rx72c

iTrader: (8)

After 4-5 Hours of dyno time. Many phone calls to haltech.
Incorrect advice from haltech tech support etc almost leading to engine failure.
And a good 10-15 hours of my time wasted.

When a haltech platinum 1000 is run in direct fire the rotary split map is not rotary split, it is actual trailing timing. Do no get caught out with this.

Haltech platinum 1000 DOES NOT WORK work with crane hi-6 cdi units directly. They require an ignitor inbetween.

Why is it that haltech give out useless advice? That could have cost me an engine. Why do i have to waste so much time on a customer car to sort out a problem that was so simple from the start. Just say that they are not compatible.

Its disappointing to say the least.

My rant is over.

tasty danish

iTrader: (5)

damn dude, that blows, but good info. thanks for posting for the rest of us.

fritts

iTrader: (5)

That explains a few things, specifically egts. I guess I have been running no split at boost then.

The description on the split map describes it as the difference between the leading and trailing spark timing.

This is a major screw up if this is correct.

Have you posted this on the Haltech forum?

Claudio can you chime in here?

rx72c

iTrader: (8)

I was getting 1000 celcius egts on cruise and i just couldnt figure out why. I was getting knock i couldnt explain.

because of the blunder with the crane cdis. The haltech was making them advance as the revs climbed. So my timing was going off the clock.

Im so lucky this engine is still 100%.

And as for the split map.

I TESTED IT.

Its definitely NOT SPLIT. it is actual timing.

I had the timing gun on and kept changing it and watching it.

With the timing lock on, i put in -5 for leading and put in a 15 degree split to get -20. And the trailing started firing infront of the leading. God help.
I changed it to -20 and bingo. It started working perfectly.

I then took the timing lock off and did the same test in the actual map. And same result.

SPLIT MAP IS NOT SPLIT. IT IS ACTUAL TRAILING TIMING.

BEWARE People.

If anyone would like a base map for a 800/1600cc direct fire setup with 5 bar map sensor. Ive got one now after hours of screw ups.
The above map will work with a 3bar map sensor, just have to put your calibration settings into it. Also the injector staging is seamless in this map as well.

rx72c

iTrader: (8)

Can anyone else who has a platinum 1000 confirm with a test light that their car is running proper split?

Preferably a car setup up for direct fire.

Claudio RX-7

iTrader: (1)

I dont doubt your test and i dont doubt your conclusions, but we have tested this on the bench today at the Haltech USA office, and Haltech Australia is also going to verify this as well. But, so far the report is that all is working correctly.

You have to admit that keeping track of all manufacturers of CDI boxes is a hard task, especially if they change their hardware over one or 2 generations of products, as has been the case with MSD with some of their DIS stuff.

We normally try to give baseline parameters to give customers a starting point. But we also must acknowledge that not all brands of products follow the same philosophies or schools of thought when building their own products.

If you call MSD up and ask them how to set up a Haltech with their products they will only say "call Haltech", we do plenty more than that, and on top of that we have to be familiar with EVERY brand of aftermarket product that could be interfaced with an ECU?! So we can support them as well?! For Free?! You might want to consider the facts before you start bashing tech support on a specific brand because another brand isnt compatible, or has not been set right, which might probably be whats happening in your case.

Thats MY rant.

Never the less, we ARE looking into it for you.

rx72c

iTrader: (8)

So here we go again.

I was able to get the cranes working correctly using an ignitor. Just cant get them to work correctly directly off the haltech.
tim from haltech gave me some settings today that i will try and see how they go. I will make a post tonight detailing results.

As for the trailing issue.
Its running a 2 channel ignitor and 2 bosch hec 715 coils. Nothing special their.

Why i am cheesed is that when the ecu was ordered we asked again and again if the crane cdi can work with the haltech, and they said, yes we have done it before and it will work no dramas. Matt from race solutions who haltech referred me to told it would need to be setup for constant charge. Now apparently its constant duty

rx72c

iTrader: (8)

Ok.

Tried constant duty.
Cranes are working now and responding to the haltech correctly.

Another problem has showed up.

