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[quote=”twiggy02919″ post=155566]Nice use of a scope for diagnostics.
I work on automotive sensors and we only use scopes never DMM. Scope plots give you a real time picture of what’s really happening.
How much was the picoscope?[/quote]
Autonerdz sells a bunch of kits- I spent $2600 but I bought other sensors as well.
I tune engines by writing software maps (mostly turbo cars) and do engineering work for several different makes/companies. This is coming in very handy. I also regularly get “hey will you fix my car” requests so it helps there too.
[quote=”Evil-i” post=149616][quote=”Yuuki” post=149389]…They have been proven time and time again they are more efficient than gas engines and produce over 30% more power than gasoline,…[/quote]
Are you sure we aren’t comparing apples to oranges here?
Ethanol and methanol contain less energy than gasoline. In separate engines that are optimized for gasoline, ethanol and methanol, if you compare their BSFCs, you’ll find that the 30% power increase comes from burning a heck of a lot more ethanol or methanol compared to the gasoline engine’s consumption.
What this means in the real world is that pound-for-pound and gallon-for-gallon, gasoline produces more power and will carry you farther than ethanol or methanol.[/quote]
You are not accounting for every variable.
Perfect example is on engines that use higher compression ratios. Also, more power comes from being able to burn the mixture cooler and avoid pre-detonation (thus allowing the ignition timing to be closer to MBT)
E85 is $2.39 a gallon near me. 93 octane is $3.64 a gallon.
I can spend less money on fuel and have a MUCH more powerful car running E85 still taking into account I am burning more fuel.
Granted, in my example I’ve stacked the cards in my favor – but the data speaks for itself.
With a naturally aspirated “normal compression ratio” engine I can also make gains with advanced timing, and leaner lamba mixtures under high load cells of the PCM.
If you’ve got a turbo, turn up the boost and make sure it is dyno tested because e85 won’t knock like 93 octane (you need to make sure you don’t surpass MBT)
As for e85 being greener- it really is cleaner on your engine (mostly the valves and intake system) as there is a lot less black soot when you tear down an ethanol engine. If you’ve ever torn down an engine with a coolant leak into a combustion cylinder you might know what I mean- say from a leaky head gasket. The cylinders leaking coolant into them look much cleaner from the water exposure. Ethanol has the same affect (e85 i mean, not e10)
When I rebuilt a head (for someone else) this summer and had it CNCd the valves looked almost clean enough to eat off after about 2 years use with e85. Think about it – alcohol is a great cleaning liquid
One thing about conventional gasoline is the lubrication which really cleans the fuel injectors (that’s why I run a tank of 93 every so often to clean the residue that can sometimes build up on fuel injectors for cars that have been modified to run e85)
[quote=”Will5757″ post=149102]A Choice at the pump would be great INCLUDING 0 ethanol gasoline. Normally I don’t mind running e10, you lose a slight bit of economy, but the effects on the fuel systemengine itself are minimal other then that. The main issue i have with ethanol is with small engine’s that were never designed to run it (dirtbikes, chainsaw’s, lawn mowers etc.) As well as for storage, gas with ethanol in it has a drastically reduced shelf life due to the extra water it absorbs, If i’m parking a vehicle over the winter (or longer) I want a full tank of 100% gasoline.[/quote]
Also – If you keep the ethanol sealed right – this does not happen like you say. I kept ethanol for a full year in a glass smuckers jar – and it tested the exact same when I opened it after 8 months. – Like you say during storage, I wouldn’t chance it but I’ve had good results starting this particular car once a week and letting it warm up to operating temperature.
I love ethanol. I just modified my Mitsubishi Evolution IX to run ethanol.
I run 2 fuel pumps – One runs the car normally, the second one kicks in when my turbo gets up to 16psi (you need 30% more fuel when you run ethanol)
I upgraded my factory injectors (original ones are 560cc, I now have 1800cc injectors – I think 1800cc equates to 172lb injectors)I am able to get 16 degrees of extra timing at redline, I raised the electronic limiter from 7500 to 8500 on my engine.
I run more turbo boost as well (33psi on ethanol instead of 27psi on 93 octane gasoline)previously I would test my ethanol at the pump with a fuel tester. Simply put, you put e85, and water in a beaker and it seperates the gasoline from the ethanol showing you the mix percentage)
I recently replaced my fuel return line with some custom plumbing that sends the fuel through a ethanol sensor that measures the resistance of the fuel to determine the ethanol content. I am in the process of installing the gauge for this sensor on the dash (so I can read it live) as well as hopefully flashing my ECU to modulate the fuel injector pulsewidth so I don’t have to flip a switch between my gasoline and ethanol tunes.
Link to project here: http://www.ericthecarguy.com/kunena/5-Engine-Modifications/60191-my-mitsubishi-evo-ix-flex-fuel-setup
The only problem I have had is that the extra boost seams to want to pop off hoses. I have been using hair-spray on my hose connections along with zip ties to help keep them together (small rubber hoses) The big ones all have bolt-clamps and hold well.
now for the results, on e85 the car makes roughly 690hp, while on the gasoline (93 octane) tune it makes only 550hp.
Ethanol is the “crack-cocaine” of fuels for turbo cars because the with the additional raw torque you can get it’s addicting and you can’t stop using it.
My fuel mileage is about 17mpg, compared to about 24mpg on gas.
I know when it comes to welding, I do all my practicing on aluminum so when I go to steel it is much easier. Everything is trickier with aluminum and it takes more practice – have you been just MIG welding or doing any TIG welding? I only TIG weld myself.
