GTS1000 on MicroSquirt running MSExtra

[24c]

I managed an early finish today & jury rigged the Innovate LC-1, plus the broken exhaust stud is out. So all it needs is the exhaust welding up some more for the centre stand stop, and I'll be able to calibrate/set up the wideband tuning, so that I can use VE Analyse Live in TunerStudio.

[R100RT]

I'd be interested to hear how the "VE Analyse Live in TunerStudio" goes for you. I dabbled in a couple of the self tune provisions, but kind of ran out of time to see productive results. Perhaps it was a symptom of having some settings incorrrect/almost dead on, but I found EGO corrections seemed to be too busy (even at lower settings) and would produce unstable operation in what was otherwise pretty calm running areas (by running out of time, meaning that I will be just operating the bike for a time now, and not adding any changes to the template as it stands). Also, I got nervous about the update timing whereby the bike might be in the middle of a download just as I shut it down to fuel or similar. When that happened I had a corruption take place on the msq - requiring a full reload of firmware and such - that's not something you normally want to do at the gas station.
Enough from my end, hope you can post some feedback on that.

[24c]

Another little session, but this time with the LC-1 hooked up. No real surprises, although after tweaking the kPa bins, I need to tweak the Alpha N side some more.

I also need to correct the ini to allow VELive to tweak VETable2. The engine is capable of idling at very low speeds at around 750-850, when 1100 is the norm, and as I am running semi sequential, I have been playing with the timing windows for the injection points. I was surprised to discover the idle was well rich, but although I have calibrated the LC-1, I think I will have to look at this some more.

Latest video link, just a short clip showing a hot start, ASE working, and WUE still enabled. I am going to do some more work on the colder starts, as it takes a few on/off cycles to get a stable cold idle...it fires, but doesn't maintain until after third attempt. I realise it's trying to tell me something, but I have not read up enough on this.

http://gallery.me.com/mike.crane#100095 ... olor=black

[24c]

Work commitments are stopping me playing with this at the moment, but I did manage to pick up a rolling chassis and some bodywork for the next Thunderace engined GTS project yesterday. The bike hasn't been started for a week or so, so I switched on the ignition, waited for the fuel pump to kick in and hit the starter....it just cranked and cranked, with no firing.

Switch off the bike, switch on the bike and hit the starter, and the engine fires within a second. I assume this is a priming pulse issue, so as it was 25ºC yesterday, I am going to look at the priming pulse settings and see what values I have in TunerStudio at this temperature, and see if I increase them it cures the problem.

UPDATE I have checked the priming pulse and they do reduce at around 25ºC, so I have increased them. I checked my cranking RPM and it is above my actual cranking speed on the starter. I also decided to make an RPM bin for this, so that I can play with the fuelling prior to reaching an idle speed. I don't think it will be necessary, but I have the option, to alter a specific area, and if it works I can apply it later. The priming pulse is approx 4msec at the moment, and we will see if the engine set up needs more over the next few starts.

I am very impressed by the starting otherwise, cold starts don't race like the OEM (less fuel) and hot starts are better than the factory ECU on my GTS1000

[24c]

After another age, a quick nip over to the bike and play with the revised priming pulse, after cranking rpm bin, and a cold start. I first of all deactivated the fuel pump, hooked up the laptop to the MicroSquirt and updated the new TunerStudio settings into the controller aka MicroSquirt. Then I activated the fuel pump and ignition circuit, and hit the starter button, one crank, two crank and fire. Wow, nice slow idle, ASE and WUE active.

Try it again, and ASE drops off very quickly, so I increase the Taper Cycles. Once the WUE goes out, I switch on the Innovate LC1 and let it warm up on a running engine, and revise the VE Table 1 some more. The low rpm bin I created is too rich on a hot start, so I lean it down, and bingo the engine fires first touch from hot. Idle is a little slow, so I adjust the throttle body stop, and increase it to around 950 rpm. More tweaking of the VE Table 1 (Alpha-N), and the engine starts really quickly hot.

I am getting quite a bit of PulseWidth variation under idle, and I wonder whether it's battery voltage compensation, as the battery voltage is low, and the alternator is charging it. I will have to do some more reading, because although the ignition advance, VE Tables 1 & 2 are in stable zones (no fluctuations in the bins) I am getting a variation. I have noticed a variation in MAP< but I am using Alpha-N so it shouldn't affect things. I will have to look at my settings some more, but I am nitpicking really.

The engine will idle at sub 750 when warm, yet the manufacturers spec 1100 rpm, so I am really impressed with what I have got here so far.

Next instalment, will see fresh plugs, LM1 datalogger with LMA-2 accessory, which will log AFR, MAP, TPS & RPM and help me dial stuff in. I also need to put a centre stand stop on the exhaust, as well as get my friend to get a move on rebuilding the cycle parts, especially if we are to take this to the Treffen this year.

[24c]

Another trip to the bike today and another "cold" start, but it was slightly warmer, and I needed a little throttle to make it catch. I started TunerStudio on the laptop, and after I had burned the condensation out of the pipe, I fired up the Innovate LC1. I was sniffing & watching the AFR as it got upto operating temperature, and at the same time tweaked the WUE & ASE curves to maintain stoich (AFR=14.7 to 1) give or take a bit.

I disabled the acceleration enrichment, made sure all temperature related stuff was not adding corrections, and although I can’t say the methodology is perfect, it is appearing to work.

