Haltech The Ins & Outs of a Haltech Installation
03-01-08, 04:46 PM
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The Ins & Outs of a Haltech Installation
Hello guys, i'm a little bored and i thought i'd write this up so the newbies have something to go to apart from the HITman's site.
Here are the most important points of any Haltech installation for pretty much any car. This is a very simplified version, but hopefully i will in the future have something in much better detail on my website.
1. Make sure that the engine is in good working condition, good compression, no electrical problems in the car, and that you have a fully charged battery.
2. After installing the sensors, air temp, coolant temp, tps, map sensor, etc., and connecting them to each of their own ECU inputs, its time to load up the base map if you have one, or set all the parameters for your application.
3. The next step in all Haltech installations and setup should be setting the tigger setup correctly, this is pretty much what makes an installation go smoothly or get complicated if you get it wrong, and this is important to do even without having anything else connected like coils or injectors. This is what i normally like to do, if i have absolutely no information on the engine im working on, the base parameters to start with are usually 70 degree trigger angle and tooth offset 1, trigger and home edge falling, trigger and home gain and filters 0 / 0.
4. Having connected and setting up the tirgger and home inputs, you now want to crank over the engine a few times, and look at just the RPM reading in the engine data page, and going by what you see this will tell you what to do next. If you crank the engine and you DONT see anything happening (zero rpms) you will want to raise the gain one point at a time and cranking it untill you get a stable reading from 100-300 rpms. If you do get a stable rpm reading you can leave the settings just as they are and continue to the next step. If you get spikes i the rpm that shoot to 1000, 8000, 16000 rpms, you will then want to change the trigger and home settings, one point, and cranking again, always remember to hit APPLY / OK, and resetting the ECU after these changes. If and when you get your RPM readings to now be stable, leave the settings just as they are again and move to the next step, it may be required that you come back to these settings but we'll come back to this again later.
5. Now that you have done the trigger settings and you are able to get a steady rpm reading in the software you can connect the ignition outputs so you can see if you have done this correctly and the ignition is firing correctly. The reason for dong this first before going onto the injectors is because the spark/ignition setup is more critical than the fuel setup.
6. Once you've properly connected the ignition outputs to your ignition components you can crank again and see if you have spark, if you dont, we'll need to revise the trigger settings again, if you do, you can put your timing light on the Leading coil (or Trailing 1 for FD's) and point it at the crank pulley with your settings as follows: Trigger angle +/- 65, tooth offset 11 (5 for FD's), constant charge, falling edge, coil charge time 3.5mS (to start).
7. Now, we can go ahead and start cranking again in order to "zero" the timing. As most of you know, zero'ing the timing means to make sure that the Haltech is putting the correct timing on the motor. The way to do this is by going to the Ignition setup, locking the main timing to -5 (with 15 on the split for E8/E11) and pointing the timing light to the crank pulley and raising or lowering the trigger angle until you get the marks to line up. For trailing timing verification use T1 and the mark should align as well. If you see the mark 180 degrees off, your trailing spark plug wires are backwards or your trailing ignition outputs are reversed.
8. Once you've zero'd the timing, leave the timing lock ON for safety reasons and now you can connect the fuel injectors and trying to start the engine.
9. If the engine starts and idles you will be able to do a final check on the timing to see if its still properly lined up. With the timing lock still ON, give the engine a rev and hold it to 2000-2500 rpms, if the timing is not moving as you do this everything is set ok, and you can now finish up your installation and start tuning the engine. However, if you see the timing move as your rev it then you either have the wrong trigger edge for the main trigger or the main trigger sensor wires are backwards. In the case of using an MSD, its also possible you have the output spark edge wrong as well, but its very likely that the engine wont start if it is, on stock coils or OEM styled coils if you have the wrong spark output edge they will get very hot and possibly be damaged.
10. This is basically all the steps you need to do in order to get started, after that comes the tuning and fine tuning of the entire setup, under normal circumstances most people will not be able to tune it to perfection, at which point they should go to a certified or reputable tuner and a dyno for this.
I hope this has guided most of you through the initial setup and make things easier to get going initially.