[quote=”college man” post=148403]Looks great. 🙂 First time painting?[/quote]
Only first time on this particular car. I will be doing much more painting when I get my paint booth finished. I have blocked off a section of my larger garage to put together a huge booth (24 ft long, 14 ft wide, 12 ft high ) I’ve been forced to use a friends booth for years (this is the person who taught me to paint actually) but I want one of my own.
(warning, this is just a work in progress)
[quote=”BigDanIL279″ post=148332]I am a big fan of KiCAD for my board layouts, but I have not done much with automotive applications. My interests are more with Arduino and Raspberry boards as a hobbyist. Using the service from Seeed Fusion PCB the boards are out of China, but affordable for my needs. I do not have a space to etch boards myself, and my wife would not appreciate having the chemicals in the house.
When I first started laying out boards it was with tape on a light box with all thru-hole components, now all CAD and SMT. Everything has gotten so small so fast and disposable. The craft of component troubleshooting/ repair is a dying art replaced with board swappers.
Do you source your LEDs here in the states or go online directly to China?[/quote]
I buy my parts on digikey and mouser. They have pretty much everything I need. I try and avoid no-name china stuff. I’ve had some bad experiences with parts like that. I am somewhat old-school when it comes to CAD, I use autocad 2000 still on WINE run in Linux.
Oh – does it actually measure the oil pressure though or does it just move the needle to the “good” range when you start it? Sometimes these gauges behave like “dummy lights”.
If you are getting true oil pressure / temp and trans temp that’s sweet.
I do not have trans temperature yet but I want to do this next. I need to find a good place to mount the sender on my trans. The transmission is probably the weakest part of my setup and the failures are usually heat related.
I use a boost/vacuum gauge, a LED 52mm shift-light “gauge”, oil pressure, oil temperature, voltage, wideband, fuel pressure, and ethanol content gauge myself.
[quote=”BigDanIL279″ post=148325]First class job, does the OEM dimmer circuit work with the LEDs?
Did you layout the PCBs yourself, or are they available online?[/quote]
I make all of my own circuitry in my shop. I design them in CAD and then use special etching paper, copper clad board, hydrogen peroxide, muriatic acid and lacquer thinner. I cut them with a band saw and I have several solder stations for mounting components. I’ve done a ton of lighting projects like this. Radios, clusters, gauges, HVAC controls, buttons, even headlights and tail lights.
Everything dims just like the factory bulbs. They run on a regulated 12V circuit so they do not get dimmer or brighter with the alternator ebb and flow.
Come to think about it – don’t you think oil pressure would be more important than fuel pressure?
Oil pressure was the first thing I did. Lucky I have a nice plug that’s not used in my filter housing so I could use a 1/8 NPT fitting with a braided cable with the sender mounted on my firewall.
One thing I don’t like is that autometer does not make a vacuum/boost gauge that goes from vacuum to 35psi.
[quote=”BigDanIL279″ post=148318]I am on the fence between Autometer and GlowShift; Autometers are made in USA not far from Chicago. [/quote]
Don’t forget about getting support for the products. It’s easy to call up autometer and get a person. If you are doing something strange or have questions or need help – you will be speaking to someone you can understand, and quickly.
[quote=”BigDanIL279″ post=148318] If going with wideband I will need to install two gauges one for each exhaust header. Using the narrow I could tap the 0-5V going to the ECM, but it is not as accurate as the wideband. [/quote]
The narrowband will show you the switching. Narrow bad is like the old fable about the pourage that is either too hot or too cold. They aren’t linear over the scale of the AFR so they can only tell “when the pourage is too hot or too cold”. You can monitor the switching, but besides that it won’t really tell you anything useful once the engine has warmed up and the ECU is not purposely running rich.
[quote=”BigDanIL279″ post=148318]
The other option I have been considering is going with Pyrometer or EGT gauges. I think it is important to have some indication of what is coming out of exhaust, but which will give a better indication of a problem, widebands or exhaust temperature?[/quote]In my line of work if I see EGT too high, I’ve already done damage and I’m about to remove the rotating assembly. Widebands are much better – I wouldn’t even think of trying to tune with EGT.
[quote=”BigDanIL279″ post=148318]
I know for sure the water temp and vacuum are going in; the OEM temp gauge is useless and my father put vacuum gauges in every car so I understand the value in the information they provide.[/quote]Agree 100%.
I have autometer gauges myself, but glowshift ones are just fine. I think the autometer stuff matches better with my theme, that’s why I went with them.
I think the narrow-band O2 is a big waste. Personally I use a wideband (bosch lsu 4.2)
Nice thing for me is I use my wideband with my laptop to log my AFRs and adjusting my timing/fuel injection pulsewidth.
narrow band won’t really tell you anything useful.
I assume you are talking about a factory OEM style turbo with a journal bearing setup and water/oil lines. Does it have an internal waste-gate?
Do you have a boost gauge? If so, have you monitored the level? I assume the car has a recirculating valve to dump the charge back on the intake side of the compressor when the throttle closes – is it operating correctly?
If your waste-gate isn’t opening correctly when the car hits the appropriate boost level the turbo will continue to spool. The ECU may cut fuel depending on the factory map (I assume your car has not been tuned) Most OEMs put a fuel cut feature in if the car hits load cells that are higher than what is intended to be reached by the factory.
I would not boost the turbo until you verify the waste-gate is functioning correctly.