Aftermarket ECU for a NA 20V

[FLAWLES]

fuel only bro


v

dam it i new it was some thing like that

glad you read the manul man

[ROBODISCO_20v]

Head work, general tidy up, attempt to get some swirl in that disgusting 20 valve head!

Dude have you ever looked at a 20v head? And do you know what you're looking at if yes? I work in the trade and have friends who run a cylinder head shop in wairau rd, they said 20v heads from factory are very hard to improve on without spending a lot of time/$ on them. They've had cases of people bring in a 20v head, flowing it, the customer took it away and tryed porting it himself only to find that he had reduced flow when they put it back on the flow bench. They said you're better off too spend your $ on some big cams. Which I would have to agree with.
My 20v black top has a set of mild cams still with the factory ECU and it makes 136hp at the wheels. Thats about 160-165hp at the flywheel. To get another 40hp you would have to spen some serious money like get a toms 1800 stroker kit or make your own with a 7afe block & 20v head. I know of a few of these being made on the shore with 16v 4age heads.

My advice would be to fit a TRD head gasket to up compression, get some cams and adjustable gears(If you want to do both you'll have to ditch the VVT). Then get an ECU and get it tuned by some in the know. I've heard a lot poeple say how limited links can be, alot fit them then a few months down the track the just cant get it tuned right so the sell the link and buy something more powerful. I've seen APEXi power FC for $1600 with hand controller one of these would be superior to a link/plus. Depending on how bigger cams you get i think you should be able to get about 180hp without making it too undrivable on the street.

[suberimakuri]

i'm having fun tuning 12x12 megasquirt map now, compared with old 8x8.
to be honest, it's a lot harder as Revmist says, but once I stabilise the map signal it'll be a little better.

on a road car i'd probably not notice any difference..... but with a cammed motor more resolution is useful down low around idle.
But ther are other options like Blended MAP/TPS.

I don't like the way link zoning works, revs part is ok, but not enough load for turbo motor imho, especially cammed turbo motor. Going to be dead spots in it, or rich spots. links locally seem to foul plugs too.
i hate their handcontrollers too. Heard bad things about afr based on what gear car in.

many factors, some subjective.

[RedMist]

Link radically altered boost control for V5. They realized it was a failing. However I think the better code has been in the plus for some time.
In regards to fouling plugs, the Bunderson doesn't foul plugs, I've raced platinum race plugs and iridiums, however haven't run anything else. And I've never heard of a fellow compeditor having problems fouling. I did have a problem with cold start fuel at one stage, however simply fixed. Sounds more of an issue with running rich, however may be ignition cut on the RPM limiter (at those RPM though you would expect them to clean)??

[EVLGTZ]

heh i use to have issues with fouling of plugs in my 4agte with link LEM4 but now that its tuned right I dont get those problems at all. Plugs always look pretty darn clean and no sign of leaning out. Comes down to the tune...

[suberimakuri]

of course. as said, some subjective.
I haven't done more then play round with hand controller on way back from palmy. And read the v3 and v4 books.

[EVLGTZ]

yeah i myself dont touch the hand controllers. Elected not to have one to save me from mucking about with the tune and making unwanted changes. I use PC Link anyway if I feel the need to have a looksy.

[Tukumi]

If Somones fouling plugs on a link its not tunned properly its as simple as that, Ive done alot of testing for Link Electrosystems and have never had problems with fouling plugs? V5 Link is 8x20 and we just tuned a Sr20de s13 sylvia with quad throttle bodies its been tuned on tps mode only to prove that it works fine and had great results. Its been tunned with a wideband o2 meter and knock detection device, all the tuning was done on the road and it tuned up very quickly and easily. We also instlled idle speed control that works very well, good cold starting with a high idle while cold, and decreasing to a normal idle when hot.

One of the biggest problems that Link Electrosystems have is the amount of people out there trying to tune there computers that dont know enough about how they work to get a good result. Basically if you dont know how the interpolation works on a link you will never get the ideal tune, it will always be a trade off, and there is alot of dyno operators out there that dont know anything about it, and if there still tunning with a hand controller instead of a laptop with the new pclink software i would be woried if it was my car.

Any questions feel free to ask?

[suberimakuri]

mm. palmtop for MS is better then hand controller

v5 has auto tps spanning too huh?

Tukumi: ever done back to back runs in different gears with datalog?
I've heard that the link will run richer in a taller gear, (opposite of common sense for me).....

[Tukumi]

Yeah this does happen but not to a great extent, in my humble opinion i dont think it is that bad as you tend to be the the higher gears longer so less chance of a lean condition. Although this is something that has been bought foward and they are sorting it out for the new platform when it comes out in the future.

