ECUTune, for those of you that have/had it

[b3lha]

Originally Posted by NeedForSpeed

Thanks Phil! Do you know what paper that was found in? I wish that grill would have made production. Oops, don't want to hijack this great thread with a grill statement, but the article itself seems to give the idea that the test car was not over 300 hp.

It's a weekly UK Motoring Magazine called "Autocar", the 21st Feb 1990 issue. Also in that issue is an interview with Masaru Katsurada, one of Subaru's chief engineers. He says "...for profitability and fulfilling market demand, we must offer some kind of high-performance SVX engine, but I still think 300bhp is too much."

You could probably build something like that grille from a 96 grille, a Subaru emblem and some fibreglass. But that's a topic for a different thread.

[SVXRide]

Originally Posted by NeedForSpeed

If Chris is at 183 with 5MT, Stebro and programming, and RallyBob at 212 whp with 5MT and major changes from stock, both with stock cams.

Any guess as to how much the header/race exhaust contributes to the power, coils, different intake box, standalone, etc. Where is that power coming from, still at 5700 rpms?

Ron,
Give me a month and we'll see what the dyno says about certain other mods
-Bill

[Nomake Wan]

Judging by Tom's comments in the ECU thread, I am assuming that the power is coming from the stock ECU pulling timing a lot more than it should be. If the engine computer actually allowed it to run normal timing all the time, it would put out a good deal more power, right? That, at least for me, explains why 'minor' mods coupled with a standalone ECU resulted in such a massive HP gain.

[NeedForSpeed]

I read it again, and the article could imply that markets other than Japan could have more than 300hp, and that test car could have more than 300hp, but why drop to 230-240 worldwide?


Oh man, Roumors confirmed... It says right there that "atleast 300bhp in European specification, performance will be startling"... I'm gonna have to go talk to quincy nest time I'm at southern states... He was actually there for the testing!!

~ Chris[/QUOTE]

[NeedForSpeed]

I read it again, and the article could imply that markets other than Japan could have more than 300hp, and that test car could have more than 300hp, but why drop to 230-240 worldwide?


Chris[/QUOTE]

Oh man, Roumors confirmed... It says right there that "atleast 300bhp in European specification, performance will be startling"... I'm gonna have to go talk to quincy nest time I'm at southern states... He was actually there for the testing!!

[NeedForSpeed]

Great, let's see what you get at the dyno, with S2V7 on gasoline?

It's Spring here, and I'm posting for the first time in many many months!

Originally Posted by SVXRide

Ron,
Give me a month and we'll see what the dyno says about certain other mods
-Bill

[longassname]

Have you ever actually seen anything indicating that the factory ECU pulls out timing that it shouldn't? Those of us who genuinely have the ability to monitor ignition retard and advance have not seen this. Ask Tom Krynock. He has a select monitor and I do not believe he has seen that to be the case. In fact back when young tom was providing the unreliable information about timing Tom Krynock offered to run his select monitor on young tom's car in order to measure what was really going on and young tom turned him down despite actually being there with the car and select monitor at the same place and time.

Originally Posted by Nomake Wan

Judging by Tom's comments in the ECU thread, I am assuming that the power is coming from the stock ECU pulling timing a lot more than it should be. If the engine computer actually allowed it to run normal timing all the time, it would put out a good deal more power, right? That, at least for me, explains why 'minor' mods coupled with a standalone ECU resulted in such a massive HP gain.

[Nomake Wan]

Originally Posted by longassname

Have you ever actually seen anything indicating that the factory ECU pulls out timing that it shouldn't? Those of us who genuinely have the ability to monitor ignition retard and advance have not seen this. Ask Tom Krynock. He has a select monitor and I do not believe he has seen that to be the case. In fact back when young tom was providing the unreliable information about timing Tom Krynock offered to run his select monitor on young tom's car in order to measure what was really going on and young tom turned him down despite actually being there with the car and select monitor at the same place and time.

Negative. As I said in that post, I was only going by what TomsSVX posted in the ECU Dev thread. Going by that, I guessed. If I'm wrong then I apologize. But if it doesn't pull timing, we return to the original question.

Where is that 60 HP coming from?

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by longassname

Have you ever actually seen anything indicating that the factory ECU pulls out timing that it shouldn't? Those of us who genuinely have the ability to monitor ignition retard and advance have not seen this. Ask Tom Krynock. He has a select monitor and I do not believe he has seen that to be the case. In fact back when young tom was providing the unreliable information about timing Tom Krynock offered to run his select monitor on young tom's car in order to measure what was really going on and young tom turned him down despite actually being there with the car and select monitor at the same place and time.

If confirmed information is available, i.e. "Those of us who genuinely have the ability to monitor ignition retard and advance have not seen this." presenting the figures would surely close any argument.

[svxistentialist]

Originally Posted by NeedForSpeed

I read it again, and the article could imply that markets other than Japan could have more than 300hp, and that test car could have more than 300hp, but why drop to 230-240 worldwide?


