Hello all,

I'm helping a friend with his FD RX7 (1994) that has an Adaptronic Select ECU. The car has a stock trigger wheel (12 +1) and stock ignition setup. The primary issue is we cannot get base timing set. We are at a point where it is time to ask the community for help.

Ok- Here is where we are at:

First off, we are using the Wari software (not Eugene) as per the recommendations of Adaptronic for this ECU. We've gone over the steps from Adaptronic's site (<<<Link>>>) as detailed within the link.

First few days of troubleshooting. When timing lock isn't set, the timing marks nearly line up and the car runs fairly well; however, the exhaust manifold and turbo will eventually start to glow red. When we set the timing lock as per Adaptronic's guide (link above), the timing mark is essentially at the 9 o-clock position and the car runs extremely rough. We had to adjust the timing offset to -86 degrees to get these marks to line up; however, when we turn the timing lock off, the car would stall. A noteworthy item was that the adjustment of the Ignition Offset was progressive and smooth, as one would expect.

We proceeded to test that the ECU was sending spark signal to the right coils by pulling the plug wires and using the F11 menu from Wari to pulse fire to the various plugs. Everything lined up as we expected which confirmed that the ECU was sending signal to the right coil and plug. We threw in the towel with the software/wiring and proceeded to check the physical hardware involved. First up, the two hall effect sensors do send an adequate signal to the ECU (again watching the trigger 1 & 2 pulse from the F11 menu in Wari while cranking). Trigger 1 is on the 12 tooth stock wheel and trigger 2 is picking up the single outer tooth, which seems to be correct. Pulled the trigger wheel off to make sure that it was set correctly, and given that it can only go on one-way, that is confirmed good. Put everything back together and called it a night.

Tried using my laptop the next day; however, things behaved very differently. Adjusting the Ignition Offset by +2 will result in the timing mark being at the 3 o-clock position, and -2 still results in a 9 o-clock position. A far cry from the normal behavior as we saw on my friends laptop. On my laptop I only have a +/- 8 degree range on the ignition offset and nothing seemed to work. Proceeded to comb over manuals and threads looking for more information. Based upon some research, I checked the ignition split timing and found that it was set to 20 degrees for idle and vacuum settings. As per this thread: <<<Link>>> the timing should be around 5 for idle/vacuum and everything seemed to run a little better after the change. Tried to go over the base timing again and am essentially unable to get any sort of adjustment to work, again experiencing the same challenges as previously noted. The only thing I can think of is the software 'Wari' is acting up on my laptop. I've found a Wari V10 for the E420c ecu, but don't know if I should be running that software instead. Alternatively, the trigger settings could be set incorrectly, but I did load these from the base trigger settings from the software. The screenshot below is the trigger page for reference. We're both stumped and we really could use a hand here.

 

Hi,

Sorry to hear you have been having troubles. Based on the screenshot you have provided you need to set the "Choose Engine For Trigger Settings" to custom settings and this will allow you to adjust the base timing.

Cheers,

Shawn Christenson
Tuned By Shawn

 

Ok - First off, thank you for the reply. I'm now able to make changes to the timing with my laptop. In order to get the timing marks lined up, I had to drastically change the trigger angles. See the snapshot below for reference.

Once I have successfully edited the trigger offset to get the timing marks to line up, I unlock the timing and the engine stalls. I'm at a loss. This isn't working like how I'd expect. What am I missing here?

 

Just to make sure I'm doing this correctly - when checking the timing, I should be referencing trailing 1 (top, plug, front housing)? Am I missing something basic here?

 

Hi,

You should not have to adjust the trigger angles more than +-5 degrees in my experience. When checking the timing with a Stock FD trigger wheel and an Adaptronic ECU. You will lock the Timing at the rotary setting. Timing light will need to be on the front Rotor Trailing spark plug. (Make sure that none of the spark plug wires are not touching - Iv seen false positives due to this) Front rotor Top spark plug. Let me know if you guys would like to purchase an hour of my time and we can be live on teamviewer and on the phone at the same time. I also will provide a basemap that should get you started on tuning relatively easily. Here is my number if you have any questions, 218-330-7369

Thanks,

Shawn Christenson

 

Time to update this thread. First off, Shawn - Thank you for the assistance.

That said, in the event you are encountering something similar- be sure to check the actual timing from the live gauges within the ECU and compare to the 'locked' settings. Our issue was mostly caused by old firmware. With the update, we were able to successfully set base timing.

 

Firmware is thankfully correcting a lot of these oddity issues so far. I think it's definitely hit or miss on some of them though.

 

You would think that your first step would be to upgrade to the latest firmware before doing any tuning?

 

I'm not necessarily disagreeing however it's entirely unreasonable to expect/force someone to apply a 0 day patch to a piece of hardware that is advertised as supporting what you're using it for, in this case a rotary to make it function at a completely basic level.

Glad you're getting it taken care of.

 

Well when an individual a used ECU what do you expect? The firmware that was loaded was from 2014... and I believe the next version added full rotary support with an easy to check check box that allowed the user to be able to TWO timing numbers locked at the same time -5 leading -20 trailing. which I do not believe any other manufacture has to my knowledge.. They just lock all the ignition coils at one timing mark which leaves the opportunity to miss having the ignition coil wires in the wrong location..

 

Huh ? 0 day patch. The select ECU is ancient. What are you going on about?

Sometimes it is best to pay someone competent and get it right the first time.

 

I made a mistake with regards to the ECU (I had modular in my head, I apparently can't read). And 'what I'm going on about' is the fact that on the regular pieces of hardware and software in the automotive world as well as others require patches on or before their release date for advertised functionality and then put it on the customer to deal with it and we as consumers don't hold them accountable. Either way, hope the dude gets his project working well.

 

Assuming this is a stock port engine, idle timing should have a 15 degree split. Mazda runs -5, -20 at an idle and that's what you should run.
As far as base timing goes, your timing mark shouldnt be anywhere near the 9 o clock position. Lock your base timing at -5, -20, point your timing light at the needle on the engine (It's hard to see, but is roughly at a 12 o clock postion) and adjust timing offset to line up the marks properly. Iirc, there should be a mark for leading and a mark for trailing. The mark that's going to be on the right side will be for leading and the mark on the left will be for trailing as the engine spins clockwise and the leading plugs fire first. Keep in mind that outside "1" extrusion is not your timing reference and that your reference should be on the edge of the "12" part of the disk that will hopefully have paint for reference. I hope this helps set things up. The FSM can be a big help too but the syncing really shouldn't be too far off from the base map settings in my experience.

 

Well, to add more color to the thread, we initially started 'tuning' this ECU with Eugine. We updated the firmware on that ECU and once Adaptronic told us that the Eugine software doesn't play nice with the Select ECUs. We then switched to Wari, but assumed the firmware from Eugine would have stayed put. That wasn't the case and we never went back to confirm. Either that, or anything firmware related we did with Eugine just didn't take. Our assumption had clearly proved problematic and not knowing about the live gauges really made troubleshooting a lot more cumbersome. Shawn picked up on this fairly quickly after some investigation.