And yeah the auto spanning is quite a neat simple feature on v5. By the way the boost controll is awsome, 2 different modes 1 is simple mode a fixed duty cycle like a bleed valve, and the 2nd advanced mode you set a target eg 200kpa and a couple of other simple parameters and the boost will stay at the selected 200kpa untill the limiter instead of dropping off like simple bleed valve setups. I use it on my levin and its great very consistant, nothing like the old setup.

[NZ_AE86]

dont know anything about it, and if there still tunning with a hand controller instead of a laptop with the new pclink software i would be woried if it was my car.

Any questions feel free to ask?

What's so bad about the hand controller?? Even Andre (speedtech) still tunes cars with a hand controller (not always).

[Tukumi]

Theres a good chance that if he's using a hand controller its probaly an early model link eg v3 that doesnt support pc link.
Dont get me wrong you can tune them up fine with the hand controller it will just take longer as you all you know is what zone your in, not where in the zone you are. Its a little hard to explain without showing but ideally you need to be in the dead centre of a zone and read the air/fuel ratio for that point otherwise interpolation takes fuel from the surounding zones and smooths out the curve. In pclink there are cross hairs that tell you exactly where you are in the zone.

Thats a really rough way of describing it but i hope that helps.

[RedMist]

There are three PDA based tuning aids for the Link. Annalink, PLink for the palm and CE Link for CE based machines. I however used to run a simple terminal emulator to store my map and log data (which spools without a key trigger). There is another currently in the works which will have a basic display and out of bounds alerts in both a graphical and audio form. I'll let you know when I'm finished coding.

The reason you uise a full sized machine to tune with is that with a hand controller its easy to skip a zone. Your only looking and tuning one zone at a time, you can't display the entire fuel or ign map at one time using the hand controller. Using the laptop software and a graph its very easy to see that one zone is well out compared to the others. You'll probably find that Andre tunes using the hand controller and then plugs in a PC or laptop in order to see how the entire map "looks"

Link running rich in higher gears? Are you talking about high loads, low RPM situations? As the link has no idea as to what gear your running. Surely this is once again a tuning issue, something like cold start fuel being injected as the CLT sensor goes below threshold.

[suberimakuri]

i hear leaner in lower gears, richer in higher gears.
opposite to higher gear more load theory.

handcontrollers still crappy for exact reasons Tukumi says, stuff all on the screen at once, and point in the middle of the zone is difficult, having a boost gauge in kpa (bar) handy is useful.
If you're paying someone an hourly rate, it's going to be more expensive on hand controller.

As for missing zones, with laptop you get whole map at once, so can see if you missed somewhere...
else you have to go to zone edit and work through them one by one.

I think more likely to tune it with laptop, then take hand controller out and about on the road to do final adjust.
I did similar with my first megasquirt install, borrowed laptop (thanks Stu) for a couple days, then i just bowled round with palm for a few weeks maxing 1% changes in certain dead spots, and adjusting cold starting and enrichment.

[ROBODISCO_20v]

redmist, dude i think you need to get a life outside of this computer, you obiously have to much spare time on your hands to go into that much deatail. & whats wrong with rice? I was going from my experience from talking to people in the trade. Are you trying to tell me that you know more than a cylinder head specialist? This guy works on heads day in day out. But whatever, everybodys free to have their own say here.
As for my cams i didnt put them in, the previous owner did and they are very mild. i still managed to be the fastest n/a 4age at the last toyota vs. honda drag day. So why dont you put your money where you moths is at the next one in feb

[suberimakuri]

oooooh.. challenge..

don't worry, i'll rip all you 4age owners up with my 3s
haha.

[Mr Revhead]

haha yeah lets see the bunderson on the strip!

robo, he knows his stuff.

[10k 20v]

i think the trouble here is that everyones a little hungover at the mo with all the xmas & new years "celebrations"

i have found that if my tune is spot on the preset cold start parameters installed in the link a fine and starst on the 3rd or 4th crank beautifully climbing up to 1400 rpm

[vvega]

well really as soon as it gets ignition it stop been a piggy back for all intents and purposes

dose sond like it will be nice ecu though when its all done
has cool options that most cheaper ecu's dont

i have your manifold here apprently too
so when is the big turbo event happening :d

v

v

[4AGE 8U]

hey robodisco_20v, wat kinda cams are you running? cos im running a pair of mild cams on factory computer and im making 113kw @ wheels which is roughly about 175hp and that motor has done about 135000kms and it's not even running properly