- Hey guys, Andre from High Performance Academy, welcome along to another one of our webinars.
Now as you can obviously tell, we've finally got our FD RX7 project car up and running.
And the reality is we actually have had it running for a fair while and it's given us the
opportunity to put the Adaptronic modular ECU through its paces.
For me that's been a learning curve, as with most people getting familiar with a
new ECU there is a little bit to learn and I'm hoping to share some of that knowledge
in today's webinar which will be an introductory look at the Adaptronic Eugene software for their
modular range of ECUs.
Obviously we're using our FD RX7 to showcase this but the reality is that what we're looking
at during this introduction to Adaptronic is going to be applicable regardless what
engine platform you're running the ECU in.
Before we get into that though, just an update on what's been going on around the HPA Labs
over the last couple of weeks, we missed last week's webinar because I was away.
One of the products that has arrived recently which we're itching to test out, we'll jump
across to my laptop screen.
We've got a set of ITBs, individual throttle bodies for the LS range of engines.
This is from RHD Engineering in Australia.
So they're using a billet throttle body here which is then adapted onto, or mounted up
onto this cast lower section which we can see here.
And that obviously adapts to the LS cylinder head.
These are available for both the cathedral port as well as the rectangle port later model
cylinder heads and it is a drive by wire setup which is nice if you are going to be
wanting to keep the drive by wire application with some of the later model cars.
Now there are a couple of interesting aspects with this setup.
We obviously haven't got the engine up and running so we can't actually
put this to the test yet but we've got the fuel rail here.
I've actually got that mounted upside down but that's neither here nor there
for today's explanation.
We've got the factory injector bosses which you can see down here.
So normally as with most modern port fuel injected engines, the injectors are
mounted right down at the interface between the intake manifold and the
cylinder head.
Giving them a nice clear shot at the back of the intake valves.
Now that's good for OEs, particularly for emissions but it sometimes isn't
necessarily ideal if power is our main focus.
Quite often we'll see, particularly with naturally aspirated dedicated racecars,
the injectors are actually mounted outside of the intake trumpet so somewhere up
over here.
The idea behind this is to try and get better atomisation or mixing between the
fuel and air, atomisation and mixing so you've got a nice homogenous mixture of fuel
and air entering the cylinder, entering the combustion chamber and the idea here
is we're going to get a better combustion event more thoroughly burning all of the
available fuel and air.
So RX engineering have actually added another set of bosses up here on the
ITBs, so you can actually mount your injectors in two different locations.
Again, we haven't put this to the test, their own back to back testing has shown
something in the region of about a 20 horsepower gain from doing this so I'll
be interested to see if we can get the same sort of results.
And when it comes to ITBs there are a few intricacies with the tuning.
Let's just have a look here, so first of all looking down on the individual
throttle bodies here, we've got all of the individual throttle plates and one of the
keys or one of the areas that you can really easily come unstuck is not having
the throttle openings or the throttle bodies balanced, particularly at idle.
And what this can result in is particularly at idle where the throttle butterflies
are almost completely closed, we get a very large difference in airflow for a very very
small amount of throttle opening and what this means is that if all of the throttle plates
aren't in exactly the same place, we can have quite dramatically different airflow in two
different cylinders.
And if this is not done correctly we can have a lot of problems with the engine
running smoothly at idle.
Often you'll find there'll be one or two cylinders that'll be so lean they'll actually
be having a lean misfire.
Creates drivability problems off idle as well so it's something that really needs
to be dealt with when we are setting up a set of individual throttle bodies, regardless
what engine these are going on.
And one of the easiest ways to do this is actually with an old school carb tuning
tool with is a carb balancer.
And essentially this just blocks off the individual throttle body if you put this
into the trumpet itself and it essentially measures airflow into the throttle body
and what we're going to do is go through and adjust each of the throttles until the
airflow is equal.
And if we jump across here we can see that this is done with this little adjuster between
the throttle linkages.
This, I'll admit is a real pain to do but fortunately you only need to do it once.
