It's Taken 18 Months but......

[Starlet_Sam]

I finally went out today in the worlds most awesome MX5 (mine) after a project that has been too long in the making. It was the most satisfying day in the project as not only was I driving it, but I was also mapping it, something which I have never done before. The map that was on the ECU had been done 6 months ago by a "professional" company (they have a great reputation but I have no idea how). My car would jerk all over the place, not hold boost very well and everything was bit erratic, and it had cost me £325 for the pleasure. I hated driving it and took the opportunity to once again take the car off the road and do more work to it. Anyway, I was determined not to have it happen again so I spent £25 on tuning software and off I went. The car now drives like it did before any mods and I have only spent 2 hours on the fuel map, no jerking and behaves really nicely. I will spend another day or so on the fuel map, to perfect it then I will make a start on the ECU controlled boost control to up it from 0.7bar to a more manly 1bar (still standard N/A internals remember) and once that's stable I will start on the spark map. The spark map is seriously safe right now, I could gain around 15bhp easily by changing it now but I will wait until the fuel is spot on.

Moral of the story, put in the work and the satisfaction is immense! These tuners do nothing special and they will never put in the care that you will. They will give you a map that allows you to take your car up to high revs safely but they don't really care about cruise and pottering around town, even though they took it for a test drive they did nothing about the jerkiness. Oh, and I was trailering it as it was taxless and MOTless at the time so I didn't get to experience the crap map for some time afterwards.

Oh and I seriously recomment MegaSquirt, so easy to use and map, anyone can do it.

 

[animal gt]

your right!!! all a money scam with these maping companys!! a certain company left my own car jerky,cold starts fucked up etc!! an had the cheak to charge full whack..never again and glad am wel away from them
fair play to ya anyway its the only way.

 

[Tanz]

Fantastic work and some great advice - feedback,,great for stories like these to be shared...
And by the sounds of it you are well pleased and rightly so,,,bet you have some sense of accomplishment...
Make sure and update us when you have the fuel map completed...

well done...

 

[lingl9z]

Well done mate, good to hear up some pics.

 

[spuddy]

Well done lad, so much more satisfaction doing it yourself.

The ECU u choose plays a big part in how well the car can be setup.

@AnimalGT, I'm staying out of the petty arguments, but from you've gone else where is your cold start fixed? She certainly used to go like shit of a shovel!

 

[steveep82]

Sam, You are tarring all tuners with the same brush, my tuner (enginetuner) are really good, and road map as well as dyno map, and are reasonably priced to boot. But I do agree with you, a retailer is never going to put as much care and time into a product as you would if it your own, its a fact of life.

 

[Sheldon]

nice. well done, isnt the MS software to map free? or there is a better software around now that you pay for? any pics of the mx?

as for spark, how are you monitoring det?

 

[Starlet_Sam]

Sam, You are tarring all tuners with the same brush, my tuner (enginetuner) are really good, and road map as well as dyno map, and are reasonably priced to boot. But I do agree with you, a retailer is never going to put as much care and time into a product as you would if it your own, its a fact of life.

True, but I seem to only get the shit ones. Plus, it really isn't difficult.

nice. well done, isnt the MS software to map free? or there is a better software around now that you pay for? any pics of the mx?

as for spark, how are you monitoring det?

I am using a Knocklite for the det monitoring. Much better than a Knocklink as you set it up against engine noise at 3 different rev points so it knows the noise with no knock (doing it in neutral almost certainly ensures the engine is knock free) and you have to hook it up to a tacho signal so it can track the revs.

I use TunerStudio, not MegaTune. It's much better but the full version you have to pay to get, £25 is nothing though concidering what I did yesterday would have cost a hell of a lot more!

 

[Nick@TD.co.uk]

Glad to hear your happy with it now Sam!

Have to pop up with it again sometime

Cheers

Mike Jones
Tuning Developments Ltd

 

[Starlet_Sam]

I was going to pop round yesterday but started tuning a bit later than expected. Next time I'm out I'll drive up.

 

[Fro]

Kudos for giving it a bash yourself!

Did you have a pretty good idea of how mapping went before you started or did you research or what? It cant be that easy surely!? Id like to try it but wouldnt have a facking clue where to start!

 

[The_Notorious_C_A_T]

Great news buddy.

Did you build the megasquirt yourself?

 

[richglanzav]

when do i get to see this beast lol. glad its gone good 4 ya mate uve had to wait long enough for everything. happy boosting

 

[sx_turbo]

are you auto tuning the a/f's?

are you datalogging everything as you go?

 

[animal gt]

Well done lad, so much more satisfaction doing it yourself.

The ECU u choose plays a big part in how well the car can be setup.

@AnimalGT, I'm staying out of the petty arguments, but from you've gone else where is your cold start fixed? She certainly used to go like shit of a shovel!

no hassle lad! wel dont be getting involved init so.even doh you where probly told to go in here an ask...lol
yea its sorted and always was sorted untill these people got there hands on it,and it certainly does go like shit of the shovel mate! didnt it get me a 11.5..
sory for off topic.

 

[Starlet_Sam's_Mum]

Went for a nice drive with sam in this car yesterday, how the software works is amazing, seeing as it cost approximately £25. Maybe Sam should put a video up of it doing it's stuff, its quite funky.

It's a completely transformed car now, and it pulls so well, from anywhere in the revs.

Can't wait for it to be at 1 Bar. It will be immense!

 

[Starlet_Sam]

are you auto tuning the a/f's?

are you datalogging everything as you go?

No datalogging at the moment, I've had passengers monitoring it as we go and there's been no need. If I drive by myself I'd datalog.

Yes I am autotuning the fuel, just had to create a target table. I have also done a few things with the spark map, changed the warm up settings, changed the acceleration enrichments, cranking settings etc so that it runs a lot smoother.

 

[streetracer_starlet]

Kudos mate, i'd love to have a bash myself but wouldnt know where to start :homer:

 

[Johnny_C]

happy days sam,glad to hear your getting there with it.

 

[GP82]

Good lad! Trick is to jus' make very small changes in the fuel map and datalog, monitor and adjust as desired. I would remain very conservative with the spark map when you push to 30+ psia even so when there is no sign of pinking.