Just went for another drive, the Rx7 is a thing of dreams. Morale is up and wiring is coming up

 

Update:
I have all of the Haltech goodies except for the actual ECU itself: I've got a Haltech GM 3bar Map, 2 Haletch TI 150 psi for fuel and oil press, Haltech IAT sensor, Haltech CAN 02 and Haltech Pre terminated harness for 13b with IGN 1A.







Really happy with the quality of the Haltech gear and will be doing some re-crimping of the few sensors that need it.

 

Small Update:

After putting 250 miles on the latest rebuild I did a compression check. Hot compression was measuring 101 PSI average in front and rear, their compression was eerily close …I presume it will go up a little bit more as I put more easy miles on it. Here is a picture of the rear comp:




I have now removed the Adaptronic and the existing wire harness and am working on getting the new sensors and Haltech harness installed! I have re-terminated the MAP sensor for the GM 3Bar sensor as well as the IAT. All other sensors will plug and play.

 

Update

I was able to pass the harness through the firewall and am now working on the sensor layout and harness path. I cut and tapped my stock oil pressure sending unit for my 1/8 npt remote sensor mount for the oil pressure sensor. Really happy with how it came out.


Working on finishing the fuel lines then I'll wrap up the wiring and get to the computer itself. I'm switching from my PTFE lines due to the pulsation issues I was having.

 

Update:

The elite 1500 has arrived and is in place. All of the sensors are reading as expected and I have an appointment with Tuned by Shawn this Friday morning to have him check over all of my ecu settings and do the base configuration.

 

Update: Plugged in the ECU with the ign fuse removed and fired up the ECU for the first time. I did have to do some firmware updates on the unit itself as well as the wideband02. I then entered all of my injector data, trigger data, and various sensor calibration files. Everything seems to be working as expected. I did crank the car over with the ign fuse still removed and i got RPM signal as well as oil pressure. I will wait for my appointment with Shawn before I actually fire the car up. Excited to get the rx7 up and running. I also configured the data logging as the default parameters are missing some essential data points such as raw o2 and fuel/oil press.

 

Update:

I just finished my initial session with Shawn only minutes ago. I would strongly recommend his services. He has organized systems in place, and does not password protect or jerk you with hiding ecu settings. I love it. He was able to get the car running very smooth and the throttle response is already much better than I could achieve on my Adaptronic. I am really looking forward to driving the car after work and collecting some logs to have Shawn review.

 

Have you put boost and rpm into it yet?

 

Rx72c, thank you for your question. I have been driving it over this weekend and have been giving the motor light boost ~4 psi and have taken it up to 6500 rpm. The car starts and idles with no issues or hesitations and the EGTs are dead on, no concerns about compression but I will check it when I change plugs after another 1000 miles. I noticed that the EGTs are a little bit lower with the Shawn tune about 100F while cruising. Cruise is now around 1300 instead of 1400. During my first 6500rpm 4psi pull my catch can filled with the excess oil that I had overfilled the car with. After cleaning that up and doing a few more the catch can only had a small amount in it which I am assuming is the further overfill. I have a bad tendency to put too much oil on changes.

During that pull I saw my EGTs go over 1500 for the first time which was scary. No idle or start issues /weird EGT differences this evening and will be checking in the morning / sometime this week.

Everyone keep your fingers and toes crossed I don't want to do any more engine work.

Thank you

 

Update:

After reviewing my logs last night I'm finding these weird oscillations. See picture of attached log. The car did make a scary pinging noise when this was logged. I'm not sure if its engine pinging or something else but it happens right at the 0-1 psi region where you can see it oscillates hard. It does this at various rpms but always the same MAP. Its as if its blowing open the throttle plates and then they're bouncing back and forth on the spring or something. I don't understand though how its making my TPS oscillate.



I also may just be reading the time stamps wrong but the scary pinging noise is what im trying to track down

 

Update: I am just looking at it very zoomed out. There are no oscillation issues. These were my higher rpm tests back to back light boost.

Thanks

 

Update:

I have another appointment with Shawn tomorrow morning to do some road tuning. Not sure if he is going to want to go full beans but I am very anxious. Will update as soon as I can

 

Update:

Shawn had a personal emergency this morning and could not make it to our appointment. I do schedule them at 8am as I have to do it before my job starts. I will try to reschedule for Thursday or Friday.

I did get to take the car for a nice drive this morning. Everything is feeling as expected and the idle and egts are also as expected.

 

Hope I'm not beating a dead horse here:

But what are you seeing for idle EGT's now Michael?