But getting this right can make a dramatic difference between, with the drivability
and the way the engine runs.
Again particularly at idle and very close to closed throttle situations.
Once you're up above about 20 or 30% throttle, the airflow variations between the
different cylinders aren't so critical, aren't as significant I should say, it's just when
we are closed throttle the airflow relationship to throttle opening is very non linear
so we get quite dramatic differences there.
Another couple of aspects with individual throttle bodies, no matter how it's done,
is that conventionally in the aftermarket at least, we're most likely to use the speed
density operating system where we use manifold absolute pressure as the signal,
or as the load input for our fuel and our ignition tables.
Now when we convert to individual throttle bodies, first of all it is a little bit trickier
to get the manifold pressure signal.
This can be done, it needs a little bit more work, you need to basically tap each of the
throttle bodies, or the manifold post throttle body on each cylinder and then run this
to a balance bar so that'll give you a pressure signal.
But unfortunately it's not a really good load indication anymore and what we can find is
it's very difficult to get good resolution in our fuel and ignition maps, you'll find
that maybe you'll be able to get your fuelling perfect under wide open throttle
conditions but it'll be all over the show at part throttle.
The solution to this is to run alpha-N where instead of manifold pressure as our
load signal we use throttle position so a few intricacies there.
One other aspect which is quite novel, I personally haven't seen this before,
is the adaption of a drive by wire throttle motor to operate this whole system so
you can see it is a conventional single throttle drive by wire motor and RHD
Engineering have just removed the butterfly here and they've got a linkage made up that
runs off that shaft, that runs down to some bell cranks that then operates both sets of
throttle bodies so a little bit unique.
Again, quite interested to get a chance to have a look at this and see how that all works.
Once we get that engine up and running, that's actually destined to go in an FD RX7
as well, we're trying to sort of span both sides of the FD RX7 market, we've got this
one that I'm sitting in now with a turbo 13b, we're also going to have our naturally
aspirated LS as well so that should be a little bit of fun.
That engine, if you haven't been following along is a stroker, it's about 6.3 litres
in capacity, started with a 5.7 litre LS1.
It's running a K1 Technologies stroker kit.
Running a set of Wiseco pistons, giving us about 11.5:1 compression.
So it's built to be a fairly decent compression ratio for pump gas, we've also got a
reasonably decent cam in there as well so that should unleash a bit more power and
torque than stock.
We're expecting that should be somewhere around about 500, 550 flywheel horsepower
but with plenty of drivability and low end torque, nothing particularly wild there.
Now I just want to also cover off, that's great I've just been signed out but we'll
get past that.
I just wanted to cover off an Instagram I put up last week on our HPA Instagram.
If you're not following us on hpa101, please make sure you do so.
We post up interesting content as often as we can so there's bound to be something
that you'll pick up and learn there.
So what you'll quite quite often see these days in racecars where switch gear has been
mounted up on the steering wheel, allowing the driver to keep both hands
on the steering wheel and control some of the vital aspects of the racecar, maybe the
power delivery, even through to talking back to the crew on the radio.
So this allows the drive to stay in control of the car, you don't need to take your
eyes off the road as well.
Generally you'll program yourself to really understand where these buttons are.
But it does add one layer of complexity which is how do we get the signals from the
switch gear here on the steering wheel back into the chassis?
So conventionally this is done usually with a curly cord but as you can see on this
Audi R8 GT3 steering wheel, we've got a number of different functions there,
there's switches as well as we've got some rotary encoders here for aspects such as
traction control and ABS tuning.
And getting all of that data normally would require a power zero to five volt,
sorry a five volt regulated power supply, a sensor zero volt and then analog voltage
inputs for the potentiometers as well as maybe digital inputs for each of the switches.
So what this ends up with is a fairly bulky cord, particularly when you are running a lot
of functionality like this.
There are some unique options coming out.
One that we've actually used ourselves is a Ecumaster CAN switch pad.