If anybody has questions, just post and we'll go through them.
Here are the most important points of any Haltech installation for pretty much any car. This is a very simplified version, but hopefully i will in the future have something in much better detail on my website.
1. Make sure that the engine is in good working condition, good compression, no electrical problems in the car, and that you have a fully charged battery.
2. After installing the sensors, air temp, coolant temp, tps, map sensor, etc., and connecting them to each of their own ECU inputs, its time to load up the base map if you have one, or set all the parameters for your application.
3. The next step in all Haltech installations and setup should be setting the tigger setup correctly, this is pretty much what makes an installation go smoothly or get complicated if you get it wrong, and this is important to do even without having anything else connected like coils or injectors. This is what i normally like to do, if i have absolutely no information on the engine im working on, the base parameters to start with are usually 70 degree trigger angle and tooth offset 1, trigger and home edge falling, trigger and home gain and filters 0 / 0.
4. Having connected and setting up the tirgger and home inputs, you now want to crank over the engine a few times, and look at just the RPM reading in the engine data page, and going by what you see this will tell you what to do next. If you crank the engine and you DONT see anything happening (zero rpms) you will want to raise the gain one point at a time and cranking it untill you get a stable reading from 100-300 rpms. If you do get a stable rpm reading you can leave the settings just as they are and continue to the next step. If you get spikes i the rpm that shoot to 1000, 8000, 16000 rpms, you will then want to change the trigger and home settings, one point, and cranking again, always remember to hit APPLY / OK, and resetting the ECU after these changes. If and when you get your RPM readings to now be stable, leave the settings just as they are again and move to the next step, it may be required that you come back to these settings but we'll come back to this again later.
5. Now that you have done the trigger settings and you are able to get a steady rpm reading in the software you can connect the ignition outputs so you can see if you have done this correctly and the ignition is firing correctly. The reason for dong this first before going onto the injectors is because the spark/ignition setup is more critical than the fuel setup.
6. Once you've properly connected the ignition outputs to your ignition components you can crank again and see if you have spark, if you dont, we'll need to revise the trigger settings again, if you do, you can put your timing light on the Leading coil (or Trailing 1 for FD's) and point it at the crank pulley with your settings as follows: Trigger angle +/- 65, tooth offset 11 (5 for FD's), constant charge, falling edge, coil charge time 3.5mS (to start).
7. Now, we can go ahead and start cranking again in order to "zero" the timing. As most of you know, zero'ing the timing means to make sure that the Haltech is putting the correct timing on the motor. The way to do this is by going to the Ignition setup, locking the main timing to -5 (with 15 on the split for E8/E11) and pointing the timing light to the crank pulley and raising or lowering the trigger angle until you get the marks to line up. For trailing timing verification use T1 and the mark should align as well. If you see the mark 180 degrees off, your trailing spark plug wires are backwards or your trailing ignition outputs are reversed.
8. Once you've zero'd the timing, leave the timing lock ON for safety reasons and now you can connect the fuel injectors and trying to start the engine.
9. If the engine starts and idles you will be able to do a final check on the timing to see if its still properly lined up. With the timing lock still ON, give the engine a rev and hold it to 2000-2500 rpms, if the timing is not moving as you do this everything is set ok, and you can now finish up your installation and start tuning the engine. However, if you see the timing move as your rev it then you either have the wrong trigger edge for the main trigger or the main trigger sensor wires are backwards. In the case of using an MSD, its also possible you have the output spark edge wrong as well, but its very likely that the engine wont start if it is, on stock coils or OEM styled coils if you have the wrong spark output edge they will get very hot and possibly be damaged.
10. This is basically all the steps you need to do in order to get started, after that comes the tuning and fine tuning of the entire setup, under normal circumstances most people will not be able to tune it to perfection, at which point they should go to a certified or reputable tuner and a dyno for this.
I hope this has guided most of you through the initial setup and make things easier to get going initially.
If anybody has questions, just post and we'll go through them.
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03-14-08, 03:53 PM
#12
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Go with the LS1 coils, you wont need anything else, since they have their own built in igniter.
