T3Bunny, 1991 VW Turbo Cabriolet

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T3Bunny
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Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:44 pm
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T3Bunny, 1991 VW Turbo Cabriolet

Post by T3Bunny »

Vehicle: 1991 Volkswagen Cabriolet

Engine: 1.8L 8valve (I4) T-3 turbocharger, the compression was dropped slightly to 9.1 to 1, Autotech Sport Tuning turbo cam, adjustable timing sprocket, windage tray + pump pickup baffles (both VW)

Injection: Multi-port injection, 36Lb. per hr. Ford Motorsport injectors, Digifant rail and inserts, Weapon-R adjustable fuel pressure regulator, 16V automatic throttle body with Jaguar tps (don't ask!), GM coolant and air temp sensors

MegaSquirt: This is the version 2.2 board. No relay box, as I already had my own relays wired up. The MegaSquirt ECU is set up with full MsnSe. At the moment we are running the Extra021u3 code. For Ignition, we are using a ground trigger, and the hall from the Digifant dizzy.

Description: We converted from the "dark side" of commercial aftermarket fuel systems. Originally running an Electromotive TEC-2 system, but I did not have enough output controls. This setup was also not tuner friendly. We got a LOT going on in this car. It is non-intercooled (a water/air setup is being built, with refrigeration!). We have it setup with a temperature controlled after-run pump to circulate coolant through the turbo after shutdown. Electronic boost control will be performed by the MS soon. And my favorite, full Aquamist water injection via system 2s! We Hope to integrate features from the 2s into MS and eventually have full control and diagnostics through the MegaSquirt ECU.

The project was started to prove to some friends, that a turbo rig could be built for less than 2K and be able to get 200hp + to the ground. Not possible to do safely except with a tunable system. Not possible with a commercial system, due to the price. I was looking for cheap parts on Ebay when I found a MegaSquirt for sale.

I built my own from the ground up. This was my FIRST real electronics kit (I did start by building the stimulator first). Everything tested out perfectly and when installed, car started on the first attempt. After sorting out issues with the timing (I counted the gear teeth wrong) she now starts and idles very smoothly! We have even moved it about the lot some! We have done little tuning on her at this point. We still have some issues to work out before she goes out on the road. As soon as we have some more tuning done we will post the results!
Last edited by T3Bunny on Sun Aug 02, 2015 9:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Forget the porn, my bathroom is full of car manuals...
1977 Rabbit
1991 Cabriolet (retired)
T3Bunny
MegaSquirt Newbie
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:44 pm
Location: Miami, Florida
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update

Post by T3Bunny »

Well we have definatly had some bumps along this road. I want to reiterate what you guys see on the board and in the manuals, try to impliment just one thing at a time! Start with fuel first...

EDIT: VWs are SO EASY to get online with both fuel and ignition, I NEVER recommend this anymore. In fact its pointless to only do fueling on them. The setup for them is so well documented that its pretty much turn the key and the car is running. To this day I have never bothered to just fuely a VW. There is a LOT more power to be had in remapping the ignition anyways.

I had a bit of a jump as I already had some base map ideas from the previous setup with the TEC-2. But definatly not enough!

We are still coming along slower than I would like. But we are now getting seat time in this car and have put a few miles on this new engine. Right now the issues slowing us down are mechanical related and not MegaSquirt or managment issues. Having tossed that out, OMG this car is going to be FAST!!!

I want to toss a shout out to you all that have helped so far. ESPECIALLY Andy Whittle! Keep up the good work! And we are looking at this VW GT I got, it definatly can use a MS...
Last edited by T3Bunny on Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Forget the porn, my bathroom is full of car manuals...
1977 Rabbit
1991 Cabriolet (retired)
T3Bunny
MegaSquirt Newbie
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:44 pm
Location: Miami, Florida
Contact:

Post by T3Bunny »

Time for an update! We have gotten all the mechanical bugs figured out now and mostly resolved. So we have FINALLY been getting some good seat time on this beast!

The car is a LOT of fun now! And I feel we have just scratched the surface as far as tuning it goes. Up to this point we have just been tuning it with a narrowband sensor. Now we have a LM-1 wideband kit to tune with and should be able to get a much better tune out of it! Tuning the rest of the map will no longer be educated guesswork.

