and poxy log headers. Out of interest what did your car make??

I did another log recently to see if anything had changed, and guess what - it had. Apparently they changed the Shell Optimax formula and there were a couple of MINOR knocks (my computer was pulling out about 6 degrees of timing). Which in a car fitted with a knock sensor pulls out timing before this happens thus making the knock MUCH smaller than it could be. Richard told me to switch to BP ultimate as thats what all his customers cars are using now and the knock went away. If my engine didn't have knock sensors then it would have been knocking a LOT more the whole time! fukc that!

Exactly my point, the knock sensor was able to adjust for the crap fuel! This is the whole point of them, not to tune to the edge of knock, but to save the engine from problems.

Knock sensors are to prolong the life of the engine. Try running a car that is highly tuned on a microtech and take it to the track on a hot day. It will be pinging its head off all day and no-one would know. In Sideshow's case it doesn't matter as he views them as throw away engines. In my case I'd rather not spend another $1k to put another engine in.

Pinging on a hot day?? Havnt had that problem yet - I have the air temp and water temp compensation tables for fuel and ignition setup properly, wont matter if it is 50 degrees or 10 degrees it will still run fine. Iam running a wolf and id say a microtech can do the same??

If you can hear knocking is FAR worse than it should be.

Sideshow says "tuning an aftermarket isnt just for all out performance". No its for engine longevity, fuel economy, by law adhering to emissions standards etc. But most of all its for power. I don't know about longevity of my engine, as I havn't run it for 200k kms yet, but fuel economy is better, power is better and its very legal.

Yes the knock sensor will detect knock before it is audible which is great, but there is a problem with knock sensors - it wont pick up audible knock. It is tuned to a certain frequency using the knock filter board in the memcal, which is specific to the engine it came off, so it wont trigger off engine noise like valvetrain rattle. Once out side this tuned frequency, which is before it is audible to the human ear, it will not see any knock - which is fine if it is before knock. The problem with this is you need to be careful while tuning and have a good understanding of how the delco adds timing - which Richard certainly does.

And finally Iam not having a dig at you or your tuner, its just that knock sensors are not the final answer in knock detection allowing complete safety, obviously they are better than having none but with the ECU setup properly they are not 100% necessary. Bad tuning with knock sensors can still cause trouble, the delco has very advanced (and confusing) coding for spark advance and can cause heaps traps for young players, also you do realise if richard hasnt extended any tables you dont have any tuning above 4800rpm, just a set spark advance per rpm increase....

 

[V8Supra]

Some of my comments weren't directly for you.

[Edit: didn't see you mention memcal. Your exactly right] Some of the Delco V8 chips listen more closely (or different frequencies) and will detect more knocking than others. Thats on the same knock sensor (I thought the holden/Delco ones were all the same model numbers? Mine is from a V6). We tried a couple of different chips till we were happy with the result.

My car made 146rwkw on a Dyno Dynamics dyno at one of the Toymods dyno days (3 stock 1UZs on same day got 120-125rwkw and Neil's stock 1UZ with extractors got 141rwkw). I've got a different intake pipe and pod filter (easy to spot on my website), but still using untouched engine and crappy log headers. 155rwkw is awesome!

The point I was making about fuel is that without a knock sensor I'd still be using Optimax and thinking nothing of it, meanwhile it would be (slowly) killing my pistons.


Not sure if Richard extended my maps, he did mention about some people split the maps in half then double them or something like that, which made them sample every 200 revs instead of 100 (numbers made up). My car is tuned up to 7,000 and then after that it uses the same maps indefinately (or up to my 7,300 rev limiter) and the way he bagged out stretching the maps I don't think it is stretched. Theres definatly not a set of spark advance per rpm increase after 4,800.

 

[MaxPower]

[Edit: didn't see you mention memcal. Your exactly right] Some of the Delco V8 chips listen more closely (or different frequencies) and will detect more knocking than others. Thats on the same knock sensor (I thought the holden/Delco ones were all the same model numbers? Mine is from a V6). We tried a couple of different chips till we were happy with the result.

Yeah all the same sensor with the same part number stamped into it, different prices from holden and HSV though!

Not sure if Richard extended my maps, he did mention about some people split the maps in half then double them or something like that, which made them sample every 200 revs instead of 100 (numbers made up). My car is tuned up to 7,000 and then after that it uses the same maps indefinately (or up to my 7,300 rev limiter) and the way he bagged out stretching the maps I don't think it is stretched. Theres definatly not a set of spark advance per rpm increase after 4,800.

Sounds like he has extended the maps, thats the best way to get around the problem. Some people do some pretty dodgy things like running a 3 bar map sensor using standard code, u have now just 1/3 the resolution to tune with!

 

[V8Supra]

Talked to him again today. He did NOT extend the maps. He's running a whole different program, which he created himself, which is an improvement over the standard one. His timing maps go to 6,600 or 6,800 (not 7k like I said earlyer) and fuel changes go to 9k revs.

I've heard of people doing the 3 bar map and extending it like you said. crazy.

 

[sideshow]

by conservative tune i mean 10% from breakage

u want ot be able to have good power but u want it to hold together

has anyone here had an angine blow on the dyno

how expensive was it

there are tuners out there that take longer to tune and some that take shorter to tune

a dyno puts more load and stress on an engine than driving on the road

i used to tune my own car many years ago but not any more

i just stick to electricals

i know what can happen on a dyno

and i hear too many bad stories about bad tunes done

 

[fozee]

So.... to have a 1uzfe run smoothly of a manual trans with only a full exhaust, custom air intake and no further intend for modification what would be the best ECU to get the engine to run as smoothly as possible and as close to original spec?

I have considered several aftermarket options:
1. Autronic SM4, unit alone $1800
2. Haltech E11v2, unit alone $1650
3. Haltech E6x, unit alone $1200

Im not aware of any modifications that can be done to the original ECU that will provide reliable performance once modified??

So what would be your suggestions?

I have budgeted for $2000 max. for the ECU to hae the engine running. Spending less is preferrable