At any rpm point the timing is jumping 3-6 degrees and is not steady.(this is with the timing lock on).

?

For now i have disconnected the trailing and are looking to eliminate the leading issue first.

C. Ludwig

iTrader: (27)

I have setup a 2-rotor in direct fire mode with 4 inductive coils. Everything worked as it should and the trailing map indicated split and not actual advance BTDC as you're explaining. This was confirmed not only with the timing locked but in a dynamic test as well. This car is a road race car that has completed several weekends of competition without issue and the owner has been very impressed with the power we gained over the previous setup.

To me it sounds like you have either a trigger issue or, as you have already discovered, a setup issue with the ignition outputs, or both.

You've stated elsewhere that you have extensive experience with Microtech. Jumping into a new pool can be a learning experience as you've seen and, as Claudio has explained, any manufacturer can't be expected to support and have documented trials on every possible combination.

Claudio RX-7

iTrader: (1)

RX72c, we have gone over your issue both at Haltech USA and Haltech Australia, although we did not have a Crane unit like yours on hand, the test was performed using a Logic Analyzer to make sure the leading and trailing were firing correctly according to the ECU's advertised specs.

Here is a reply from Matt Write in Australia about this issue:

"Hi guys, Matt Wright from Haltech here. Some of you may know me from when i worked at Haltech tech support in Australia, some of you know me from when i ran the Haltech USA office, i know some of you also know me from EFI University courses or TAFE seminars that i have run, g'day to all those guys who i have met in the past. To anyone whom i havent met hello to you also - hopefully we will get the chance to meet sometime inthe future.

This issue has come across my desk from 4 different people today so i figured rather than playing chinese wispers and having things get confused in translation i would post to the forum directly.

Firstly i wanted to say thanks to rx72c for supporting our brand with the purchase of the platinum sport 1000, without our customers we wouldnt be able to have jobs doing what we love in the performance automotive market. Let me assure you that you did make the right decision when you bought Haltech.

I also wanted to straighten out some of the information being given out in this thread. The claims that the split angle is an absolute timing angle is incorrect. The split angle is exactly as stated, its the split between leading and trailing. So if you were to input a split angle of 10 degrees the trailing coil would fire 10 degrees AFTER the leading coil. let me emphasise that again, the split angle is based on the leading timing angle and is NOT an obsolute value.

Any other forum members running direct fire i invite you to check it for yourself and you will see that this is correct and the information circulated at the beginning of this thread is not.

Without seeing your setup personally rx72c it is difficult to make a diagnosis of what you have going on however from what i understand from your posted information you are running a different ignition system on the leading coils to the trailing coils (crane hi6 on the leading and inductive coil and ignitor on the trialing?). This is likely the cause of your confusion, an incorrect setup of either the leading ignition system or the trailing ignition system.
In most ECUs this would be a big problem, fortunately when you purchased the haltech platinum sport 1000 unit you purchased a very powerful system that unlike other ECUs will actually let you run different ignition systems on both leading and trailing - trust me thats good news for you.
Ive never seen your map but my guess is that you have your ignition system setup as constant charge with a 5ms charge time on both leading and trailing - the reason im guessing this is because at 1000rpm the e-shaft travels 30degrees in 5 ms which would put your split timing out by 30 degrees if one of your ignition systems if firing off the incorrect edge...if this were the case you would also note that the timing would drift on either the leading or traliing as the RPM increased (even with the timing lock on).

rx72c Im not sure where you are located but your profile says your in australia so if you happen to be in sydney by all means come by our facility sometime and im confident we can get your ignition system sorted out for you.

I want to just assure all our other customers out there that there is no cause for alarm the split timing feature works as advertised."

So, as you can see, i think that we have to take this and consider the facts that you are in fact running different ignition amplifiers on your setup, and this probably is a good reason why not to do this, the inherit differences that can appear in this sort of situation. Having said that, we want to help you solve your problem, so if you can take the time to get in touch with Haltech Australia, we are ready to provide assistance to you in this situation.