Still working on our Aquamist 2s water injection setup though. I have yet to find a reliable way to interface it with the MS for full mapping. Idealy, we should use a seperate dedicated map sensor for the MF-2 Aquamist controller. These are not cheap though and I am thinking to try using one of the MPX4250AP map sensors hooked up directly to the MF2. As soon as this is worked out, we will be implimenting boost control through the MS and cranking up the boost!
Forget the porn, my bathroom is full of car manuals...
1977 Rabbit
1991 Cabriolet (retired)
T3Bunny
MegaSquirt Newbie
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:44 pm
Location: Miami, Florida
Contact:

Post by T3Bunny »

Heh, this car DEFINATLY is a fast little toy now! Wow, so much has been done to this car since I last posted an update its just nuts. Winter definatly put a hold on progress though.

Gotten some tuning done with a wideband. Gotten TONS of features built into the car including sequential shift lights and EBC. We got most of the bugs worked out of the Aquamist integration. I fianlly got the Aquamist and The MS to share the map sensor. It was a silly mistake on my part actualy. All that has to be done is to feed pin one on the MS map sensor out to the Aquamist map input. The harness was missconfigured though and I was actualy feeding 5volts IN from the Aquamist controler to the MS... :P

A bunch of research has beed done by myself and Richard Lamb of Aquamist, and soon as weather turns nice again we will likely have the Aquamist MF-2 fully integrated and JUST doing diagnostics but with the MS fully controlling the WI Injection maps. Also I am working on ideas for building my own water injection setup from the ground up.

Lots of other things in the works also. I have two more of my own cars going online soon with MegaSquirts. I have also gotten the chance to work on and setup a bunch of other realy cool MSed cars!
Forget the porn, my bathroom is full of car manuals...
1977 Rabbit
1991 Cabriolet (retired)
T3Bunny
MegaSquirt Newbie
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:44 pm
Location: Miami, Florida
Contact:

Post by T3Bunny »

Well I have lost count now of the number of cars I have MegaSquirted, tuned, built units for or otherwise helped out on. Its been a LOT of fun. But I ALWAYS come back to my first baby here.

To say I am happy with this car would be a HUGE understatment! Winter is upon us here in "Rottenchester" and I have found a new way to use the added power this car has. Forget k-turns... Move forward while turning wheel and yanking the e-brake then nailing the accelerator. This allows me to rotate the car right around almost 180 to face the other direction...

My tuning and feature adding is FAR from done. But currently I have a car that in the cold of winter is seeing 16psi without an intercooler. And she still wants to put out more but I have to draw a line somewhere. 16psi in the snow is more than entertainment enough...

I have a car that will start on the first or second key twist now down to 3 defrees F without any fuss. Still haven't been able to get my PWM Bosch idle valve to work for some reason and we resorted to reinstalling a Bosch Auxillary Valve, without even a power connection! Its located o the back of the intake manifold and so the heat of the exhaust seems to be enough to close it appropiatly.

It had been a long time since I had updated the code in the ECU. Tonight we went to the new 029v code. I am actualy gong to be doing pretty extensive reprograming and tweaking of my .msq soon too to reflect the fact that this car has a LOT more boost avalible than I originally made room for. Thats such a nice problem to have!
Last edited by T3Bunny on Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Forget the porn, my bathroom is full of car manuals...
1977 Rabbit
1991 Cabriolet (retired)
T3Bunny
MegaSquirt Newbie
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:44 pm
Location: Miami, Florida
Contact:

Post by T3Bunny »

Well I have easily put over 30k on my car since I megasquirted it. Apparently she has become somewhat of an icon too! Anyways I have had zero problems with my MS. The ONLY self inflicted issues I have had were the connectors themselves due to the ECU being removed and replaced VERY FREQUANTLY.

About six months ago I moved from Rochester, NY to Ogden, UT. I had lots of misadventures with the car, but none with the MS. In fact I would have been in a lot of trouble if I DIDN'T have an MS. I had some serious issues that without an MS would have stranded me in Colorado.

PS the post dates on these last two are off due to old posts not being deleted...
Forget the porn, my bathroom is full of car manuals...
1977 Rabbit
1991 Cabriolet (retired)
T3Bunny
MegaSquirt Newbie
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:44 pm
Location: Miami, Florida
Contact:

Post by T3Bunny »

I have lost track of the number of installs I have done now. I realy can't imagine living without an MS system anymore! In fact tonight I started in ernest on MS-ing my other car, an Audi 90 Quattro. She will be the second one I have done this month too. The main reason for this install is the compleat lack of reliability of my horribly failing CIS/motronic system. Currently if I am LUCKY I might get 10mpg. And starting the car cold is a major pain. Every morning I struggle in the cold to start the Audi, I can see the cold cranking maps in MegaTune and wish I was playing with them...