I just did my first start of my rebuilt engine. Have BUR9's in for first start (will change to 7420-10s or 6601-10's before I start tuning/boosting), after about 20 mins of idle (heat soaked) I was seeing:

1350 idle rpm (likely this will come down with tuning)
83F (28C) MAT
13.8 AFR (may richen this up to 13.3 or so still for idle)
174F (79C) ECT
1278F (692C) Rotor 2 EGT
1168F (631C) Rotor 1 EGT (110F difference between R1 and R2)

I know this isn't great comparables as this was my first start, was burping coolant prior to these readings, and the car was sitting on stands in a stagnant garage on a tune that was set up with the stock LIM and for my previous engine with no fuelling offset between rotors. But just wanted to ball park and have an idea on where I think I should land once I get tuning back on the go. Seems like I was lining up similar to J9's numbers above.

 

Rotaryrx, I am seeing about 850f fully warmed up idle and with ambient temps around 70f. My idle RPM is about 850-900. AFR 13.8. You need to lower your idle. I see about a maximum of 40-50 degrees F difference in vacuum, in load the variance narrows. When I wore/warped apex seals previously I would see a ~150 degree difference between them. Not sure why your difference is so high, have you compression tested?

Thanks

 

ive gotten mine to come up a bit, its close to where the stock ECU was, close enough anyways.
800rpm, idle its like 550c give or take. i am running the air pump, AFR is where it runs the best, which was like low to mid 12's
at 1300, 13.8 is ok, you might be able to go leaner even. i'm not sure EGT matters much here, if you had a cat you'd want it around 650-700c, like stock

 

Thanks for the info! No that was during my first start, my EGT numbers likely aren't a good comparison right now, just figured I'd ask. RPM is high and IMO I can run it slightly richer at idle. The tune has not been touched up at all for this engine it was the previous tune I had on my likely failing at the time of tuning engine. I want to let it heat cycle on the stands again once more then I'm going to take a baseline comp test before I go for some light driving.

Agreed, idle egts are not super important. Mine is idling at nearly double RPM of you guys right now and leaner, so with some tuning I'll have more comparable numbers; basically I was looking to see where you guys were at idling now to see what I should expect/target in regards to EGTs.

 

Update:

I have been driving the car and giving it up to 10 psi. No full 7000 rpm blasts yet but I gave her 10 psi up to 4000 rpm this evening on the way to my destination and after a full cool down (4+ hours sitting) the car started and took me home no issues with no weird egt stuff. I did give it some more 10psi 4000rpm pulls and we will see if tomorrow all is as expected. I have my appointment with Shawn in the morning so hopefully that goes well.

 

Usually if apex seals are going to misbehave it won't happen at low rpm. It will happen over 6000+rpm

 

rx72c yes that is why I am holding it back for now!! I am a scaredy cat. Today it is a little more dry so maybe I can give it a full pull. I found that the pinging noise went away when I pulled some timing and added fuel. I am not sure if it was spark knocking but it sounded like it. Now the noise is gone. No change to egts. The noise was occurring right as i was getting into boost around 1-2 psi in the 3-4000 rpm range.

I was also reading some of your older posts rx72c and you seem to be familiar with the bendy seals. Hopefully I can report back some good news later this afternoon / evening

 

Update:

rx72c has inspired me to go full send and I went out for a wild ride just now. Full pulls to 7000 rpm 12 psi. Attached is the log from the runs. Everything seems to be as expected afterwards. My idle egts have not changed at all. Picture attached of post run idle egts.

Im really looking to get the car to a rotary tuner so that they can hear the car as its being ran up. Some of the rattles/noises I cant tell if they are the engine or not and it worries me.
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Don't focus on EGT's , they can be misleading.

I would put a new SET of spark plugs in , do one pull, shut it down and pull them out. Let them tell you if your fuel trims between rotors are correct. (When your doing a plug read, don't cruise around on the spark plugs, put them in, do the pull straight away, then pull them out)

Do a compression test and see if any of them are changing and which one is changing more.

In my experience with OEM intake manifolds it will always be the rear rotor that like's to drop and that is usually the one that will want more fuel.

 

Had a look at your map, why do you not have engine protection turned on for Fuel and Oil Pressure?
You should also have a Wideband lean trip setup as well

Your missing out on the best features of that ECU?

 

Also are you tuning with water injection ON or OFF?

I always do by my base tunes without Water injection to make sure I am seeing a REAL fuel mixture.

You are not doing any crazy here, there isn't any reason why an engine should be able to handle 14psi on 93 octane all day every day.
Your timing is crazy conservative as well.

I think you are tippy toeing around the engine when really it should not be that hard.

 

As an additiinal safeguard, one can always use unleaded race gas like 104 octane or a mix with pump gas when tuning without auxilliary injection on.