03-15-08, 10:36 AM
#13
Thx for the heads-up. From what I understand the Ls1 coils are a good choice but are limited in power output at higher boost. David Hayes had major problems with them as he turned up the boost. I will eventually turbo charge the 20b so I don't want to have to go through a whole different set-up to reach my power goals later on. If the ls1 coils can support 600rwhp, then I see no problem getting them. Finding a place for the larger more robust FC coils isn't a problem for me. Hell I've fabed everything else to make the engine fit like I wanted. I just want to make sure I have the ignition side of things fully taken care of and not have to repurchase different coils later.
Lastly the Fc coils aren't that big when removed from the igniter bracket.
Edit: Hmmmmm I forgot that I also am planning on duplicating my set-up on my 13b as well. I may just go ahead with the LS1 coils for the 20b now while it's NA and then switch them over to the 13b when I build that set-up. This should give me more time to research those Haltech 3 channel moduels.
Last edited by t-von; 03-15-08 at 10:42 AM.
03-15-08, 11:47 AM
#14
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At any rate, if you want to have the "top of the line" setup, go with M&W CDI, with 6 single coils, this is by far the best damn ignition option i can think about, and very expensive too.
03-17-08, 10:57 AM
#15
Well, if you would've said that from the beginning it would've been a little easier to give you an appropriate scenario for you. Having said that, do this as an example, a 13B, making 425hp to the wheels, using LS1 coils, if you add an extra rotor, you're literally looking at making over 600+hp to the wheels. I wouldnt know why somebody would have problems with them, they have been proved to handle a lot of charge time without showing signs of loosing spark.
Thx for the example. I will be going the LS1 route.
I like saving money. M&W? Yea I don't need nothing that extravogant. I could buy a whole bunch of other goodies for that kind of money. Thx for the help.
03-18-08, 06:57 PM
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From what I understand the Ls1 coils are a good choice but are limited in power output at higher boost. David Hayes had major problems with them as he turned up the boost. I will eventually turbo charge the 20b so I don't want to have to go through a whole different set-up to reach my power goals later on.
07-23-08, 08:35 AM
#19
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Hey guys, i was helping somebody out today with trigger problems and i thought id share this little bit of insight i had for him with y'all.
When first starting an engine, using E6X, do the following:
Do that the procedure i indicate in the first post that says, first try gain and filters both at zero, on both the trigger and home, crank it (leave your injectors disabled or not connected), if you get NO RPMs (which is doubtful using gain and filter zero) bring the gain up, if you get RPMs but they seem to spike when you crank it or turn the key off and back on again, i would change the filter to 1 and start over. The thing to remember is:
No RPMs (or too low an RPM reading) = gain increase mainly on trigger
RPM spike = change filter one number and try again
Steady RPMs = Leave it like that and check for spark
Steady RPMs but NO Spark = bring the home up on the gain
Have your trigger diagnostics page opened while you are cranking, this will indicate what is happening within the ECU, its under Data Pages, Trigger diagnostics page, it will have 3 values: Home, Trigger and Trigger before last Home.
The Home will count from 0-7 and restart counting, the trigger will count from 0-255 and restart counting, and in the trigger before last home, if all is working correctly, it should display a stead 2 all the time, if you see it alternate to anything other than 2, check the Home settings.
For E8/E11, in the trigger diagnostics page the Home counter also counts up to 255 but much slower than the Trigger, if you see the home count faster than the Trigger, you've wired the sensors backwards, trigger signal on the home, home signal on the trigger.
Also, the Trigger Diagnostics page is ONLY useful with the engine turning, it does nothing if the engine isnt turning.
Hope this helps a little on initial startups. In the end, a pre-configured base map for your particular engine will probably be close enough, but there have been cases where the CAS just doesnt work the same on all engines.
I've done engines with trigger and home filter/gain combination of 0/0, and other with trigger gain at 2, home gain at 4, filter at 1 or filter at 2. Its all very engine specific, and on pretty much 95% of the time you can set the internal reluctors to read your trigger correctly, just be patient an go in steps.
And ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS dont forget to hit APPLY AND OK and reset the ECU after any main menu change, there are things that dont require the reset, but its always good practice.
For example, changing the trigger angle in the ignition setup only requires you to type the number and hit Enter, but changing the tooth offset does require the appy/ok and reset.
When first starting an engine, using E6X, do the following:
Do that the procedure i indicate in the first post that says, first try gain and filters both at zero, on both the trigger and home, crank it (leave your injectors disabled or not connected), if you get NO RPMs (which is doubtful using gain and filter zero) bring the gain up, if you get RPMs but they seem to spike when you crank it or turn the key off and back on again, i would change the filter to 1 and start over. The thing to remember is:
No RPMs (or too low an RPM reading) = gain increase mainly on trigger
RPM spike = change filter one number and try again
Steady RPMs = Leave it like that and check for spark
Steady RPMs but NO Spark = bring the home up on the gain
Have your trigger diagnostics page opened while you are cranking, this will indicate what is happening within the ECU, its under Data Pages, Trigger diagnostics page, it will have 3 values: Home, Trigger and Trigger before last Home.
The Home will count from 0-7 and restart counting, the trigger will count from 0-255 and restart counting, and in the trigger before last home, if all is working correctly, it should display a stead 2 all the time, if you see it alternate to anything other than 2, check the Home settings.
For E8/E11, in the trigger diagnostics page the Home counter also counts up to 255 but much slower than the Trigger, if you see the home count faster than the Trigger, you've wired the sensors backwards, trigger signal on the home, home signal on the trigger.
Also, the Trigger Diagnostics page is ONLY useful with the engine turning, it does nothing if the engine isnt turning.
Hope this helps a little on initial startups. In the end, a pre-configured base map for your particular engine will probably be close enough, but there have been cases where the CAS just doesnt work the same on all engines.
I've done engines with trigger and home filter/gain combination of 0/0, and other with trigger gain at 2, home gain at 4, filter at 1 or filter at 2. Its all very engine specific, and on pretty much 95% of the time you can set the internal reluctors to read your trigger correctly, just be patient an go in steps.
And ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS dont forget to hit APPLY AND OK and reset the ECU after any main menu change, there are things that dont require the reset, but its always good practice.
For example, changing the trigger angle in the ignition setup only requires you to type the number and hit Enter, but changing the tooth offset does require the appy/ok and reset.
07-24-08, 07:47 PM
#22
BDC Motorsports
Good post, Claudio. Here's my two cents:
E11v2 Installation Notes:
http://bdc.cyberosity.com/v/Technica...32904.txt.html
E6K Installation Notes:
http://bdc.cyberosity.com/v/Technica...72003.txt.html
Don't make fun of me for some of the text I wrote in those. They're old just like me.
B
E11v2 Installation Notes:
http://bdc.cyberosity.com/v/Technica...32904.txt.html
E6K Installation Notes:
http://bdc.cyberosity.com/v/Technica...72003.txt.html
Don't make fun of me for some of the text I wrote in those. They're old just like me.
B
07-25-08, 01:23 PM
#23
So what are you supposed to do if your ECU/software doesn't have the trigger diagonstics?
Just downloaded the software onto my laptop from Haltech's website and this option still doesn't appear in Halwin....
I can't be the only one missing this option.
Just downloaded the software onto my laptop from Haltech's website and this option still doesn't appear in Halwin....
I can't be the only one missing this option.
07-25-08, 02:33 PM
#25
Nope, online.
I'm missing alot of options on this baby though. For example I can't switch between metric and imperial units.
Pretty **** poor customer service if you ask me. The unit was brand new at the start of last season after they replaced the original one they'd sent me which was broken. So apparently the new unit (or the software on their webpage) is out of date. And either of those scenario's disappoints me - brand new stuff, out of date or not complete.
I'm missing alot of options on this baby though. For example I can't switch between metric and imperial units.
Pretty **** poor customer service if you ask me. The unit was brand new at the start of last season after they replaced the original one they'd sent me which was broken. So apparently the new unit (or the software on their webpage) is out of date. And either of those scenario's disappoints me - brand new stuff, out of date or not complete.