Sadly though the cabby is about to get the axe. Coming through the Rockies we ended up destroying the turbo due to a massive exhaust leak and a sleep deprived and addled brain. I didn't think to lock the wastgate open... The resulting damage was more extensive than first glance too. Several weeks ago the downpipe failed compleatly too. Honestly no street racinf was involved in that misshap... Just a very upset tuned mustang who I still kicked with only 4psi and a blown turbo. Fixing it will require a compleat redo of the whole turbo system. Pretty much requiring pulling the driveline out.

Another testament to the MS and how easy it is to tune, I have been running my cabby at 16psi and NO INTERCOOLING (or even water injection most of the time) without destroying the engine. And even with the turbo crapped, the car still happily spins tires at every opportunity.

I have always prefered the rabbits anyways.... Recently I FINALLY scored the perfect rabbit for my next major project. So we will be stealing a whole lot of goodies off the cabby to build up the new Bunny. So look for another cool project from DarkLighter Tuning soon. Maybe someday I will also post up some of the other neat VAG cars we have done...

Before I axe the car though, I have promised some pictures and a video. I will post those up shortly.
Forget the porn, my bathroom is full of car manuals...
1977 Rabbit
1991 Cabriolet (retired)
rammsrt
MegaSquirt Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2012 2:05 pm

Re: T3Bunny, 1991 VW Turbo Cabriolet

Post by rammsrt »

Well this is some inspirational story man!!

I'm waiting for my first MS system to arrive, I can't wait to start tuning it ..... I've had soo many problems with the oem ecu I'm ready to get rid of it.....

Do you have some tips or even a base settings you could share with me? The car I'm MSing has a similar setup..... Thanks
T3Bunny
MegaSquirt Newbie
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:44 pm
Location: Miami, Florida
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Re: T3Bunny, 1991 VW Turbo Cabriolet

Post by T3Bunny »

rammsrt wrote:Well this is some inspirational story man!!
Thanks rammsrt, and you got a PM! I can say from experience, you will love it once you get past the initial learning curve!

Wow, this brings back memories... Mostly good ones! I have no idea what happened to any of the videos of that car, but I do have some pictures here somewhere. My Rabbit is a freaking BEAST in comparison to the Cabby. I really upped the ante and took everything I had learned from the first build, and the countless builds and installs since, to build the perfect combination this time.

If I had to build my current rabbit again, what would I do differently? I would powdercoat everything, instead of painting. It is awesome when you can say that you would essentially change nothing! I seriously slimmed down the wiring harness. By this stage in the game, I can safely say I have mastered the art of building them. I slimmed down everything in fact. The engine bay looks almost minimal. The turbo is easily missed in a quick glance. It just looks like a basic 2.0L ABA.

The moment it starts though, you know something is slightly off. She idles lower and smoother than most VW's ever will, but that exhaust note really gives it away. Pulling away, and the game is usually over. As she is pushing 20psi, the turbo spools loudly, and happily announces its's presence at each shift. Again, running with no intercooling, and the water injection is usually disabled.

And the MS1 V2.2 ECU from my Cabby, went into her and has traveled many thousands of miles more since!

There was only one thing I have finally changed. After many years of running and tuning MS1 Extra setups, I knew reliability was not a concern but I wanted more. So I finally upgraded to MS3. I wanted full-time datalogging without needing to have a laptop connected. I wanted full sequential fuel injection to hopefully squeeze out a few more MPG. And well, I just wanted to get back into it and play some!

I should also fire up a new thread instead of hijacking my own... :lol:
Forget the porn, my bathroom is full of car manuals...
1977 Rabbit
1991 Cabriolet (retired)
T3Bunny
MegaSquirt Newbie
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 7:44 pm
Location: Miami, Florida
Contact:

Re: update

Post by T3Bunny »

T3Bunny wrote:...And we are looking at this VW GT I got, it definatly can use a MS...
Wow I have to laugh at this and muse how things have gone full circle! That VW GT did in fact get MegaSquirted, and a VR6 dumped into it. I laugh because that very same V3.0 ecu that ran the GT, as of tonight is now back in operation and running the new MS3 setup in my current Rabbit! My first V2.2, and my first V3.0. Out of the hundreds of units that have passed through my hands over the years, I still have these two. :mrgreen:
Forget the porn, my bathroom is full of car manuals...
1977 Rabbit
1991 Cabriolet (retired)
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