In short, the Sport 1000/2000 boxes work as advertised so you can be assured this is works 100%. I have uploaded 2 images from the Logic Analyzer they used to test the output signals from the ECU please check em out. The 1st one is with 0 split, thus the L and T fire at the same time, the 2nd one is with 15 degrees of split, and you can clearly see the different times they fire at.

Claudio RX-7

iTrader: (1)

I was also told by Matt the following on the Crane Hi6 box:

"...the ignition timing fluctuation is most likely due to the crane hi6 being a multispark system (from cranes website it fires 12 times over 20 crankshaft degrees per ignition trigger). The timing light will be having a nervous breakdown with all the spark events and causing a fluctuating signal."

And this is from the Crane Hi6 Instructions PDF on their website found here:

"MULTIPLE SPARK
Under low RPM cranking conditions, the HI-6 generates up to 12 sparks. This assures quick starting even under the most adverse conditions. At idle and cruise, the number of sparks fired is adjusted to maintain a total spark duration of approximately 20 degrees (crankshaft), assuring smooth idle, improved throttle response..."

slo

iTrader: (1)

The crane box needs to be run wasted spark with a rotary leading on 4Cyl mode or the multi sparks will be spread way beyond 20 degrees.

If there is one box per leading plug on 4cyl mode it will spread across 40 deg.

If wasted spark in 8cyl mode (default) it will spread multi sparks across like 60 or 80 degrees.

The box only knows rpm based on the input, and the settings for 4/6/8 tell it how many inputs per minute are present for a particular RPM. It uses this info to calculate time after input and estimate the degrees of crank rotation for multispark.

Claudio RX-7

iTrader: (1)

Is all that a good thing or a bad thing? Sounds like a lot of complications to me.

C. Ludwig

iTrader: (27)

Thanks for posting that Claudio. Matt's "The Answer Man".

Good info Slo.

Claudio RX-7

iTrader: (1)

Long Live LSx Coils!!!

rx72c

iTrader: (8)

Can i just say. Thanks to claudio rx-7 for your input.

to mr slo. I have been using crane hi-6 boxes on rotaries for a long time now with microtech AND NEVER HAD any issues with jumpy spark and when we setup them up we dont connect a RPM input to them and DONT connect the wire that tells the crane box whether its a 4 cyl 6 cyl or 8 cylinder.

It has never affected the way the car has run as we have tried.

As for the jump signal. I suspected it was the multi-spark causing it.

So my next question comes. If i put this car on the dyno again, put timing light on it, and put it under load. The timing should smoothen out over 3500-4000rpm?

If it does this well then problem solved.

And for the trailing subject.
we reconnected them. And it seems that now we have the crane hi-6 setup correctly using constant duty the trailing is now FIRING CORRECTLY and the SPLIT MAP is working as it should be. So that is good news.

Having the cranes setup incorrectly was causing all sorts of problems and it seems the above was one of them.
I think next time, sales people should have their tongues cut off. My customer was promised again and again that haltech have seen the haltech+crane combo many times and their would be no issues.
If we were simply told, no we have not tried it, it should work, try this and try that and let us know how you go. I would not be here typing any of this.

this is my first platinum but not my first haltech. I have wired and tuned a few e8s and e6k,e6x. Some of them in direct fire with dual channel ignitors and bosch coils and have worked great.

this is a first with cdi.

To Claudio RX-7, would it be a safer bet to run the 2 channel ignitor for the cranes as this achieved a VERY VERY STABLE rock solid signal through out the rev range even on idle.
I like to be safer better then sorry and the owner of the car dosnt have lots of money to do testing on the dyno to figure out if the current setup will smoothen out under load etc.


And to Matt wright. It was setup constant charge with 4.5 ms on Matt Hitmans Advice(not given to me, given to the customer).

and to C.Ludwig, i went through with tim at haltech over the phone while we were on the dyno to check for Trigger problems. And we did a test that he ran me through and from the results of the test, tim set the trigger is not the problem.


So right now their are two options
Put the car on the dyno and see if they signal smoothens out under higher rpm and load?

Or fit a 2channel ignitor and be done with it.