So this is a really small switch pad, it's just a PC board that mounts on the back of the
steering wheel or wherever you want it to.
You can run all of your wires straight into that switch panel and then all you
actually need running between the chassis and the steering wheel is power, ground
and CAN high and CAN low.
So it makes it really simple, you've just got four wires in that curly cord.
There are other options if you want to get a little bit flasher though.
Chromtec in particular make a quick release steering hub which essentially
has a Deutsch Autosport connector mounted into it so the Autosport, the two halves of
the Autosport connector mate and disconnect when you install and remove the quick
release steering wheel.
So then you run your wiring down essentially through the middle of the steering rack
or the steering column I should say, not the steering rack.
So that's one nice solution.
However they are quite pricey.
We are starting to see as well quite a few options come out which are
wireless which is another nice alternative keeping things nice and simple.
Obviously with the wireless option you do have to keep in mind the battery life
for the transmitter that is in the steering wheel so that's something to consider.
One of the other aspects there, I just mentioned we're using the Ecumaster
CAN based switch pad and this is one of the really nice functions with CAN
communications, we're seeing this really, It's pretty mainstream now with OE
manufacturers as well as most of the aftermarket standalone ECU manufacturers.
The nice thing is, it is a standardised protocol which means that you can mix
and match different electronic modules and transmit the signals between different modules
in different ECUs.
For example here I've got a Haltech TCA8 which is a eight channel
thermocouple amplifier so you can plug your themocouples in here and again all
this requires is 12 volts, ground, CAN high and low, provided you know what the CAN
template or CAN message setup is, you can read this into aftermarket standalone ECUs
or basically any dash logger.
Obviously if you are dealing with a Haltech product such as their ECU and
dash it's as simple as just selecting that this unit is on the CAN bus, all of the
information is there but with not a lot of additional work you can do that in just
about any aftermarket ECU or dash.
Likewise another little module I've got handing around here in the car is this
Link CAN to lambda module.
As its name implies it is a wideband lambda controller, uses a Bosch LSU 4.9
lambda sensor and again our wiring harness there, simple four pin DTM connector,
12 volts, ground, CAN high and low.
And again you can get that information into just about any of those modules you like.
Just catching up on our YouTube channel, so we'll head across to that for a moment.
And this is one of the videos we shot when we were over at Sydney Jamboree in
Australia.
This is, gives you a rundown on what, at least at the time, I'm not sure if anyone's
gone faster yet, was the world's fastest street legal Nissan R32 Skyline GTR.
So we're talking to Con from CRD about what makes this car so fast.
In particular it's using a 3.2 litre billet block which is becoming the norm
with engines producing this sort of power.
They're around about 2500 horsepower on methanol at 80 psi.
One of the interesting aspects, and I've personally been involved with R32
GTR drag racing for a number of years.
The car that I was involved with at the time I was tuning it set and held the world
four wheel drive record outright with a 7.41 at about 198, 200 mph or
there abouts.
And one of the real big challenges is not actually making the power, it's the challenge
of getting the power to the track.
The car that I was involved with was running a Liberty air shifted five speed gearbox.
And we've really seen a massive improvement in the GTR drag times with a lot of the people
running these going to the likes, in this case, Turbo 400 automatic transmission so the nice
function with the automatic transmission regardless whether it's Powerglide, Turbo 400,
whatever way you go, is that it does reduce the torque interruption and the drivetrain
shock on the gearshifts which is a real big problem with a manual gearbox even with
a drag racing slider clutch like the Heat Treatments R32 GTR did run.
So this tends to overcome the available traction on the gearshift and the car
can get really loose as it goes down the track.
The automatic transmission, much smoother application of that power.
The downside is that regardless what you're doing with an automatic transmission,
you're mostly assured there will be some amount of torque converted slip so
particularly in the top end we tend to see the mile an hour not quite as good with
an automatic transmission as a manual gearbox.
However, we're not racing for mile an hour, we're racing for ET.