Oh man, Roumors confirmed... It says right there that "atleast 300bhp in European specification, performance will be startling"... I'm gonna have to go talk to quincy nest time I'm at southern states... He was actually there for the testing!!

~ Chris

[/quote]

Guys, before we lose the run of it here we should consider carefully where this "300hp" suggested figure is coming from, and not presume there is a hidden and untapped 70hp sitting around waiting to be discovered. Because plainly, this is nonsense.

As Mike says, the ECU tuning maps are formulated to make the car run sweetly at atmospheric pressure, with max hp coming in around 5,500 rpm. We know from various people that the tuning and timing of the engine is relatively conservative, but that does not necessarily mean that it is easy or cheap to modify the engine for more power. The fuel map in the ECU is optimised to give good power and driveability over the normal rev range in normal atmospheric conditions with road fuel. Any improvements over standard will be made through the usual engine tuning methods, and these generally give more hp higher in the rev range at the expense of less torque lower down.

If you take into account that this article was written for Autocar during the development phase, then you must also take into account that journalists very often print the news as they would like to hear it, rather than what is being said by the developers. They have been known to exaggerate in the past, and they will in the future.

Also take into account that the car may also have been tested with a turbocharger at the time, not that unexpected for Subaru, which did not make it to production. With even a Light Pressure Turbocharger and 3.3 litres displacement, 300 hp would have been easy-peasy.

Somewhere beyond this point [January 1990] the turbocharger plan was dropped, and with it, I suspect, any possibility of 300 hp in standard trim.

So I think your argument is in vain, because the magazine as the source of the information is compromised.

Joe

PS When YT is talking about timing getting pulled, I think he is referring to the engine with supercharger and no charge cooling in place. This is a different kettle of fish from a stock engine.

[TomsSVX]

Having had OT's select monitor in both of my SVXi many months back, I was able to view both of my car's timing. While my stage 3 was pulling 10* of timing whenever i got on the throttle My bone stock SVX was pulling timing in high load situations. Most I ever saw was 8* of retard. So, once again, without education, I would suggest keeping a handle on that whole brain mouth thing

Tom

[svxistentialist]

Originally Posted by TomsSVX

Having had OT's select monitor in both of my SVXi many months back, I was able to view both of my car's timing. While my stage 3 was pulling 10* of timing whenever i got on the throttle My bone stock SVX was pulling timing in high load situations. Most I ever saw was 8* of retard. So, once again, without education, I would suggest keeping a handle on that whole brain mouth thing

Tom

It's good to get actual figures rather than conjecture.

Tom, would you not consider it normal for the timing map to retard the timing in high load situations, given that it is a high compression engine pulling a heavy car at low revs?

With the auto box being programmed to prefer high gears and run the car between 1500 and 2000 rpm all the time, this I remember as being the range where my old 2.2 litre Matra used to pink badly under load in top.

As I see it the SVX is constrained by the TCU to constantly pull within a range that leaves it open to detonation, even naturally aspirated.

Joe

[RSVX]

Originally Posted by TomsSVX

So, once again, without education, I would suggest keeping a handle on that whole brain mouth thing

Tom

Hmm, it could be me, or not...

Either way lets keep it civil.

[TomsSVX]

Granted my old teally wasn't the best car in the world, mechanically it was very sound. So as a base for testing it was ideal. I would suggest that due to the higher compression and the depletion of fuel quality in the states that one would expect at high load ratings the ECU would pull timing. More importantly, I believe the stock ECU was made all too sensitive in regards to knock detection and revamping this aspect of the ECU would yield surprising results. No one has been able to do this with the stock ECU, which is one of many reasons I would prefer to move to a S.A. E.M.S. You can add timing all you want to the stock maps but if the ECU is too sensitive, which I believe it is, it will not help any. This may be a good reason as to why LAN's N/A pistons that he is having made would be a good idea. But ultimately if you really want to see more out of your EG33 it is my "opinion" that an ECU which is tuned for your specific application will yield a better result than what you see here. Take it for what it is worth, but that is all I have to say here

Tom

[longassname]

There aren't any figures to present except to say that when you drive around monitoring "rtrd" and "adv" you clearly see that on a healthy SVX the factory ECU doesn't retard the ignition advance. It does the opposite. It adds ignition advance. "rtrd" is just the label for a memory location in the ecu which holds the immediate value from the translation of the knock sensor signal. A value of 8 does not mean 8 degrees of retard. It means 8 degrees of advance. A value of -8 means 8 degrees of retard. The factory primary ignition map is extremely conservative under high load to say the least; the ecu uses the knock sensors to seek out knock and add in additional advance up to the threshold of theoretical maximum advantage.

Originally Posted by Trevor

If confirmed information is available, i.e. "Those of us who genuinely have the ability to monitor ignition retard and advance have not seen this." presenting the figures would surely close any argument.