What do haltech gurus suggest?

rx72c

iTrader: (8)

I forgot to say. The trailing spark is stable. Not jumpy like the cranes.(im assuming its like this cause trailing are not running multi-spark?).




And if one of the mods can change the title to something more appropriate so its useful to other people. i was alittle pissed off when i made the thread.

say "haltech +crane cdi setup"


Thanks for the help. Hope we can find a final solution.

Claudio RX-7

iTrader: (1)

RX72c, what is your name anyway? I would like to offer this little bit of insight. Dealing with MSD for a long time we always had a specific way of setting them up, constant duty, rising edge, 40% period. This was the norm for many many years with the 6A boxes and the like, then came the DIS boxes, still, the same rule applied, constant duty, rising edge, and 40% period, but then! we started seeing problems with the later revised DIS boxes, the first batch had dip switches, the next gen had rotary dials, the rotary dial ones werent liking the same setup as before, there was lots of brake up. One day i had a conversation with someone who spoke to an MSD tech and amazingly enough the MSD tech suggested to use Constant Charge, Rising Edge, and NO MORE than 2mS of charge time, he said that the boxes use this setting and if you up the charge time higher they'll brake up at higher RPMs.

I dont doubt your experience with the Crane units, but its been ours that usually, these 3rd party products which are complements of the EMS sometimes go through revisions on hardware, just like EMS do, but arent made public. Since the majority of boxes are designed to be installed after the factory ignition systems, this sort of installation is blind to "settings", and since EMS of every kind have to cater to pretty much ANY application, we have to know what each individual component out there likes. Its a tough job, but we proud ourselves of being able to advise on initial configurations, if that doesnt work, we can help troubleshoot it so we can find the appropriate setting, and obviously make a note for future reference.

There's another thread around here somewhere about the Autronic 500R and a whole slew of problems with it using an E8, and all the guy had to go through to finally set it correctly.

I think your best solution will probably be to use the box connected AFTER individual channel igniters, that way you can run direct fire normally the way it should. How many channels does the Crane box have anyway? 4?

rx72c

iTrader: (8)

it can have up to 4 channels.


The way we have set it up we are only using 1.
One box per coil per lead.
This gives maximum spark.

The car is going to run 30psi lots of water and pump fuel and needs a tough ignition.

Well then ignitor it will be.

slo

iTrader: (1)

Don't microtech's have an actual igniter built onto the board, as in they can directly drive ignition coils?

In so far as not changing the settings on the crane box.. there is probably a little tiny bit to be gained by setting it up properly... If its multisparking across more than 20 degrees that may not hurt anything but its not doing any good either.

depending on how the crane box is setup WRT the cylinder selection and waste spark, it will try and continue the multispark beyond 3000 rpm actual or whatever the cutoff is supposed to be.

Think of it in terms of a simple electronic aftermarket tachometer, the ones with a cyl select switch. Depending on where you connect a tach on a Wankel whether its the leading coil with waste spark, or the leading coil with sequential ign or a trailing coil and what settings the tack has you can end up with it multiplying or dividing the actual rpm.

However a 2 rotor running either waste spark or a distributor has the same ign frequency as a 4cyl with a distributor.

Remember also that the crane box is controlling dwell.. The dwell setting in the ECU does not and cannot change the crane boxes dwell which is pre programmed into the box. I don't think the term dwell is even applicable to a CDI type ignition.

Next thing I was going to mention is that on the E8 at least having 2 different in nature ignition systems on the leading and trailing could lead to issues with some firmware revisions is trying to run the boxes and usually standard stock trail ignition. The fix was putting an ignitor in between the CDI and ecu as is mentioned above. The reason for this is that an ignitor controls a coil exactly how a points ignition or electronic distributor (with an ignitor) controls a coil. The Crane box is made to go either between the points and coil or distributor and coil. With the ECU connected directly to it depending on the settings it can end up with a signal that would look way different.

rx72c

iTrader: (8)

Microtech has something called an x4 box.

Which is basically similar to a 4 channel ignitor pretty much.

This is what we have done now and it all seems to be working great.