I have completed my 2-year project build and am ready to leave the driveway for the first time. Before I do so, I just wanted to check I'm on the right track with a few things as I'm a bit nervous being new to EFI tuning and rotaries...

A bit of background info/where I'm at:

-1987 Mazda 323 (familia) FWD (BFMP)
-s4 13BT, fresh rebuild with Atkins full kit, completely stock engine except exhaust, intercooler, intake etc
-MS1 v3.0
-New coils
-BUR7EQ plugs (running leading only)
-200:1 premix

-The engine starts up perfectly every time cold, warm or hot. Warms up quickly and settles at max temp of around 87-90degC.
-Idle AFR cold is around 11:1, then when warm sits around 11.5-12. Fairly smooth idle, a little lumpy.
-Using AaronCake's VE and spark tables as per his write up
-Have lowered the reqFuel from 9.6 to 7.5 as was puffing a bit of grey smoke (rich smell) and was idling around 10-10.5 when warmed up. Seems better now at 7.5.
-Still the odd puff of grey smoke from time to time when revved. Likely residue from vaseline and rich mixture? Seals yet to bed-in?
-Not using any water and smoke doesn't seem too blue/oily. Plugs are pretty black, sooty, but powdery - not wet/oily.
-Compression is around 90psi cold, both rotors, even pulses.
-Idle oil pressure is around 70psi

The above sound normal?

Now on to the megasquirt/tuning related stuff...

-Quickly stabbing the gas pedal, the engine revs reasonably freely but does sound like it's bogging a bit. This is most likely too rich in the AE settings? I switched from TPSdot to MAPdot settings and seemed to improve revving considerably. After each rev it almost stalls however, this is the decel duration isn't it? How do I increase this?

-Once I sort the revving out a bit better, I plan to take the car for a very gentle drive around the block and through some semi-rural areas. Will try vary the load and engine speed as much as possible, but avoid boost for now.

-Would AaronCake's VE and spark table be considered conservative/safe enough for my run-in period? Is his max advance of 26deg too much? Should I just run a flat 10deg table to be safe? As I drive around I will keep an eye on the AFR and make sure it doesn't exceed say 12.5-13?

-As I drive around I plan to datalog and pull over to analyse the logs and smooth out any obvious dips/peaks in the AFR. The aim is to establish a smooth, driveable, safe tune until the fresh engine is run-in. By then I will hopefully have a better understanding and be ready to slowly but surely tune for a bit more power.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I would appreciate any thoughts/advice/opinions regarding where I am at and what I plan to do. Like I mentioned earlier, this has been 2 years in the build so am pretty nervous about the debut journey round the block!

Thanks again

 

Any reason why you aren't running trailings?

Yep, it would be fairly lumpy with such a rich idle. You're going to want to lean out the idle to about the mid 13s. There will be an immediate improvement in smoothness, vacuum signal, and odor.

It would be, because the VE tables on my website are purposely rich. But I'd suggest putting the ReqFuel back up to around 10 because you're going to find that with it at 7.5, you may run out room on the VE table under boost.

The map is still rich, and the added fuel by the accel pump causes the engine to run very rich on throttle transitions.

Put it back to TPSdot if you have a full range TPS. If you don't have a full range TPS, then MAPdot is the way to go. However you can't tune the AE settings until the main VE table is tuned in. Until the VE table is tuned, all other adjustments can be considered rough at best.

My VE table is very rich to assure a guaranteed first startup, and to not blow up engines if the person runs right into boost. However the table is just an example to get the engine running. The entire table needs to be tuned to your engine.

The spark table is very safe and very drivable. In the high RPM areas out of boost it could certainly take more advance, but don't even worry about that until the VE table is tuned. Absolutely a few more degrees could be dialed in under boost but it's my opinion that chasing power in boost by adding timing much past 15 degrees is a false economy...the danger goes up significantly unless you have a way to monitor knock and EGT and log them both.

12.5 is an acceptable ratio for low boost (until about 4 PSI) but excessively rich everywhere else.

Sounds like a plan. Once the table is fairly drivable without hammering raw fuel out the exhaust, you can perform a nice long datalog (about an hour) under varying conditions and then run the log through MegaLogViewer. It will analyse the log alter the VE table accordingly.

 

Thanks Aaron, you're the man! I appreciate you taking the time to respond in such detail. I will make the suggested changes and go for a spin this week, now that I know I'm not likely to damage anything. Cheers

 

Hi guys, I did a quick gentle drive up the street the other day. Taking off gently all seems smooth up until around 3k when the car starts to buck badly. Went back to analyse the datalog, but realised I hadn't started recording properly. Doh.

Anyway, back in the driveway I started it up again and gave it some revs. Seems to rev smoothly with a gradual throttle increase (to a point) but any quick stabbing of the gas and it seems to miss badly, not revving freely, and basically stalls.

Analysing the Log it looks to me like its going lean and I simply need more fuel in the mid-rpm/low load bins. However, I would appreciate if someone could take a quick look at the attached (very short) Log and MSQ and let me know if that is simply the case, or am I way off in another area?

I have spent some time adjusting the Accel Enrichment, but doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. Also, do all the inputs look like they are functioning correctly, ie no excessive noise etc. If I can get it to free-rev reasonably well I should be able to take it for a gentle drive and get a decent datalog recorded without too many problems I'm thinking.

Any tips, clues and advice to head me in the right direction is greatly appreciated.