Interestingly, despite the fact that the car's putting out 2500 plus horsepower,
the factory R32 GTR transfercase is still attached to the back of that automatic
transmission, that feeds power forward to the front axle line and this is all controlled
through the MoTeC M150 ECU running a special specific package for the CRD
car, Croydon Racing Developments car.
So if you want to learn a little bit more about that car, head across to our YouTube
channel and check that out, it's our latest release that came out today.
While you're there, make sure you subscribe, if you like that video, give us a thumbs up
and if you've got questions, ask those in the comments.
Lastly for today, we are running another one of our giveaways and this time we
are giving away this PMU 16 from Ecumaster.
So this is a power management unit, power distribution module, depending
on the sort of lingo that you want to use but essentially this allows you to do
away with fuses and relays.
We run our batter positive straight onto the positive stud here in the middle of the PMU.
16 channels as its name implies and from the top of my head there's 25 amp and
15 amp outputs on this depending on what you're actually trying to drive.
So this allows you to program the outputs, you can program the way the outputs will
be switched on and off.
You can switch them via CAN messages, you can switch them via conditions,
you can switch them via direct wired switches up to the PMU.
Nice thing with this is if you're integrating it with a CAN enabled ECU, you can switch
things like your thermofans and your fuel pumps with CAN messages which again
just simplifies the wiring.
The other really nice feature with the PMU is that if you do have a problem with any
of the outputs, maybe you've got a fuel pump that's on the way out and it's just tripping
the fusing current which you can program electronically, you can also set the PMU to
retry that output a certain number of times, waiting for a set amount of time between
resets and this will allow you to possibly get by, particularly for a racecar that can
be a really big advantage, can allow you to get back to the pits and actually effect a repair
so that's a nice feature of power distribution modules, gives you a little bit of redundancy,
you don't actually have to physically remove a fuse and replace it which would be the
case in a normal circumstance.
Now I did say lastly but I've actually got one more thing that I just want to give you a
sneak tease on here which is our Toyota GT86 racecar.
Right now as I speak we are 4.5 weeks away from the first round of our South Island
Endurance Series.
For those who have been following us, you'll know that we are building up a
3UZ-FE.
Without giving too many details away, we've had a few delays with that engine and we
have made the fairly large call to do a full engine swap.
We're swapping in our Nissan SR20 VE.
And we can see there on my laptop screen, a quick shot of pretty much how the car sits
at the moment.
We've got a Garret GT30 attached to that engine along with a Plasmaman inlet manifold.
Because we are on such a tight timeframe, the team from Vinny Fab up in Christchurch,
which is about a 6.5 hour drive north of us here in Queenstown, they were kind enough,
Lars and James to drive down on Friday, they worked through the weekend and did
basically the lion's share of the fabrication work which is the intercooler, the intercooler
plumbing, the intake pipe and the exhaust manifold, sorry the exhaust dump pipe
and wastegate integration that you can see there.
Now I'm not going to go into too much more detail on this so if you do want to
learn a little bit more about this you can check out the latest episode of our vlog
where we go into a lot more detail about the ins and outs of why we've decided
to go this way along with what was required.
If you keep an eye on our YouTube channel as well, as we come up to the first round
of the endurance series, we will be releasing weekly build updates so that you can keep
up to date.
Also doing some stories on our Instagram again so check out hpa101 on Instagram to
keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on.
What will probably be the basis of some Instagram story today as well as some
of the cooling updates, we've got Tim slaving away on the design for some
ducting.
Obviously we're not going to be using cardboard or any paper based derivatives
in the final installation but it is actually really nice working with card like this,
really easy to work with, cut out, it's really cheap.
Once you've got your ducting designed properly, you can then actually make this
out of alloy, you can make a mould for carbon depending on how elaborate
you want to get so that's the intake there, the front of the car and we're also working
on some ducting that will be off to the side so again keep your eye on our Instagram,
hpa101 and keep an eye on our YouTube channel for all of those updates coming out.
Alright thanks for watching, give us a few moments here and we'll get started
with today's webinar.
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