hades

iTrader: (4)

I got back from DGRR last week and an FD puked because it ran out of oil running a pfc.

Running out of oil (bad fitting). Was not the computers fault--but it would have been nice if the computer could have tried to save it self.

Does the adaptronic ecus have means of safe guarding the engine?

Shut down due to high oil/water temps. Loss of oil pressure, over boost etc?

Thanks for the info.

AdaptronicAus

Well, we have a few internal values, like "be honest" and so on.

One of them is "Don't *&^ the customer", which basically means that we have to design the products to best meet people's objectives. That often involves a lot of judgement calls.

For example, it would be great if we could monitor the differential fuel pressure on every installation, and go into a cut if we see it drop below a prescribed amount, because that would tell us we have a blocked fuel filter, fuel pump is on the way out or whatever. Either way it would alert the tuner that the fuel system is inadequate, or if the fuel system was adequate when it was tuned, it could prevent a lean-out situation if the fuel filter later becomes blocked with foam from the fuel cell or whatever.

However, forcing everyone to add a fuel pressure sensor is bad because:

1) It's bad business (because hardly anyone will do it, because of the cost - so we'd lose out on all the sales of the people who don't want to do it)

2) It's potentially dangerous - we're asking people to fit things to their fuel systems - people could use the wrong thread that looks the same but starts to leak, and I just don't want to go there

3) It's potentially dangerous - in that if a fault develops with the sensor it could render the car undrivable. On a fun car that's not your daily driver, that's probably OK, but in a race car you might still want to drive on it and just keep it under 6 grand or whatever to get it back to the garage, rather than get out of the race entirely (in an endurance race for example you might have time to change a fuel pump)

4) It means that whenever someone in the future asks "I have a misfire that only happens at high load", it's another thing on the list that we need to ask them. The diagnosis is a lot easier if it's kept simple.


So specifically, you can program the fuel or ignition to be cut at a certain RPM, or above a certain boost level. However:

1) The boost level has to be within the reading range of the sensor, as it's calibrated in the ECU. So if you're using the internal sensor and you want to set the overboost limit at 45 psi, you can't because the sensor only reads up to 43.5

2) Just because you do an ignition cut doesn't necessarily mean you'll save the engine - rotaries are very quickly damaged (so I'm told; I haven't lost one yet touch wood) so the damage may have already been done

Regarding the oil delivery; we could do a function where the ECU will go into a limp mode where it will limit the RPM to say 2000 if it doesn't see the oil metering pump move to its target position. The RX8 does this from factory; but it does this by only allowing the throttle to open to 5% if it sees a fault with the oil metering pump. However this firstly would only solve the problem of a bad oil metering pump, or not wired up correctly. If there are no oil lines going to it, or they're blocked, then the ECU won't know. There's no sensor that measures the oil going into the engine.

We are looking at adding safety cutouts for oil pressure and fuel pressure; it's not supported yet but I know several people have asked for them so they are on the list. They would need additional sensors to be added though.

There is an additional high coolant temp rev limit that you can set up; so rather than shutting down the engine completely (which could be dangerous; on the race track or in traffic) you can limit the RPM to a lower temperature.

There is no oil temperature sensor on the car from factory, so if you wanted to add in an over oil temp function then you'd need to add that sensor to the engine.

Sorry about the long reply but I wanted to frame the philosophy with adding features in general first.

EB Turbo

iTrader: (1)

The AEM Series II and the Haltech do have engine protection features. The Haltech has very limited Protection. The AEM has comprehensive limits for Oil pressure v RPM, Fuel pressure v Manifold pressure, AFR v Manifold pressure and AUX Temp limits. The outputs can trigger a rev limit and or a low side signal for a warn light. The haltech has similar limits but with out the ability to tie them to RPM and manifold pressure. That just reduces the accuracy of the limit function.

AEM limits
http://www.aemelectronics.com/files/...on_series2.jpg

Haltech limits
http://www.haltech.com/wp-content/up...out-Effect.jpg

EB Turbo

AdaptronicAus

Thanks for the suggestions there. I think with the lean-out protection, rather than having a separate table for the allowable AFR or lambda, I'd have it as an offset from the target. That way when people change the target, it also changes the limit.

Otherwise people have two things to adjust which they will forget to do; it's all about making it easy for people to set up as well.

Similarly, I'd have an option either for constant differential fuel pressure (measured wrt MAP) or a fixed fuel pressure (for non-referenced systems) with an option to select which one you're using; otherwise people again have to set up all those reference points for the allowable fuel pressure against manifold pressure, which is a waste of time (and possible source of error) if it's just a constant offset.

Oil pressure vs RPM, I see how that should be a table.

Thanks for the suggestions!

EB Turbo

iTrader: (1)

How can you make these two posts back to back? LOL

EB Turbo

0110-M-P

iTrader: (10)

If you pick through them, they make sense together...

and

EB Turbo

iTrader: (1)

What you are omitting from those quotes are the funny part.

EB Turbo