One thing I did notice, the engine was hugely rich, and it had me confused at first, and after looking at some video my pulsewidth was fluctuating. I suspected some compensation circuit was doing it, and it turned out to be the battery voltage compensation for the injectors was causing most of it. As the voltage climbed (battery charging) the engine was getting richer, so I leaned it off on the VE Tables until I reached stoich, and then waited for the voltage to climb again, which made the engine richer still. I adjusted the ms/V figure downwards, until the engine was more consistent, in that battery voltage increases as the on bike battery was charging was not causing excess richness.

Next up, was part throttle response and adjusting the VE Table to suit. I was quite surprised by the numbers, as the engine needed less fuel than at idling to make stoich, and by adjusting the speed density map too in VE Table 2 actually made the engine smoother.

By now I had worked the engine for about an hour revving it upto 4K rpm at various small throttle openings, and there was a definite improvement in part throttle response as a result of todays work. Unfortunately, there is only so much you can do without upsetting my friends neighbours, so I had to finish.

Overall I am still well impressed how it is going so far, and the cased MicroSquirt, TunerStudio and the MSExtra code is working very well together.

[24c]

Another chance to do a bit on the engine today, and it's been a while, but I have been on holiday for a few weeks.

The bike was resistant to starting on the low battery. It wouldn't quite catch, so I checked the fuel...and that was that

More fuel in the tank and after a short time I switched on the LC1 and immediately noticed the engine was running weak, so I decided to tweak the WUE values closer to stoich, and continued to do so as the engine warmed. The idle was relatively steady, the VETable 2 SD blue dot holding in a tight group, and then the fan cut in...suddenly the engine went richer. I had noticed this before, and homed in on the voltage compensation for the injectors, so I tried to bring this closer to stoich, by reducing the compensation...however when the fan stopped the previous stoich setting was too weak.

I jumpered a battery across the system to try and stabilise the fluctuations, but it made hardly any difference. I tried reducing the injector time, required fuel, VETable bins etc and modding the correction, but it was never 100%. I need to mod the dash next to view in realtime battery voltage, PW and AFR, as I think this is the main reason for my idle fluctuations, and taking a snapshot will prove this. I know I can use MLV, but this is good enough.

Interestingly there is no lag compensation for "battery voltage", yet there is for other sensors, and other stuff.

The other few things I tried was very small throttle openings and tweaks to the SD VETable 2, just off and around idle, and at the same time maintain close to stoich. By the time I had enough, it was starting to get very much smoother, and I really enjoy working with the TunerStudio software.

I did try MegaTunix in a back to back attempt, but I couldn't get the USB Serial adaptor to be seen in X11, and so I must be doing something wrong.

EDIT added screenshot

Screen shot 2010-09-02 at 13.01.01.png

[mxrob]

Good data! I haven't even looked at voltage compensation up to this point but since my dual sport machine has such a weak charging system and small battery I will put that on the FI bucket list for sure. I'd think my machine could have quite a lot of variance. Thanks for turning on a spot light in my tuning process.

[24c]

I added the screenshot to the post above, left is fan on with voltage drop, 11.5V, and the other higher part is fan off, which is close to stoich. I tried various voltage compensations but I need to look at the msec PulseWidths and actual voltages. I am wondering if there is some voltage stabilisation built in to these injectors, because I am getting quite a bit of variance, but then again maybe they are lightweight rascals, and don't need anywhere near the default compensation.

Glad you approve mxrob, and pleased you are getting some miles under your belt now.

[24c]

This whole battery voltage injector compensation thing is quite testing, which is compounded by the poor state of the battery, but this is a good learning process. I am using really small values for the adjustment now 0.050 msec/V from the default of 0.200msec/V, but obviously I am playing around with the Req'd Fuel & Injector Opening Time. It looks like I might have to change the VETable resolution, because at stoich the difference between 16 or 17 in the VE bin sends it too rich, so I'll be doubling the numbers and halving the fuel.

Screen shot 2010-09-03 at 12.06.21.png

I did manage this, but I think the compensation was 0.00msec/volt, but under cranking it was a starting issue, as the 9.0V under the starter, affected the idle and ASE a bit. I rounded off my hour or so of tweaking by adjusting the acceleration enrichment tapers, after switching AE on of course.

However being an Alpha-N/ SD blend, I spent quite a bit of time reducing my very small part throttle openings, as they were far too rich, which means modding VETable 2. This actually works rather well without having an acceleration enrichment enabled, and I can see this is a useful tool to smooth out very small throttle transitions. It would be a lot more useful to do this under some load, but this bike isn't on the road yet, and the rear end is being overhauled I can't dyno it, as the wheel and other stuff is pulled out.

I also played with the TPS/MAP blending and the thresholds, and got good "very sudden snap open throttle" response by lowering the MAP threshold from 150 to 120. I also have very little ramp slope/gradient on my AE curves, as I am running way too rich under acceleration, and this is a lot different to how I started.

I am using 3.0.3u at the moment, and surprisingly I did notice the ASE light coming on when blipping the throttle, and revving the bike, which I'll be looking out for again next time I play with the engine, as it could be a bug.

Finally, I got MegaTunix 0.9.22 hooked up to the engine as a parallel development in OSX on the MacBook Pro, and other than a need to rework the gauge limits/layout, it is surprisingly fast and quite a bit different to TunerStudio. Obviously I am used to the latter, but MegaTunix looks like another useful tool in the MicroSquirt tuning library.